Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/76

 to be found in all the different apartments. They have as covers brass drinking-cups which are inverted and replaced after use.

Cooking is performed in a very simple manner. Five stones arranged almost exactly in this form  constitute two teunungèës or primitive chafing-dishes in which wood fires are lit, one for the rice and the other for the vegetables (gulè). The use of iron chafing-dishes (kran) on three legs is a mark of a certain degree of luxury.

The holy of holies in the house is the one part of it that may be really called a room, the jurèë, to which access is had by a door leading out on to the back verandah. Here the married couple sleep, here takes place the first meeting of bride and bridegroom at the mampleuë (inf. chapter III, § 1) and here the dead are washed. These rooms are seldom entered by any save the parents, children and servants.

The floor is as a rule entirely covered with matting. The roofing is hidden by a white cloth (tirè dilangèt) and the walls are in like manner covered with tirè or hangings. Round the topmost edge of the tirè runs a border formed of diamond-shaped pieces of cloth of various colours; these when stitched together form the pattern called in Acheh chradi or mirahpati. Such disguising of roof and walls is resorted to in the other parts of the house only on festive occasions. On a low bench or platform (prataïh) is placed a mattress (tilam éh) with a mat over it, and this couch is usually surrounded with a mosquitonet (kleumbu).

Besides this there is spread on the floor a sitting-mattress (tilam duèʾ) of considerable size, but intended only for the man's use, and thus provided with a sitting mat. On both mattresses are piles of cushions (bantay susōn) shaped like bolsters and adorned at either end with pretty and often costly trimming. A sitting mattress has about four, a sleeping mattress as many as fifteen cushions of this description.

The clothing and personal ornaments are kept in a chest which stands in the jurèë. Well-to-do people generally have for this purpose chests the front of which is formed of two little doors opening outwards. These are called peutòë dòng or standing chests to distinguish them from the chests with covers. When the Achehnese learned to use European cupboards, they gave them the same name.