Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/308

 to that used as seed in the area on which it was collected (lam sinaléh bijèh sinaleh padé).

Besides the pepper-planting, which is carried on more in the dependencies than in Acheh proper, there is also considerable sugar-cane cultivation. The form of refreshment most generally sought by those who frequent the market in Acheh is the juice which they suck from the sugar-cane, or drink after it has been extracted therefrom by means of a very primitive sort of press. The expression for "a douceur" in Acheh is "money to buy cane-juice" (ngòn blòë ië teubèë). The giver of a feast to which many onlookers come in addition to the guests, occasionally distributes pieces of sugarcane among them, and the traveller uses it to refresh himself when on a journey. Sugar (saka) or the molasses (meulisan) made from inferior cane is an indispensable ingredient in all kinds of dainties and sweetmeats.

The cane (teubèë) is, as we have seen, planted on the umòngs as a second crop, only to be cut when half-grown and used without further preparation. The true cane cultivation takes place in separate gardens enclosed with fences.

From keunòng 23 (January) begins the preparation of the ground with the plough; the planting season commences at keunòng 19, but occasionally in other months also, just after the rice-harvest. But no planting is done in keunòngs 17–7, since the cane if planted then turns out sròh, i.e. yields blossom but no juice.

For planting purposes, the canes are divided into sections with two "limbs" (atōt) having thus three "articulations." They attain their full growth in about a year. They are then cut down, and sugar is manufactured from them in the very primitive Achehnese sugar mills, which are similar to those found in Bantěn, the highlands of Padang and other places.

The owners of sugarcane plantations do not all possess sugar-mills (wéng), but borrow them, or rather the parts of which they are composed, from one another. When not in use they are kept under the house with all the other lumber.

The borrower or owner takes these separate portions to his cane-plantation, and there puts the mill together in a hut (jambō) constructed expressly for the purpose.