Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/414

 that her spirit became the forerunner of the burōngs. The first notion, though open to the objection that it makes the feminine burōng spring from a man, finds support in the tangkay burōng (charms against the burōng) where the latter is often thus addressed "I know who thou art; thou art Hatib Peureuba" and "thou hast not taken thy bath of purification."

In addition to this story of the origin of all the burōngs, each of the more celebrated of these spirits has a history of its own, though there is a general resemblance between the various legends.

In Lam Bada (XXVI Mukims) may be seen the grave of a famous burōng woman, named Tuan Siti or Pòchut Siti. She was of good lineage, but having allowed herself to be seduced and having become pregnant was in the end treacherously drowned by her lover while on a pleasure trip to which he had invited her.

Most dreaded of all, however, at the present time is the burōng Srabi or Seurabi, whose tomb is situated in gampōng Tanjōng (mukim of Pagarayé) close to the capital of Acheh. She is also known as burōng Tanjōng.

The proper name of the woman who after death was changed into this monster, appears to have been Rabiah (abbreviated in Srabi = Si Rabi). She is said to have been the daughter of a religious teacher, but in spite of the pious lessons and strict discipline of her father she was seduced into an intrigue. When she had been some time pregnant her lover induced her to fly with him to the West Coast. They dropped down the river in a boat, but before they reached the open sea, the man slew his paramour and casting her body into the water, pursued his journey to the West alone. Her body was found near the gampōng Kajèë Jatòë (just about where the hospital at Kuta Raja now stands), and was pulled out of the water by the people of that gampōng. When they found it was the body of a woman belonging to Tanjōng, they brought her thither and she was buried there. Meantime the unhappy woman had been transformed into a burōng, which rested not until she had overtaken and slain her murderer. After having thus appeased her passion for revenge, she seized a man in the gampōng of Kayèë Jatòë, but on his reminding her that his people had rescued the body of Rabiah or Srabi from the waves and made her burial possible, she let him go, and at the same time swore never to molest a woman of that gampōng. All the more violent however were her