Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/433

 but takes no active part in the proceedings and simply listens to a number of leubès chanting certain chapters (Surah 93–114) from the sacred book. When they reach the 112$th$ Surah, all present join in and close the ceremony with one of the prayers specially used for concluding every recitation from the Qurān (meuhatam).

If it be a girl, she sits inside the house with an open Qurān before her, for it is always considered unbefitting for men and women to sit together during such religious ceremonies.

When the reading is finished, the paraphernalia of "cooling" are brought into the house, always by a woman.

Owing to the early marriages of Achehnese maidens, it often happens that a girl becomes a bride long before this elementary instruction is at an end. When such a young wife is with child, the ceremony of peutamat is performed in all haste, for fear of her dying before she has completely chanted the word of Allah. Either simultaneously with, or immediately after their instruction in the Qurān, the children learn how to fulfil the principal duties prescribed for every grown-up person by the creed of Islam, and especially the ritual washings and prayers (seumayang). This knowledge they gain either by actual practice or from the pages of a Malay hand-book.

In the case of boys the peutamat is usually followed by the circumcision (kòh bòh or peusunat), either immediately or after the lapse of a couple of days. In contradistinction to the practice in the great majority of Mohammedan countries, this ceremony is often unattended by festivities of any kind, so that even near relations and neighbours are sometimes ignorant that the operation has been performed.

Under the Mohammedan law circumcision is a duty but not a chief obligation or "pillar" of religion. Popular feeling, however, attaches great importance to this rite, regarding it more or less as the outward form of adoption into the Mohammedan community. In Acheh, however, this special significance is given to circumcision only in case of unbelievers who embrace Islam and not for the children of Mohammedan parents.

It is the vows (kaʾōy) which in many cases lend distinction to the ceremony of circumcision. In accordance with such vows, Rapaʾi performances are sometimes given on one or more nights, but oftener still the parents bind themselves to visit a holy tomb (in some cases accompanied with geundrang music) one or two days before the performance