Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/295

 by voluntary contributions (ripè) on the part of the inhabitants of the gampōng. The men generally assemble in the fields in the afternoon; a malém consecrates with a prayer the kanduri, which then proceeds without further preliminaries.

Besides rice cultivation, the "king of all breadwinning", pepper-planting is also honoured in Acheh by annual kanduris. The Achehnese account for the origin of pepper by a legend similar to that which is current among the Arabs in regard to coffee. Some goats' dung sown by a saint grew up into the first trees which bore the delicious product of Mokha; while the first pepper-plants grew from the seeds of kapok (panjòë) planted by an Achehnese saint. It is supposed to be for this reason that they are propagated by the planting of cuttings instead of sowing. In honour of this saint, called Teungku Lam Peuneuʾeun from the gampōng in the IX Mukims where his tomb is, the kanduri bungòng lada is annually celebrated on the East and West Coasts when the pepper blossoms. This however is not made the occasion of a public gathering, the feast being held separately in the house of each pepper-planter. Both for this reason and also because the pepper-plants do not all blossom at the same time, the period of these kanduris lasts as long as three months. The constituents of the feast are glutinous rice and its accessories. In a single house as much as a naléh of this rice is prepared.

To return to the musém luaïh blang. It is of course during this period that the growing of intermediary crops takes place. These consist chiefly of jagōng (maize), vegetables and sugarcane. This last, if grown on a large scale, is planted in gardens to make sugar and molasses (meulisan). During the four months while the "land is open" the cane has not time to reach its full growth. Thus canes planted in the rice-fields are cut, in whatever stage of growth they may be, just before the ploughing time, and consumed in their unmanufactured state.

Keunòngs 15, 13 and 11, but especially the last two, are the time for the ploughing (meuʾuë) of the rice-fields.

A rectangular rice-field surrounded on all sides by little banks (ateuëng) is called umòng; it consists of one or more (though rarely