Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/63

 A great part of the remaining hadih maja has been already described in our discussion of Achehnese manners and customs; upon hadih maja indeed is based the observance of most of those adats which have no (Mohammedan) religious significance or origin, but the neglect of which is believed to be attended with evil results in this life.

The lore of ajeumats (amulets), rajahs (formulas which when written serve as amulets and when spoken as charms), tangkays (incantations), and duʾas (prayers) is of course very highly prized. No one who has any regard for his own well-being or that of those belonging to him, can dispense with the aid of the experts in such lore.

All these serve as protectives or preparatives. Those who wish for success in love have recourse to a peugaséh or love-charm, those who would sell their wares at a profit to a peularéh, while for every sickness a tangkay is employed, even though medicines be applied as well.

We have already noticed the malignant lore of poisons (èleumèë tuba) and of the fungi in particular.

The remarks, partly incidental and partly direct, which we have made respecting the treatment of some diseases, have clearly shown that native medical science in Acheh, as indeed all over the Indian Archipelago, is based to a great extent on superstition. In point of fact the simple application of a natural medicament without any "hocus-pocus", in case even of the most ordinary and well-known indispositions, is a rare exception, and numbers of diseases are treated with "hocus-pocus" and nothing else.

This very quackery is the only portion of medical science which the Achehnese would dignify with the name of èleumèë All the rest is in his eyes mere practical knowledge, some degree of which everyone acquires as he advances in years.

Such practical experience is more especially the property of women, whose task it always is to prepare the drugs, and it is the old women in particular whose advice is constantly called for by those who seek medical aid outside the limits of their own homesteads. Such experts are known as ureuëng meuʾubat or "medicine people" a name applied to both sexes, though one hears more often of the ma ubat or "medicine mother".

Their lore has not remained free from foreign influences. In the stalls of the druggists (ureuëng meukat aweuëh) there are to be found a number