Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/260

 have a passion for such busy scenes, so that not only the buyers and sellers, but a great part of the population of the three sagis, all in fact who could afford the journey, used to come to the capital to join in the fair.

As early as the middle of Shaʿbān, the keuchiʾs and teungkus make their estimates for the forthcoming purchase of meat. Each inhabitant of the gampōng is asked how many dollars he intends to spend on meat, and thus they compute how many head of cattle it may be necessary to purchase. Two or three head is the general allowance per gampōng. The people of the XXII, and some of those of the XXVI Mukims are in the habit of slaughtering many cows on such occasions. Elsewhere, as in the XXV Mukims and the territory not included in the three sagis, they slaughter male buffaloes by preference, since it is believed that the use of too much cow's flesh results in a certain sickness called siawan (Malay sěriawan), the symptoms of which are cutaneous eruptions, decay of the teeth and loss of hair.

One of the common folk of the gampōng is entrusted by the keuchiʾ with the collection of the money. He is known as the ureuëng tumunggèë; after the purchases have been concluded he receives two dollars as recompense for his trouble. Before the war, however, the payment of the vendors used to be put off until just before the close of the fasting month, when the highlanders came down with their buffaloes for the second time. A new slaughter then took place to provide meat for the feast which marks the end of the fast, but not on as large a scale as the first.

The beasts are slaughtered by the teungku of the meunasah. Most Mohammedans, even though they neglect or are backward in the performance of their own religious duties, are very particular as to who it is that slaughters the animal of whose flesh they are to partake. He must be one well versed in the rules prescribed by the law in respect of the slaying of animals for food; and he must also be strict in the performance of his daily prayers and other rites enjoined by the Mohammedan religion. Thus it is that throughout a great portion of Java the modin, kahum or lěbe (the "village priest," as Europeans call him) is the only butcher. As a reward for his trouble he receives the kěrědan or neck of every animal he kills.