The Kanduri boh kayeu — literally the “kanduri or religious offering of fruits” — is the Achehnese name for the sixth month of the Mohammedan year, Jumada al-akhir. As C. Snouck Hurgronje records in his calendar of Achehnese months, the name is drawn from a custom common among the Achehnese of purchasing fruits of every kind on some one day of this month and bringing them as a pious offering to the mosque or to the meunasah of their gampong. The same offering is also called Kanduri boh kaye’e — the “feast of fruits” — and the month itself is sometimes known by the same name. Old-fashioned women preserve the alternative designation Madika Seumeulheueh, “the last free one,” the origin of which Hurgronje could not trace; less commonly the month is called Jamado Akhe, a direct Achehnese rendering of the Arabic Jumada al-akhir.
The custom from which the month takes its name is essentially identical with the Feast of Fruits described elsewhere in Hurgronje’s account of the Achehnese festivals. Each householder chooses a day at his own convenience within the month, purchases what fruits the market affords, and presents them as a kanduri in the mosque or meunasah, where they are consumed under the supervision of the attendants or the local teungku. The original purpose of the custom has been forgotten by the Achehnese; in its present understanding it is regarded as a kanduri keu ureueng chi’ — a kanduri for the advantage of the giver’s ancestors.
The naming of the month after its characteristic offering is characteristic of the Achehnese calendar, in which five of the twelve months — Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal), Kanduri boh kayeu (Jumada al-akhir), Kanduri Apam (Rajab), Kanduri Bu (Shaʽban) and Puasa (Ramadhan) — bear names drawn from the kanduris observed in them. This calendar of pious offerings gives the Achehnese year a texture quite distinct from that of the Arabian months from which it is nominally derived, and ties the round of devotion to the rhythm of household generosity.
The position of Kanduri boh kayeu in the early summer of the Mohammedan year, between the Mo’lot of Rabiʽ al-awwal and the Kanduri Apam of Rajab, makes it one of a succession of months each marked by a distinctive offering. The choice of fruits for the sixth month is presumably connected with the seasonal availability of fruits in the Achehnese markets at this time of year, though the Achehnese themselves, as Hurgronje notes, no longer remember any reason for the association. The month thus stands as a quiet example of the way in which a seasonal offering, surviving long after the conditions that gave rise to it have passed, becomes one of the fixed observances of the religious year.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.