The mamplenc is the great bridegroom’s procession that forms the central public ceremony of an Achehnese wedding, by which the bridegroom is escorted from his parents’ house to that of the bride. The word is identical with the Malay mëmplai, borrowed in turn from the Tamil, but in Achehnese usage it is never applied (as in the original word) to the bride or bridegroom himself; it indicates the procession alone. The expression ja’ euntat mamplènc means “to escort the bridegroom on his way to the bride’s house,” but to the Achehnese these words convey the notion of joining the bridegroom’s procession.
The mamplenc commences at 9 P.M. or even later, after the bridegroom has been placed in the midst of his fellow-villagers. He is frequently attended by some of his nearest relatives, but seldom by the nearest of all, and never by his father, as this would conflict with the relations which subsist between parents-in-law. The procession is headed by musicians — the geundrang drum with its indispensable accompaniment of two flutes (srune) — who play a special tune that is changed when the party enters the gampong road or the path leading past the entrances of the enclosures within the gampong. Amid reiterated cries of salawaleee — the Achehnese form of the salawat or blessing on the Prophet — the procession at length arrives at the enclosure of the bride’s parents.
The arrival is the signal for a formal encounter between the two gampongs. The people of the bride’s gampong stand drawn up in rows ready to receive the guests, while the newcomers form up in line opposite their hosts. The bridegroom is kept back, and is admitted only after a series of polite excuses on the part of the guests, who declare themselves content with their place in the front part of the enclosure. All this politeness is expressed in the form of pantons, the Achehnese quatrains which have this in common with the Malay, that the first two lines are not connected in point of sense with the second pair but serve chiefly to supply rhyming words. For an Achehnese who has some knowledge of the pantons most commonly used, the repetition of the first strophe at once suggests the meaning of that which succeeds it. The verses of the Achehnese pantons are also generally in sanja, that is to say, each consists of four parts of which the two middle ones rhyme with each other, while the last word of each verse rhymes with the last word of the next.
After the panton exchanges, the bridegroom is admitted to the juree — the bridal chamber — where his courage is somewhat strengthened by the arrival of the pekak, the old women who act as the attendants of the bride throughout. The bridegroom’s party are received in the back verandah (seuramoe likòt), the proper abode of the women, where they receive a formal greeting but without pantons, and are offered no sirih, so that the reception is over in a moment. None of the bridegroom’s people may partake in the festivities of the bride’s house, even though the two families are related to one another; nor are any feasts held in the bridegroom’s house on these nights. The mamplenc thus marks the formal and very public transfer of the bridegroom to the bride’s sphere, in keeping with the matrilocal character of Achehnese marriage and with the peusijuek and peusunteng rites that precede and follow it.
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.