The rateb pulet and the rateb sadati were the two most popular of the non-obligatory Achehnese ratebs (recitations), which had in common with the religious litanies only the name and the noise. They were the chief secular quasi-religious performances of the meunasah, beloved especially of the young, and were classed by Snouck Hurgronje not under religious exercises but under games and recreations. Together with the kettledrums (rapa’i or rapana) and the wooden rings known as pulet, the equipment required for these ratebs formed part of the regular furniture of the meunasah.
Distinction from the rateb Saman
The truly religious rateb of the meunasah was the rateb Saman (from the Arabic ratib Sammān, named after Samman, the saint who lived at Medina a couple of centuries ago). This litany was also popular in Java and might be heard almost every week in many Batavian kampongs. The rateb pulet and rateb sadati, by contrast, had nothing in common with the religious litanies but the name and the noise. The young people delighted more in the chanting of these quasi-religious ratebs than in the formal devotions of the meunasah, and the gatherings at which they were performed were as much social as religious in character.
The furniture of the meunasah
There were always to be found among the furniture of the meunasah, in addition to the tambu (the great drum used to call the faithful to prayer), certain objects required for these ratebs, such as the kettledrums called rapa’i or rapana and the wooden rings known as pulet. With these exceptions the furniture of the meunasah was but scanty: a large lamp (kande) only lighted on the nights of the fasting month, sleeping-mats which each laid down for himself, and an occasional mosquito-curtain (keulémbè) formed its entire equipment. The ratebs thus introduced into the chapel an element of festival and recreation which was otherwise largely absent from its sober furnishings.
The Achehnese temperament and the ratebs
The Achehnese, Snouck Hurgronje observes, takes part with more zeal in the religious or quasi-religious gatherings in the meunasah than in the assemblages at the mosque, where he feels himself but half at home. He gives and attends kanduris (religious feasts) with pleasure; at ratebs or recitations, whether real or only imitative (such as the rateb sadati and pulet), he can excite himself to the highest pitch; but the ritual prescribed by the law fails to rouse his enthusiasm. It was not surprising, then, that an imeum who tried to assume the part of leube or theologian was, from his very rarity, an almost ludicrous object in Acheh. The real life of the gampong centred not on the formal liturgy but on the quasi-religious recreations of which the rateb pulet and rateb sadati were the principal examples.
The use of the ratebs on festive occasions
Persons of wealth and rank inaugurated great events of family life—the circumcision of a son, for example, or the marriage of a daughter—with festivities of a purely secular character, which could not form the subject of a vow (ka’oy). Among these were the rateb sadati, the rateb pulet, and the piasan—a class of entertainments which, though performed in a religious setting and in the chapel itself, belonged in spirit to the secular life of the gampong. The rateb pulet and rateb sadati thus occupied a distinctive place in Achehnese culture: at once religious and recreational, they bridged the solemnity of the liturgy and the gaiety of the festival, and gave to the meunasah its character as the true social centre of the gampong.
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.