The Kanduri of the 100th Day was one of the series of commemorative funeral feasts by which the Achehnese marked the passage of the dead from the household of the living to the company of the ancestors. It took place one hundred days after the death, concluding the period during which—according to popular belief—the spirit (aritah) of the deceased was still in some sense present in the house. Snouck Hurgronje lists it among the kanduris held on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 30th, 40th or 44th, 100th and the annual anniversary of the death; the 1000th day, observed in some Muslim countries, was not kept in Acheh.
The 100th-day kanduri closed a distinct phase of mourning. From the moment the funeral procession had left the house, the entire wardrobe of the deceased (reulahab) was laid out on the bedstead, scattered with flowers, and left undisturbed for forty-four or one hundred days. A vessel of water (meundam) was always placed beneath the bedstead to slake the thirst of the spirit, and the women, children, brothers and sisters of the dead were bound to refrain from staining their feet red with gaca (henna) throughout the period. The kanduri of the 100th Day marked the formal release from these observances: the reulahab was given away in alms or—more often, as Snouck Hurgronje drily notes—sold by the greedy heirs, and the family returned to its ordinary customs.
Like the other commemorative kanduris, the hundredth-day feast was accompanied by the recitation of tahlils, generally performed by hired experts such as leubes or ulamas. The usual tariff for such recitations was about $4 per 100,000 tahlils, the sum being handed to the teungku of the gampong on the day of death and distributed among a number of reciters who were then summoned for the successive commemorations. It was customary also to have a portion of the Quran chanted (beuet di jeurat) every morning and afternoon during the first ten days, and to recite prayers for the repose of the soul at each subsequent kanduri.
The 100th-day observance thus stood at the head of the closing phase of Achehnese mourning, after which only the annual kanduri to’ thon (anniversary feast) remained to be given. Together with the kanduri of the 44th day, the kanduri of the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 10th days and the smaller kanduri beu’et ban given on the intermediate days, it formed the structural skeleton of an Achehnese funeral year—a calendar of piety in which the prosperity of the living was thought to depend on their continued respect for the dead.
See Also
- Kanduri of the 44th Day
- Kanduri of the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 10th Days
- Kanduri to’ thon Tuan Meurasab
- Kumunjong
- Tahlil
- Kanduri
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.