Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/296

 more than two) yōʾ. A yōʾ, which is also used to signify the yoke of a ploughing buffalo, is the surface measure generally used for rice-fields, but its precise area is not accurately defined. It is assumed that a yōʾ is really a piece of land requiring a naléh of seed, but if an umòng is smaller, so much as even to take only half a naléh, it is still called umòng sityōʾ =one yōʾ of rice-land. Measurements of 18 different yōʾs taken in the territory of the XXVI Mukims gave results varying from about 1800 to about 3500 square metres.

The padi-lands in Acheh proper, where not in swampy ground, are almost all what is called in Java sawah tadahan, i. e. they are fed by rainwater which they catch and hold by means of the little banks which surround them. Rivers and streams are very rarely used for ricecultivation in Acheh, though they generally are in Pidië.

Ploughing is accompanied by no religious ceremony. All that is done is to select a favourable day for commencing the work; the 6$th$, 12$th$, 16$th$, 17$th$, 22$nd$ and 26$th$ of the month are considered the best. The 6$th$ is especially lucky, unless it happens to fall on a Friday, which day it is pantang, or strictly forbidden by the adat, to devote to agricultural labour. On the West Coast Wednesday is pantang for pepper-planting as well as rice-cultivation.

The ploughing of an umòng usually takes about 10 days, since after the first turning up of the ground it is allowed to rest for some days to kill the weeds that have been uprooted. The Achehnese plough (langay) (see pag. 262) has an extremely long handle (gò) and a very short plough-share (mata). The buffalo is harnessed to it by means of a yoke (yōʾ) which is connected with the plough on the left side by a pole of arèn-wood (éh), and on the right by a rope (talòë linggang or dham). The cries of objurgation and encouragement which the ploughman addresses to his buffalo are exceedingly loud and frequent, so that any one standing some little distance off might imagine them to proceed from a crowd.

The method of sowing the padi is not the same in all places. Throughout a large part of the country the method known as tabu or tabu duëʾ is followed. This practically amounts to sowing out the seed (bijèh) at once on the field, instead of in a nursery in the first instance,