poeasa (English: “fasting (Ramadan)”) is a term or concept described in Jongejan’s Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu in relation to Aceh. Annual fasting prescription; fairly strictly observed.
Translation
fasting (Ramadan)
Description
Annual fasting prescription; fairly strictly observed. On days before and at the end of the fasting period, beef is universally consumed; ~15-day supply conserved with vinegar, salt and spices.
Significance
The term poeasa is recorded by Jongejan as part of the cultural, administrative, or institutional vocabulary of Aceh.
Poeasa as a measure of age (1937)
In Dr. C. E. Gomperts’s eye survey of 1937 the poeasa served as the practical unit for reckoning the age of Atjehnese patients. “Aangezien bij de Atjehsche bevolking geen jaartelling bestaat, leverde het opgeven van den ouderdom eenige moeilijkheid” — since among the Atjehnese population no era-reckoning existed, the statement of age presented some difficulty.
To determine approximately, and not merely by estimate, the age at which blindness had arisen, Gomperts had the age given in the number of poeasa’s the patient had lived through — the Mohammedan fast falling once a year. “Werd bijv. opgegeven drie poeasa’s, dan was de patiënt 2 jaar en zooveel maanden oud.” Up to the fourth year this reckoning was fairly accurate; beyond it the school age of six served as the measure for determining ages of six and above.
The method underlies the age columns of Gomperts’s tables on the causes of blindness, and hence his conclusion that the blindness of a great part of the adult blind dated from their childhood.
See Also
- Aceh
- J. Jongejans
- Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
- Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937
- C. E. Gomperts
- Oogheelkundig kampongonderzoek in Groot-Atjeh (Maart-December 1937)
- Blindheid in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 168, 175.
Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.