The musem ludih blang — literally the “season of the freedom of the land” — is the period of about four months in the Achehnese agricultural year during which the blang, or network of adjoining rice-fields belonging to a single gampong, lies open and fallow to men and cattle after the harvest. It is contrasted with the musem piche or köt blang, the “closed” or “narrow” season of about eight months that begins with the sowing of the padi and lasts until the harvest is complete.
The transition from one season to the other is marked by the kanduri blang or “field-feast,” which opens the musem ludih blang in the keunong that falls around February of the European year. As C. Snouck Hurgronje describes it, “in the beginning of the musem ludih blang every gampong holds, on a day fixed by its authorities, its kanduri blang or field-feast. This religious feast is intended to assure the continuance of the prosperity of the common land which has just yielded its harvest.” The viands for the feast — rice, meat and the like — are brought together by voluntary contributions (ripe) on the part of the inhabitants, and the men of the gampong assemble in the fields in the afternoon, where a malein consecrates the kanduri with a prayer.
During the musem ludih blang the rice-fields become for the time more or less the common property of the gampong; everyone may let his cattle loose to graze there, and the owner of an umong (a rice-field) may employ the land for intermediary crops — tobacco, vegetables, and so on — only if he protects them with a fence, the absence of which relieves everyone of responsibility for damage done by cattle. The strict rules that govern trespass during the “closed” season — when an offending animal may be hamstrung or speared without warning — are suspended for the duration of the open season. The close of the musem ludih blang, which falls in the keunong corresponding to May or early June, is also the moment when ploughing is universally commenced.
The musem ludih blang is further the appointed time for several ritual and practical operations that the Achehnese regard as unsuited to the “narrow” or “closed” season. The setting-up of tombstones (pula batèë) on the graves of departed relatives, the burning of lime (töt gapu), and — in the highlands — the piercing of the ears of young girls (tèb glènyueng) are all reserved for this period. The superstition attached to these prohibitions is precise: it is “generally believed that the rice of a whole field would be spoilt if tombstones were erected on the graves of departed relatives, or lime burnt in its neighbourhood, during the period between seedtime and harvest”; and “the holes in the ears would never attain the width desired by the Achehnese women, if made during the time when the ground is ‘narrow,’ or ‘closed.’” The contrast between the open and the closed field thus organises not only the agriculture but also the ritual calendar of the Achehnese year.
See Also
- Keunong
- Musem piche köt blang
- Musem tiniu
- Pula batee
- Pula system of planting out padi
- Tabu system of sowing padi
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.