Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/52

 some sacred tomb. These days the patient spends in fasting, eating a little rice only at sundown to stay his hunger. After this begins the rubbing with mercury, generally on the arms, which lasts until a sufficient quantity of mercury has, in the opinion of the gurèë, been absorbed by the patient's body. For the first seven days of his treatment he is further subjected to pantang of various kinds; he must refrain from sexual intercourse, and the use of sour foods, and of bòh jantōng (plantain-buds) ōn murōng (kèlor-leaves) and labu (pumpkin).

Not only during the treatment but also in his subsequent life, the patient must repeat certain prayers for invulnerability at appointed times. Many teachers hold that such duʾas or prayers are only efficacious if they are made to follow on the obligatory seumayangs; some even require of their disciples an extra seumayang in addition to the 5 daily ones to supplement those which they may have neglected during the previous part of their lives. By this means an odour of sanctity is given to their method, while at the same time they have a way left open to account for any disappointment of their disciples' hopes, without prejudice to their own reputation. As a matter of fact very few chiefs remain long faithful to this religious discipline; thus, should they later on be reached by the steel or bullet of an enemy, they must blame their own neglect and not their teacher.

During the massage the teacher also repeats various prayers. To perfect himself in his calling he has to study the proper traditional methods for years as apprentice to another gurèë, and also to seclude himself for a long period amid the loneliness of the mountains. In this seclusion some have even imagined that they have met Malém Diwa, the immortal patron of invulnerability, with whom we shall become further acquainted in our chapter on literature (N°. XIII).

In many of the systems employed to compass invulnerability, it is considered a condition of success that the pupil should not see his teacher for a period of from one to three years after the completion of the treatment or the course of instruction; indeed it is even asserted