Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/77

 Along the small posts (rang) inside the house there is usually fastened a plank set on edge on the floor. This serves as a specious screen for all manner of untidiness, concealing all such rubbish as the inmates may choose to throw between it and the wall.

The women as well as the men are dirty and slovenly, and but few of the objects forming the household equipment have a settled place. All manner of things are piled on the upper beams or on the small platforms (para) which rest thereon, access to which is gained by climbing up steps made of pieces of plank fastened to the walls or posts. Various objects are to be seen hanging against the wall, or when its structure admits, stuck into its crevices (lhat).

Lamps and drinking-cups are of course not lacking in the jurèë, still less the requisites for chewing betel. The betel-leaves in neat little piles with pieces of betelnut on the top are contained in a little brass cup of almost the same form as the drinking-cups and like them called baté with the word ranub added to show their purpose. The cup is covered inside with a cloth lining, which, like the tirè-borders, exhibits the variegated pattern known as mirahpati or chradi. On top of the betel are placed two small boxes, the krandam and cheuleupa containing respectively lime and tobacco mixed with spices. The outfit is in fact the same as the pedestrian carries with him in his bungkōih, or if he be a person of distinction, has carried for him by his attendants.

The whole house belongs in Acheh to the category of movable property. Every peg is made much too small for its hole and is kept in its place by means of large wedges. For anyone who understands the uniform structure of the Achehnese house—and every native of the country is an adept in this—the task of taking a house to pieces and setting it up again elsewhere is but the work of a moment.

So when an Achehnese sells his house, this means that the purchaser removes it to his own place of abode; a change of residence by the proprietor or rather the proprietress to another gampōng is quite a rare occurrence among the Achehnese.

Houses are transported in large numbers from the highlands to the lowlands, but seldom vice versâ, since the Tunòng possesses a greater abundance of building materials.

It is to be understood that even the most solidly built Achehnese house shakes if anyone pulls at the posts. Thieves and burglars begin by shaking the house to discover whether the inmates are sound