History of Aceh Sultanate and Elephants

Before the Sultanate of Aceh was established, the kingdoms of the north of Sumatra had made elephants an integral part of the kingdom.

According to M. Junus Djamil, a king in Pidie chose an elephant as his counterpart. "In the 500 AD there was a kingdom called Poli, that is Pidie now, his people are Buddhist, his king riding elephants," wrote Djamil in Gadjah Putih Iskandar Muda.

Sultan Peureulak in 1146 also loved to ride golden elephants, as quoted by Djamil from the Book Rihlah Abu Ishak al-Makarany. While Marcopolo called the Pasai Ocean as a kingdom with many elephants, and most of them belonged to the king.

In Ibn Batutah Rihlah, Ibn Battutah provided a more complete description of the Samudra Pasai elephant in 1345. In addition to being owned by the King, the elephants also became part of the kingdom's fleet. Its 300 elephants. Even for war, the elephants are still decorated.

According to him, the power and splendor of the fleet of the Elephant Samudra Pasai can only be rivaled by the Kingdom of Delhi (India).

When the Sultanate of Aceh stood in the first half of the 16th century, elephants remained the mainstay of animals, apart from horses. The sultans of Aceh were famous as riders of advanced elephants.

Elephant riding skills are considered one of the symbols of the sultan's grandeur. The elephants were well cared for.

The wild elephants in the hinterland are not for the ivory, but for tame. After being tame, the best and greatest elephants will be made sultan elephants.

The rest for the Aceh war fleet. The war elephants were decorated as beautifully as possible with gold and gems. A view that can be found in India.

The pride of the Aceh Sultanate against the elephant continued into the 17th century. Iskandar Muda, a sultan candidate, familiar with elephants since childhood. Indra Jaya, an elephant child, became a young Iskandar Muda playmate. His grandfather, Sultan Alau'ddin Riayat Shah, gave the elephant when Iskandar was 5 years old. Iskandar was happy to receive it.

He spent most of his playing time with the elephant boy. At the age of 7, he started hunting wild elephants that are in the forest. When growing up, Iskandar Muda has been adept at riding elephants. Quoting Hikayat Aceh, Anthony Reid in "Elephants and Water in The Feasting of Seventeenth Century Aceh," published in An Indonesian Frontier, called the young sultan to practice riding elephants every Monday and Thursday. The young sultan continued the tradition of the Aceh Sultan's skill in riding an elephant.

The foreign guests of the Aceh Sultanate were mesmerized by the elephants there. Instead, Aceh boasts its elephants on foreign guests. To welcome foreign guests, the elephant is prepared as well as possible, good temperament, health and jewelry. John Davies, the British navigator, reveals his experience of visiting the sultan's palace in 1599. "I drove to his palace with an elephant," Davies wrote in "The First Visit of Bad Dutch Ends, 1599," published in Sumatra Tempo Doeloe.

He also said the elephant could be used as an execution tool for capital punishment. Elephants can tear people's bodies into pieces. Note Francois Martin, a French merchant, in 1602 corroborated Davies' story. The death penalty by elephants is imposed on adulterers and murderers.

Although the elephant had become a tool of execution, the main function of the elephant as a symbol of the greatness of the sultanate of Aceh undeniable. Augustin de Beaulieu, a French merchant, witnessed how Aceh was the big theater stage of the elephants in 1621.

In his note, "The Cruelty of Iskandar Muda", published in Sumatra Tempo Doeloe, he mentions Aceh has 900 elephants. Due to the abundance of elephant fleets, Aceh does not require a city fortress. "The elephant elephants are the real city fortresses," wrote Denys Lombard in the Aceh Kingdom.

The elephants were trained in battle so as not to be afraid when the sound of a deafening rifle rang beside his large ear.

The Sultan gave the elephants a name while the people paid tribute to the elephants that the sultan used. During the parade, the elephants were accompanied by loud sounds from musical instruments such as trumpets, tambourines, and cymbals.

Another note about the Aceh elephant comes from Peter Mundy, an English traveler. Despite only visiting Aceh for 10 days, he saw a large ceremony that included many elephants in 1637. He described very clearly the ceremony held during the Eid al-Adha celebrations.
The ceremony was attended by audiences including foreigners. Sultan invited all the people present, from common to noble.

In the ceremony, 30 decorated elephants are divided into several lines. There are four elephants per line. Some of the elephants are covered in silk fabric that only looks at their feet, ears, eyes, and trunks. The king's elephant looks striking.

With a plush fabric that covered almost the entire body and a one-meter-high tower on his back, the elephant was at the back. According to Takeshi Ito in The World of The Adat of Aceh, a thesis on the Australian National University, "in peacetime, elephants became an integral part of the procession as set forth in the Book of Adat Aceh."

Ito added that Aceh not only collects elephants but also export or barter them with a number of horses or other animals to some areas such as Sri Lanka.

In the time of Sultanah Safiatuddin (1641-1675), elephant ownership was not limited to the

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sultan. Orangkaya may own it. As the Sultanate of Aceh diminishes, elephants no longer occupy an important position in religious ceremonies or fleets of war. Entering the 20th century, his fate became increasingly ill-fated; Just become hunting and merchandise. Even become enemy citizens.