Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/86

 spathe under his head-cloth, and a blunderbuss attached to a leathern belt passing over his shoulder. The reason given for adhering to this adat is that the titular "judge" appeared also in the character of the representative of his tribe the Ja Sandang. As, however, customs change with lapse of time, the later Sultans had permitted the holders of this office to exchange the bamboo vessel for a blunderbuss and to hide the cocoanut spathe to some extent beneath their head-cloth.

We let this legend pass for what it is worth, merely adding that the members of this tribe are not allowed to eat the flesh of white buffaloes or the salt water fish alu-alu, both of which are tabooed (pantang) for them. There is of course no lack of stories to account for this prohibition. Similar rules affecting particular families or tribes are very common in Java; among the Sundanese they are known as buyut or in some cases chadu.

Such pantang-rules, even though strictly observed by Mohammedans, date of course from pre-Mohammedan times, and in so far they perhaps argue a much greater antiquity for the sukèë of Ja Sandang than the Achehnese themselves are aware of.

3°. Ja or Tōʾ Batèë = Forefather or Grandfather Stone. It may be conjectured that the tribe so named regarded its individuality as embodied in the common worship of a sacred stone.

4°. Imeum peuët or the four imāms, evidently a very modern appellation as compared with 2° and 3° above. It seems to indicate that this tribe or confederacy existed or was formed under the leadership of four chiefs called imāms. As we know, the office of imām (Ach. imeum) stands entirely apart from the organization of the kawōms. We have in Acheh imeums who take the lead in devotional exercises without deriving from this function any particular rank in the community. Again we find imeums in the position of headmen of districts (mukims), whose office was according to the intent of its founder without doubt closely connected with religion, but has degenerated into one of purely worldly authority. Neither of the two seems to suggest the constitution or appellation of a sukèë.

It appears to me not improbable that a number of smaller kawōms