Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/279

 We have already made acquaintance with this gampōng of Bitay (which belongs to the VI Mukims of the XXV), in telling the somewhat legendary story of the relations opened by a Sultan of Acheh in the 16$th$ century with the Sultan of Turkey, and of the artisans lent by the latter to his Achehnese vassal to instruct his people. The tomb of Tuan di Bitay, who taught the Achehnese among other things the art of casting cannon, and the mosque which stands beside the grave are revered as sacred up to the present day. It is difficult to conjecture why this tomb in particular is esteemed the proper place for offering sacrifices in the month of Haji. We only know that Bitay came to be regarded as the place for these sacrifices, and that the feasts celebrated there assumed an entirely worldly character and became an offence to all devout persons. Gambling, cockfighting and sadati-games were the chief pastimes indulged in by the people who crowded thither, and the fights inseparable from such pastimes were not wanting. Thus the word kurubeuën acquired and still retains in the Achehnese vernacular the meaning of a heathenish tumult!

Sacrificial cattle were also slaughtered here in large numbers. The custom in Bitay required that all beasts brought for sacrifice should be slaughtered by a descendant of the local saint, who acted as the keeper of the tomb. At the sacrifice of each animal a number of articles were presented to the slaughterer on a tray (dalōng), viz.—two raw eggs, husked and unhusked rice mixed together, the various things which are usually employed for the cooling (peusijuëʾ) of a newly built house, or one in which a wedding has just taken place, a flask of perfumed oil, a little seureuma (the well-known black powder for the edges of the eyelids), some baja (blacking for the teeth), a small mirror, a comb, a razor, a sunshade and a piece of white cotton cloth four ells (haïh) in length. All these things, including the toilet requisites, were applied by the slaughterer to their proper purposes. The "cooling" of all hot, destructive influences he performed in the usual way. After shaving a little hair off the animal with the razor, he held the mirror before its eyes for a moment and then covered it with the 4 ells of white cotton cloth as with a shroud. When all this had been done, the animal was killed; the remnants of the feast and the unused