Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/249

 performs a ritual prayer, but squatting as a native always does in polite society. It sometimes happens that one party produces two or three sadatis, but the only difference in such a case is that there are two or three voices in the chorus in place of one.

The sadati (for convenience sake we adopt the singular) begins by saluting each member of the opposite party by taking the right hand between both of his and letting it slide between his palms. The others return the greeting by momentarily covering the sadati's right hand with both of theirs.

The sadati takes up his position facing his daléms, but from time to time while speaking or reciting he shifts round so as not to keep his back continually turned to any portion of the audience. He wears on his head a kupiah or cap with a golden crown (tampōʾ), a coat with many gold buttons and trousers of costly material, but no loin-cloth. He is covered with feminine ornaments, such as anklets, bracelets, rings, a chain round the neck and a silver girdle round the waist. Over his shoulders hang a kerchief (bungkōih buraʾ) such as women are wont to wear as a covering for the head, of a red colour and embroidered with peacocks in gold thread. In one hand he holds a fan.

His dalems start him off on the first tune by chanting in chorus some nonsense words such as héhé lam heum a. This tune to which the sadati now sings is a long-drawn chant of the kind known as lagèë jareuëng. The daléms chime in now and then with a refrain of meaningless words.

There is not much coherency in the sadati's recital; it consists of pantōns strung together of moralizings upon the pleasure and pain of love or on recent events, of anecdotes from universally known Achehnese poems (hikayats), all introduced by the superfluous request for room to be made for him (the sadati) to perform in.

Sadati A: Elder brothers! (here he addresses those of the opposite side) make room in order that the sadati may enter (i. e. into the space in the middle); I will give flowers to master sadati (i. e. his colleague on the opposite side), a tungkōy of flowers, among which are three nosegays of jeumpa-flowers. These I shall go and buy at Keutapang