The Kanduri of Ja’ Karieng is an annual kanduri held by the inhabitants of Pulo Breueh (Bras) at the foot of an old karieng-tree which, according to popular superstition, has the power of enchaining epidemics and letting them loose upon the people at will. As C. Snouck Hurgronje records in his chapter on the combating of epidemics, the tree — known by the name Ja’ Karieng — is the object of a yearly observance in which the islanders offer up flowers and incense and take sea-baths in the water close by. Should the festival be neglected, it is believed that the coming year will surely be marked by pestilence.
The feast is one of the more striking survivals of pre-Islamic or extra-Islamic practice in the Achehnese religious landscape. The offering of flowers and incense to a tree-spirit, the ritual sea-bath, the attribution of epidemic disease to a localized supernatural power — all these belong to a stratum of belief far older than the Mohammedan faith which the Achehnese profess, and which they have in so many other respects made their own. Hurgronje, with characteristic dryness, notes that “during the course of this feast many forbidden intrigues are set on foot and indulged in,” suggesting that the license often associated with seasonal fertility rites in the archipelago has here found a place under the cover of the annual kanduri.
The kanduri of Ja’ Karieng belongs to the same class of epidemic-averting observances as the Kanduri tulaka bala — the “religious feast to allay the calamity” given by the inhabitants of a gampong during an outbreak of cholera — and the setting afloat of a lanchang, which was once officially employed in Acheh as a preventative against pestilence. All three customs proceed from the same underlying conception: that epidemic disease is the work of supernatural powers which may be either appeased, bribed, or deflected by appropriate ritual. The kanduri of Ja’ Karieng is distinguished from the other two by its annual character — it is held once a year, whether an epidemic is present or not — and by its anchoring to a single sacred tree on a single island.
The karieng-tree itself, as a sacred object with the power to “enchain” and “let loose” epidemics, is one of those localized supernatural agencies in which the Achehnese countryside abounds. The cult of such trees, springs, and similar natural objects is, of course, common throughout the Indian Archipelago, and the Achehnese have in most cases succeeded in giving these cults an Islamic colouring by attaching them to the names of saints or by reciting Mohammedan prayers at the place of offering. The kanduri of Ja’ Karieng, with its flowers, its incense, its sea-baths, and its permitted license, shows how much of the older stratum survives even where the Mohammedan name of kanduri has been given to the rite. It is a reminder that the Achehnese calendar of religious feasts is not a single, uniform system, but a layered structure in which the observances of successive ages lie side by side.
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.