Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/272

 which form another regular fair. They bear the same names as the last three days of the previous month, viz. uròë peutrōn, uròë pupòʾ and uròë seumeusië; they are also known as the uròë maʾmeugang uròë raya, since the word maʾmeugang suggests the days which precede a feast. The slaughter of cattle at the end of the fast is almost as great as that before its commencement, while the trade in articles of dress and the like is much brisker. On the feast day which follows the fast all attire themselves in new garments, and the regard of a man for his wife and children is measured by the presents which he brings home to them from the fair. This is called "bringing home meat," although the gift usually consists of entirely different things. Meat, a luxury seldom used, was in ancient times an indispensable adjunct of festal rejoicings in the home.

The poorer women and children, whose husbands and fathers are sojourning on the East or West Coast as pepper-planters, feel the full bitterness of their position on a feast-day. Their friends are careful to refrain from asking them the question addressed to other women at this feast-fair, "How much meat has your husband brought home?" i. e. "How much money has he presented you with?" To add to the grief and shame of the unlucky ones, they are greeted with compassionate looks, and the neighbours often give the children a piece of meat from the slaughter in which they cannot participate.

The feast-day which concludes the fast is fixed by calculation like its commencement, and is thus known long beforehand. A number of guns from the Dalam at sunset on the last day, used in the Sultans' time to convey the superfluous announcement that the first day of the feasting month had begun.

10. Uròë raya (Shawwāl). During the night before the commencement of the feast, the children once more let off numerous "little Chinese guns" (crackers). The women are busily employed with the preparation of food, especially jeumphan a kind of small cakes, which the adat