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The entrance of the bridegroom.In Java the bridegroom, before entering the house of the bride, must perform various symbolical acts, such as trampling an egg to pieces, stepping with the bride over a buffalo-yoke (pasangan) etc.; the bride also washes the feet of her future spouse. We must leave to conjecture how much of this may have been customary in Acheh in earlier times; at present the only observance of this sort is the placing at the entrance of the inner room (jurèë) where the bride awaits the bridegroom, a dish filled with water, in which are placed an egg and some leaves of the "cooling" plant known as sisijuëʾ[1]; in this the bridegroom is expected to dip his feet for a moment as he enters the room.
The bride sits in the jurèë on a tilam (a heavy thick mattress) covered with a cloth and bespread with costly sitting-mats. Two piles of cushions (bantay meusadeuë) stand on the mat against the wall. The young man's place is prepared at the bride's right side. She is attended by some peunganjōs, old women from both gampōngs who are interested in the marriage. Of these mistresses of the ceremonies one acts as directress, and also attends the bridegroom for the first few days when walking through the house and courtyard of his parents-in-law, to familiarize him with the place and to serve him.
The bridegroom is conducted to the door of the jurèë by an elder, and there handed over to the care of the peunganjos. In some districts it is customary for one of these women to pretend to hold the door of the room shut from within. The other who leads the young man in, now advises him to surrender to the woman who guards the door his reunchōng[2], the dagger which forms an indispensable adjunct of the equipment of the Achehnese man.
In order to cover the bride's shame, one of the peunganjōs constantly holds a fan before her face so as to prevent the bridegroom from looking at her. He takes his seat by her side, and now begin what are for both of them the most disagreeable moments of their wedding. Guests and fellow-villagers are now permitted to stare at them without restraint through the door and the interstices of the walls.
Certain female members of the bridegroom's family (sometimes even
- ↑ Cf. p. 305 above.
- ↑ He is supposed to surrender it as a "token" or as a recompense to the door-keeper for opening the door. This giving up of the reunchōng is also a farce; the weapon being introduced for the purpose by the peunganjō herself. The bridegroom has, as is customary with all guests on entering a strange house, laid aside his weapon on arrival.
