Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/254

 and Trumòn by a great kanduri on the 10$th$ day of this month, but the givers of this feast are always the Klings who reside there, and the Achehnese who partake of it do so only as guests. Tuan Meurasab has thus really no place in the Achehnese calendar of festivals.

7. Kanduri Apam (Rajab) holds its place in the official calendar of feasts, chiefly because Mohammad's celebrated "journey to heaven" is supposed to have taken place on the night of (or rather the night before) the 27$th$ of this month. For the commemoration of this night the people assemble either in the mosque or in their own houses, and a history of the miʿrāj as it is called (Ach. mèʾreuët) is recited. This recitation consists in a description of the ascension in rhyming prose and verse, similar to those of the birth and life of the Prophet.

This pious custom is observed in Acheh, but not to any greater extent than in other parts of the Indian Archipelago. In a word, its observance is confined to those who profess special devotion to religion, such as the leubès, maléms etc. It is not a national festival in any sense of the words.

On the 18$th$ of this month one of the three principal annual kanduris is held in the déah (prayer-house) at the tomb of the great saint Teungku Anjōng. This is done in honour of his consort, whose tomb stands close to his. She is commonly known as Aja Eseutiri i.e. "my lady the consort." She appears to have died on the 18$th$ of Rajab 1235 (May 1820). She was a daughter of a Sayyid of the famous clan of ʿAzdid and her real name was Faṭimah bint Abdarrḥamān ʿAidid.

The kanduri Aja Eseutiri resembles exactly the two others that are celebrated at that sacred tomb on the 12$th$ of Mòʾlōt and the 14$th$ of Puasa.

The custom from which this month derives its Achehnese name is pretty generally observed, though less markedly so in recent times. On some one day of the month of Rajab the well-known round flat cakes known as apam, made of ordinary rice-flour and cocoanut milk, are baked in every house. A number of these are brought as kanduri to the mosque or meunasah, just in the same way as the kanji Ashura.

As many as a hundred of these little cakes are piled upon a dish, and to this is added a basin of sauce which is called seurawa and consists of cocoanut milk, sugar and beaten-up eggs. It is not surprising that the faithful frequenters of the mosque suffer from apam