Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/147

 The injured party may for instance slay the violater of the honour of his house on the spot, or elsewhere afterwards, if he can prove by a tanda (such as a garment of the offender who at first escaped him) that the deed has actually been perpetrated. If however he does not also slay the guilty woman (she being his wife or his blood-relation) he exposes himself to blood-vengeance, unless the other party chooses to refer the matter to the ulèëbalang and the latter lets the adat-penalty of cheukiëʾ be executed on the woman. This is done by taking the guilty woman to the bank of a river where she is laid on her back and held down under water; a bamboo is at the same time placed athwart across her throat, and on either end of this a rakan, or follower of the ulèëbalang, stands so as to throttle her.

As a rule however her family forestalls this public scandal; she is secretly put out of the way by one of her own relations, though not before her lover has preceded her to the next world.

It is to be noted that it very rarely occurs, and then only by mistake that the injured party slays the woman (his own wife or blood-relation) while letting the man escape and yet retaining some article belonging to the latter as evidence. To fulfil the demands of morality in such cases there was in ancient times a custom, described by Van Langen in his Achehnese Dictionary, p. 35, but known to the present generation by tradition only, so long has it been discontinued. This custom was as follows: the escaped offender was dressed in the peculiar garments assigned by tradition to those guilty of manslaughter, and placed in the midst of a square, one side of which was formed by his own blood-relations, and the other three by those of the slain woman and her husband. He had then to cleave a piece of wood, after which the injured side had the right to chase and kill him, unless he succeeded in escaping to the line occupied by his kinsfolk. In that case he was exposed to no further persecution. But as we have said, such a state of things rarely occurs and this method of dealing with the offender has now fallen entirely into disuse.

This dress consisted of the beungkōng mentioned by Van Langen (a cloth wrapped round the body in a peculiar way), an iron pajèë or jacket, and a set of weapons (sikin and reunchōng) the handles of which were furnished with no horizontal hilts for the hand to grasp. These were called alat sigeupòh = the weapons of one condemned to death. The general meaning of sigeupòh is one who is doomed either as bila gòb, or as an outlawed thief or by the sentence of a judge. For a considerable time weapons of this pattern became fashionable and were those most commonly used in Acheh.