Was the Luhmann murder an isolated incident or, as Valck contended, part of a patterned response to European abuse? The identity of the assailants was far from clear. Were they ethnic Gayo woodcutters or Javanese estate workers, were they estate workers set on revenge against their employer or guerilla supporters of the ongoing Aceh War to the north?

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 1030