Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/236

 In Acheh, as in the neighbouring countries, the ratéb Saman is one of the devout recreations in which a religiously inclined public takes part in spite of the criticism of the more strict expounders of the law. The Achehnese would certainly deny us the right to classify this ratéb under the head of games and amusements nor should we include it in this category were it not that a description of this ratéb is requisite as an introduction to our account of those others, which even the Achehnese regard as corruptions of the true ratéb Saman, without any religious significance. They also declare that while the real ratéb Saman may be the subject of a vow, neither of those secular ratébs which we are now about to describe can properly become so.

In Acheh, as in other Mohammedan countries, what is called the "true" ratéb Saman is noisy to an extreme degree; the meunasah, which is the usual scene of its performance, sometimes threatens to collapse, and the whole gampōng resounds with the shouting and stamping of the devotees. The youth of the gampōng often seize the opportunity to punish an unpopular comrade by thrusting him into the midst of the throng or else squeezing him against one of the posts of the meunasah with a violence that he remembers for days to come. There are no lights so that it is very difficult to detect the offenders, and in any case the latter can plead their state of holy ecstasy as an excuse!

The composition which does duty as nasib (= nasīb, see p. 218 above) is to outward appearance devoted to religious subjects, but on closer examination proves to be nothing but droll doggerel, in which appear some words from the parlance of mysticism and certain names from sacred history.

The women have a ratéb Saman of their own, differing somewhat in details from that of the men, but identical with it in the main.

The part of the performance called meunasib ("recitation of nasīb") among the men is in the women's ratéb designated by the verb menchakri or meuhadi. The mother in her cradlesong prays that her daughter may excel in this art.