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betel-nut stalks or naleuëng sambō[1] are added on certain occasions.
Thus before the young padi is planted out, a besom composed of small plants of manèʾ-manòë and sisijuëʾ and a betel-nut stalk, is set up in the midst of the rice-field, after being first dipped in teupōng taweuë and used to sprinkle the centre of the field[2]. On the 44th day after a birth, marriage or death, the bidan (midwife) or an old "wise woman" comes and besprinkles the topmost portion of all the posts of the house with manèʾ-manòë or sisijuëʾ. A boy who has completed the recitation of the Qurān is "cooled" in the same way by his guru or teacher. So too, one who has just returned from a long journey, or been saved from shipwreck, or fallen into the, water and narrowly escaped drowning, or a child which has fallen from the steps of the house, etc., is "cooled" by an old woman of the family.
In the case of human beings, the cooling with flour and water is followed by what is called peusunténg[3], i. e. the smearing of a little bu kunyét (glutinous rice made yellow with turmeric) behind both ears. In some cases this last only is done, and a child that has fallen from the stairs is simply smeared behind the ears with a little clay from the ground on which it falls.
All these coolings, except when recognized experts are employed, should be performed by old women; otherwise the good result is very doubtful.
To return to the ceremony of shaving the bride's hair (andam)[4]. The requisites for the andam and the cooling that precedes it are placed ready on two trays (talam). On one is husked and on the other unhusked rice (breuëh and padé), on each stands a bowl of teupōng taweuëʾ and a small besom composed of a sisijuëʾ plant, a manèʾ-manòë plant and some naleuëng sambō, a kind of grass the flowers of which look
- ↑ This is, according to Dr. P. van Romburgh, the Eleusine India. It is known in Java as jampang and used as cattle-fodder.
- ↑ See p. 264 above.
- ↑ The general meaning of the word, like that of its equivalent in Malay, is "smearing or inserting behind the ears", and is used to describe the custom so much in vogue among the youth of Acheh of wearing flowers stuck behind their ears. It is also used however in a technical sense to denote the smearing with yellow rice for purposes of cooling. [The Malay word běrsunting means according to Marsden the wearing of flowers or other ornaments on the head or behind the ears. (Translator).]
- ↑ Cf. Skeat's Malay Magic p. 353 et seq.
of "cooling". The plants so used are however really of different sorts, but the same name is given to all alike in different localities. All have this in common, that the shape of the leaves bears a rough resemblance to a duck's foot.
