Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/263

 pōng, "separate" (publa, the ordinary word for the separation of fighters) the sadatis and give out that the time for departure has arrived. Each of the elders makes obeisance to the opposite side, and beseeches them for forgiveness for all shortcomings or disagreeable expressions which may have caused them offence. As may be imagined the players, quite worn out with 16 hours of excitement and tension, hurry home to seek repose after partaking of the meal which concluded the performance.

Like all forbidden amusements, the sadati performances have fallen off very much in Acheh during the last twenty years.

Within the "linie" and in other parts where the effects of the war have made themselves most felt, the people lack the energy necessary for getting up these contests; while outside these limits the teungkus and ulamas have been preaching reform with all their might, as without repentance, they say, it will never be possible to prevail against the kafirs. Should they show a more complacent spirit towards these popular wickednesses, they would soon lose their prestige and would behold the influence which the war has given them gradually dwindle away.

It is, however, far from being the case that this asceticism, though in theory universally acknowledged as right, and now in practise enforced in the most disaffected parts of the country, is able to meet with general acceptance. A holy war in Java would certainly bring with it the prohibition of gamělan and wayang performances, but it is equally certain that it would take more than twenty years to entirely uproot these popular amusements. Even though the gamělans were silenced and the wayang-poppets consigned to the dust heap, a moment's respite would suffice to bring them to light again. So is it also with the sadati performances. They continue to exist in spite of the teungkus, and when the power of the latter is once broken, these ratébs will without doubt revive and flourish once more.

The manner of dress and appearance on the stage of the sadatis must be admitted to have some connection with the general prevalence in Acheh of immorality of the worst kind; but as has been already pointed out (p. 222 above) it cannot be said that such immorality is directly ministered to by these performances.

There are other ways besides in which the significance of the Achehnese sadati performances in regard to the life of the people may be best compared with that of the Javanese wayangs though in actual details the two are entirely different from one another. In the former,