Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/435

 bark grated fine. This treatment is repeated daily till the patient is convalescent.

Meantime, as in Java, a strict dietary is observed. No vegetables must be eaten, and no fish except the eungkōt chuët and the stockfish (keumamaïh) from the Maldives, with dry rice, eumpiëng and the like. Fruits and pungent herbs are forbidden, and as it is thought dangerous for the patient’s feet to come into contact with human ordure or the dung of fowls or horses, they are wrapped in cloths as a precaution. The cure is generally complete in from 7 to 10 days.

The operator (mudém, probably from the Arabic muʾaḍḍin, which is in Java also entirely wrested from its proper meaning) obtains as a recompense for his trouble a quantity of husked and unhusked rice (breuëh-padé), a piece of white cotton cloth, a dish of yellow glutinous rice and one dollar.

Boys are generally circumcised at from 9 to 10 years of age. A well-to-do father often has one or two poor lads circumcised along with his son, but the same peculiar significance is not attached to this as to what is known as béla in Java.

The filing of the teeth (kòh gigòë) does not take place with women till after their marriage, as it is thought proper to leave the decision of this matter to the husband; in the case of boys it is done in their 12$th$ or 13$th$ year. Many omit this form of mutilation altogether, either because their teeth are not naturally too large or ugly, or from religious motives.

So far from giving this custom a devotional origin, as some Javanese do by alleging that it is in conformity with the example of the Prophet, whose teeth are said to have been shaped as though filed from the time of is birth, or according to others, after having been injured in the battle of Uḥud, the Achehnese regard it simply as a personal embellishment; and some of their ulamas are opposed to it as being self-mutilation. The filer of teeth (an operation usually performed by women) uses for her work a whetstone (batèë chanè). The better to keep the patient's mouth open, a piece of betel-nut is thrust between the molars on one side. The teeth to be operated on, i. e. the four front teeth (gigòë dikeuë) and the two "dog's teeth" (gigòë asèë) of the upper jaw, are rubbed with white onions before the operation, "to make them soft."