Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/67

 they differ but little in actual ingredients. The constituents of these are almost always grated cocoanut or cocoanut milk, glutinous rice or flour made therefrom, sugar and certain herbs, eggs and oil. They are eaten at odd times and are only set before guests when (as for example at recitations of the Qurān) they are assembled for hours together, so that a single great meal is insufficient to while away the time. On such occasions tea and coffee are also served, though the use of these beverages is generally restricted to invalids.

Small kanduris or religious feasts are of very common occurrence. At these yellow glutinous rice forms the pièce de resistance, though a goat is sometimes slaughtered for the guests. Otherwise buffaloes, oxen, goats and sheep are seldom killed except at the great annual festivals or in fulfilment of a vow.

The use of the betel-leaf (ranub) with its accessories (pineung, gapu, gambé, bakōng and sundry odoriferous herbs) is absolutely universal. Many both in the highland and lowland districts make an intemperate use of opium, but to nothing like the same extent as in the colonies of pepper-planters on the East and West Coasts, where all the vices of the Achehnese reach their culminating point. The prepared opium or chandu is smoked (piëb) from the ordinary opium-pipes (gò chandu) with the aid of little lamps called panyòt. In the days of Habib Abdurrahman and similar religious zealots, the smoking went on only indoors and by stealth. The opium-sheds (jambō chandu) which certain persons in the more distant plantations had built in order to enjoy this luxury in company, were burnt down by that sayyid.

On the West Coast especially, the practice of smoking opium in company still prevailed, and was marked by some characteristic customs. The votaries of the habit sit together in a prescribed position, and the pipe passes round. Each must in his turn take two pulls so strong as to extinguish the lamp; he then hands the pipe to his right-hand neighbour with a seumbah or respectful salute. The opium used in such