Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/424

 i.e. flour and water which is sprinkled on the places to be "cooled" with an improvised besom formed of twigs or whole plants of sisijuëʾ and manèʾ-manòë and stalks of naleuëng sambō. With this, after solemnly invoking Allah's name, she besprinkles all the 16 or 24 posts which support the Achehnese house, beginning with those called raja and putròë, to which superstition assigns a special importance.

At her departure the midwife receives, in addition to the sum estimated by her as the equivalent of the various drugs etc. which she has prepared for the mother and infant, a douceur in money for her trouble (peunayah) and a complete outfit of garments (seunalén). In Java it is customary for the woman or her husband to ask forgiveness of the midwife for all the trouble they have put her to, but in Acheh this lakèë meuʾah, as it is called, is made by the woman's mother.

Throughout the whole of the Indian Archipelago it is regarded as a momentous epoch in the life of the child when he first comes into contact with his mother earth. All who have not entirely abjured the old ideas, are careful not to let the child lie or sit upon the ground until such contact has been duly prepared for by a number of ceremonies, of which a religious feast forms an important part; for the earth, which contains so many blessings, holds within it also much that is evil.

Acheh is no exception to this rule. The ceremony which in Java is called nurunkeun (Sund.) or mudun lémah (Jav.), is in Acheh known as peutrōn i. e. "causing to descend," referring to the child's being brought out of the house. This may take place a couple of months after its birth, but preference is given to a month of uneven number, as for example the 3$d$, 5$th$ or 7$th$ month of the child's age. Up to this time the child must on no account be brought outside the house.

In Acheh, however, not nearly so much is made of this or other important epochs in life, as in ceremony-loving Java. In the former country such events are chiefly marked by the giving of a big kanduri in the house, a goat or buffalo being slaughtered and the occasion