Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/269

 antly repeated formulas become shorter (e. g. hu Allah! hu daʾém! hu!) and the voices rise to a shrill scream. The yelling fanatics, sweating with the violence of their transport, rise up, sit down again, leap and dance and often fall down at last in sheer exhaustion—from the ecstasy arising from their contemplation of the divine, as they choose to deem it. This condition is called dòʾ by the Achehnese, and to this most clamorous form of the ratéb Saman they give the name of ratéb mènsa or kuluhét.

Any of those present who betrays a manifest reluctance to share in the general excitement is sure to be forced to join the crowd in a manner not too pleasant for himself. Indeed serious disturbances sometimes arise from the annoyance felt at such indifference. For this reason the authorities both of the gampōng which is performing the peutamat darōih and the others whose inhabitants have come there as guests make a point of attending on such occasions.

In all matters of this sort the people of an Achehnese gampōng are very exacting. Anyone who does not sympathise in their favourite amusements is thought conceited, and his presumption is mercilessly punished. Woe to the man, especially the young man, who does not appear pretty regularly in the meunasah to attend the trawèh farce. After having practised patience for a couple of evenings, a deputation of gampōng people sets out on its punitive mission. The very least that they do is to force him from his dwelling by keeping up a diabolical din with the tambu or great drum of the meunasah beneath his house, until he "comes down" for very shame.

Frequently, however, such arrogance is humiliated in the same manner as that of a young bridegroom, who on his arrival in his wife's gampōng after the completion of the marriage ceremony, fails to perform with satisfactory zeal the sundry politenesses prescribed by the adat towards his new fellow-villagers. This punishment consists in smearing with human ordure the steps of his house, which he will in due course descend next morning at dawn, barefoot after the manner of all Achehnese.

Failure to participate is only tolerated in the case of leubès and ulamas and their relations from respect, and of chiefs and the members of their families from fear.