399
of the rite. A great procession is organized; the boy is dressed just like a bride, except that he wears the high Achehnese kupiah or cap, round which is folded a tangkulōʾ (head-cloth)[1]. Sometimes he is set on horseback and rides to the holy place. His head is washed (srah ulèë), at the foot of the tomb, and a great kanduri is given.
If one of the boy's ancestors happens to have been in his lifetime a very learned or distinguished person, the grave of the latter is first visited, and the procession then moves on to the tomb of the saint.
Persons of wealth and rank inaugurate the circumcision with other festivities, which owing to their purely secular character cannot form the subject of a vow, such as the ratéb sadati, pulèt or a piasan.
The bath which in Java is regarded as an indispensable prelude to circumcision is not made compulsory in Acheh. The boy is simply cleansed prior to the operation. He is placed on a mat which is strewn with ashes from the cooking-place covered with plantain leaves, or upon a krikay, a small tray standing on a foot and thus serving as a table. The implements used in the operation are a puréh (a piece of the bark fibre of the arèn palm, of which native pens are also made), chalk to make a line to guide the operator, a forceps and a razor[2].
As a rule the only styptic used is a prayer (duʾa peudòng darah), that employed being the first part of a formula used to exorcise the burōng, or some other such tangkay or charm, in which occurs the word teutab (motionless or fixed) and the words that rhyme therewith from the 111th chapter of the Qurān. This symbolizes the checking or stopping of something—as the blood in the case in point.
The injured part is simply wrapped in a white rag, and it is not till the following day that it is covered (after being first washed with warm water) with a healing drug composed of gambir and tamarind-
- ↑ This kupiah with the kerchief surrounding it really forms a turban as defined in the books of Mohammedan law. In Acheh however the name seureuban is only given to the turban of Arab pattern surrounded by a kerchief twisted in the Arabian fashion. Only a few distinguished teungkus wear the seureuban. There is no proper term for the Achehnese shape, consisting of a high kupiah and a small tangkulōʾ wound round its lower edge: it is described as kupiah palét tangkulōʾ.
- ↑ The operation is absolute circumcision and not incision merely. Incision, which is universal in the Native States of Java, and the removal of a triangular patch from the end of the prepuce which is sometimes resorted to, are unknown in Acheh. The absolute circumcision is becoming more common in Java of later years.
