Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/285

 must obtain the permission of the ulèëbalang; this indeed holds good of most festal occasions which involve the assembling of large crowds, including piasans.

Piasans (see Vol. I p. 323) are properly speaking secular festivities of every description. Sadati-plays, rapaʾi-performances and the like may be all included in this category, but the name specially suggests an abundance of fireworks, illuminations and noise.

A wooden frame, the upper part of which is surrounded with paper lanterns and revolves automatically (tanglōng meugisa), merry-go-rounds (ayōn meugisa), Chinese fireworks and crackers, but especially high conical stacks of firewood which are set in flames (krumbu or kuta bungòng apuy)—all these contribute to festal rejoicing.

Persons of rank and wealth give piasans at their family feasts; gampōngs or districts unite in organizing them at the great annual feasts, or sometimes without any particular reason, or only to excite one another's jealousy and envy.

Although we have dealt with this subject in our chapter on literature, the reading or rather the recitation of and hearkening to hikayats ought not here to pass unnoticed as one of the chief mental recreations of the Achehnese, especially as this form of amusement has an improving and educational influence which others cannot claim.

Chiefs and peasants, old and young of both sexes, all literally doat upon the hikayats, with the exception of some few pretended purists, who regard even this pleasure as too worldly or the contents of some of the stories as savouring too little of Islam.

After the remarks which we have already made (Vol. I, p. 371) as to the position of women in Acheh, it can occasion no surprise that they are superior to the men in their love for, and by no means behind them in their knowledge of, the literature of their country. They often divert their female and sometimes even their male guests by the recitation of a hikayat, and each and all are willing to sacrifice their night's rest as the price of the entertainment.