61
of the present Achehnese gampōng; though all that we can know with entire certainty is the final result, which we must now proceed to describe. Before approaching the method of administration we must add to our sketch of the village itself a word respecting the meunasah[1].
The meunasah.In the gampōng or in its immediate neighbourhood there is always to be found a building constructed in the same way as an ordinary dwelling-house, but without windows, passage or any kind of division. Close to the steps leading to this building is a water-tank either simply dug in the ground or built of masonry. A pipe or gutter of bamboo sloping downwards from the mouth of the nearest well opens into the tank, so as to make it easy to draw the water daily from the former.
These meunasahs serve as the nightly resting-place of all the full-grown youths of the gampōng, and of all men who are temporarily residing there and have no wife in the gampōng. This category includes both strangers and those whose mother for example lives in the gampōng, and who are not for the moment desirous of visiting their wives who reside elsewhere. For all such it would be regarded as improper except in case of illness to lodge in a house. Scapegraces who carry on intrigues with the women are shortly called ureuëng tamòng gampōng i.e. "men who come into the gampōng", in which expression night-time is meant to be understood, and the gampōng is supposed to mean all the dwelling-houses as opposed to the meunasah.
It may be concluded with certainty that this institution is of great antiquity, much more so than the present name applied to the building itself, which is derived from the Arabic. We find indeed amongst neighbouring peoples heathen as well as Mohammedan the same nocturnal separation, and a balè or some such building in which the young
- ↑ This word which also appears in the forms beunasah, meulasah and beulasah is derived from the Arabic madrasah, meaning a teaching institute; it has also other secondary significations. The statement made by Van Langen in his Atjehsch Staatsbestuur p. 391, that the teungku (who is in charge of the meunasah) is a kind of subordinate village headman, is erroneous. It sometimes occurs indeed, that one gampōng has more than one meunasah (in rare cases as many as four), but in every case the relation between the teungku and the keuchiʾ within the sphere of each meunasah is indicated by the comparison "the keuchiʾ is the father, the teungku the mother", and each has his own limit of action and his own appointed duties. Where the number of meunasahs in a gampōng is too great for the keuchiʾs control, he is represented by wakis in one or more meunasahs. Where a single keuchiʾ is placed in charge of more than one gampōng, as often happened in former times, such representation is the rule.
