Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/58

 pusa. On the hand these mean that their possessor will not be slain unavenged; on the foot, that he will never grow weary in walking; on the male genital organ, that he will lose his wives by death; on that of women, an early death for the husband, and so on.

The signifiance of the quivering of nerves (tōtō, the Jav. kědut) in certain parts of the body, is chiefly to be found in Malay handbooks, as also the èleumèë peurasat (Arab. firāsah), which determines a man's nature and disposition from the shape of his face and the build of his body.

The èleumèë phay is also worked with the help of books. Sometimes it is the Qurān that is used, sometimes a fortune-teller's manual, preferably that ascribed to the Alide Jaʾfar Çādiq (Ach. Jaʾpa Sadéʾ).

Where the Qurān is used, the enquirer into the hidden things of the future, after preparing himself for his task by ceremonial ablution, opens the book at hap-hazard at any page and then turns over seven pages more. The first letter of the 7$th$ line of this 7$th$ page supplies the answer to his question, for every letter of the alphabet has corresponding to it certain formulas which show what may be expected or what should be done under various circumstances, e.g. "There are obstacles to your journey", "The marriage will be a happy one", etc. The kitab Jaʾpa Sadéʾ is employed in the same manner.

Phay is really an Arabic word (faʾl) meaning "presage", "omen", but in Achehnese it is restricted to prognostications in books and some other kinds of soothsaying. Omens proper are described by another Arabic word, alamat. These are of the same character as the omens of Javanese superstition—sounds seldom heard under ordinary circumstances, animals, especially birds and insects, which are rarely seen, in fact all manner of more or less uncommon phenomena. The knowledge of this secret language of nature is however practically the common property of all grown-up people, and does not form the subject of a separate èleumèë. It may rather be classified among the hadih maja ("traditions of female ancestors"), as to which we shall have something more to say in our chapter on literature.

The approaching death of an inmate of the house, a relation or a friend, is announced by the unwonted nasal cry (kòòò) of a jampòʾ (a