Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/227

 The games with cards are of European origin. Meusikupan (literally "spade game" from the Dutch "schoppen"—"spades") is played with a pack of 52 cards, from which an even number of players receive 5 apiece. Each plays in turn, following not suit but colour; whoever first gets rid of all his cards wins the stake. Meutrōb ("trump game" from the Dutch "troef" = trumps) is played with a pack of 32 which is dealt among 4 players. Each in turn makes his own trumps. Those who sit opposite one another are partners, and the side that gains most tricks wins the game.

As we are aware, every kind of game of chance is most rigorously forbidden by Islam. In Acheh only the leubès and not even all these concern themselves about this prohibition. Most of the chiefs and the great majority of the people consider no festivity complete without a gamble. It is carried so far that even those headmen of gampōngs who as a rule are opposed to gaming in public, shut their eyes to transgressions of this kind on the two great religious feasts which form the holiest days of all the year. Nay more, they actually allow the meunasah, a public building originally dedicated to religion, to be used as a common gaming-house.

In former days the ulèëbalangs utilized this prohibition of religious law simply as a means of increasing their revenues. To transgress an order of prohibition within their territory, it was necessary, they reasoned, to obtain their permission. Such licence they granted on payment of 1%, on the amount staked. This source of income was called upat.

Under the general name of gambling (meujudi) the Achehnese include the various sorts of fights between animals which form with them so favourite and universal a pastime. As a matter of fact it is very exceptional to find such contests carried on simply for the honour and glory of victory.

Many chiefs and other prominent personages spend the greater part of their time in rearing their fighting animals.

The fighting bull or buffalo and the fighting ram are placed in a separate stall which is always kept scrupulously clean. They are only occasionally taken out, led by a rope, for a walk or to measure their strength momentarily against another by way of trial. They are most