Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/161

 the course of our description of the system of government in Acheh. The edicts quoted above (see p. 5), dealing with the ceremonial observed at court on all solemn occasions, have given an exaggerated impression of the importance of the port-kings, which has been still further corroborated by the reports of European travellers who saw them at the zenith of their prosperity. In these edicts are set forth the names, relative rank and high-sounding titles of a considerable number of court dignitaries. In some cases they also mention the duties which these officials had to perform, though it is impossible in many instances even to guess at the true significance of the offices they held. There is no doubt that many of them served simply to enhance the glitter of the court. These gradually disappeared, leaving no trace behind, when the kingdom and the power of the sultans dwindled away, and the latter were forced to share with others even that little that was left them. Some again underwent the change we have so often referred to; their titles became hereditary, and they found means on the one hand to have allotted to themselves a portion of the revenues of the port-town, and on the other to seize some favourable opportunity of changing from ulèëbalang pòteu into ulèëbalangs with a territory of their own.

To the examples of Teuku Kali Malikon Adé and Teuku Keureukōn quoted above in illustration of this revival of offices, we may now add one or two others.

Teuku Nanta Seutia was originally an "ulèëbalang of our supreme lord," with which hereditary rank he was invested for exceptional services to one of the princes. Such a rank carried with it no more than dignity and claim to respect, but it made its holders unwished-for guests in the ulèëbalangship where they established themselves. Here they were of course free from all control (bibeuëh) and in a position to make inroads on the rights of others. Nanta Seutia succeeded in detaching the VI Mukims from the control of Teuku Nèʾ, chief of the great mukim of Meuraʾsa, and the protests of the latter reiterated down to the present day have been of no avail against this secession. [In 1896 the Nanta family having taken a prominent part in the treachery of Teuku Uma against the Dutch, the Nèʾ family was