Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/42

 However deep the contempt in which the maléms and ulamas may hold the occupiers of the so-called "priestly offices," sold as these are to Mammon, yet they are not themselves without regard for the good things of this world, and are not slow to seize the opportunity of securing a fair share of the latter for themselves.

Well-to-do people very often prefer to give their daughters in marriage, with a sufficient provision for their maintenance, to these literati, who are on this account viewed with marked disfavour by the chiefs both in Java and Acheh. All alike occasionally invoke their knowledge or their prayers in times of distress, and such requests for help are always accompanied by the offer of gifts. At all religious feasts—and we know how numerous these are in Native social life—their presence is indispensable, and their attendance is often actually purchased by gifts of money. There are thus numerous opportunities for profit for the ulama or malém, quite apart from the instruction they give, which though not actually "paid for" is still substantially recompensed by those who have the requisite means. To this must be added the honour and esteem liberally accorded to these teachers by the people, who only fear the "priesthood" (wrongly so called) on account of its influence in matters affecting property and domestic life.

Just as the Israelites used to say that a prophet is without honour in his own country, so the Achehnese assert with equal emphasis that no man ever becomes an além, to say nothing of an ulama, in his own gampōng. To be esteemed as such in the place of his birth, he must have acquired his learning outside its limits. This is to be explained chiefly by the prejudice natural to man; to recognize greatness in one whom we have seen as a child at play, we must have lost sight of him for some time during the period of his development. To this must also be added the fact that those who remain from childhood in their own gampōng, surrounded by the playmates of their youth, find it harder as a rule to apply themselves to serious work than those who are sent to pursue their studies among strangers.

The same notion is universally prevalent in Java. Even the nearest relatives of a famous kyahi are sent elsewhere, preferably to some place not too close to their parents' home, in order that the love of amusement may not interfere with the instruction they are to receive and that their intercourse may be restricted to such as are pursuing or have already partially attained the same object. Hence the expression "to