The Sianta (more correctly Sranta, from the Sanskrit śrāddha by way of older Achehnese usage, although in this context meaning a royal proclamation) was the formal ceremony by which the Sultan of Acheh opened the great annual market that preceded the fasting month. Held on the first day of the fair, just before noon, the Sranta took the form of a proclamation with beat of gong, made in the name of the Sultan, that the annual market had begun.
The ceremony
Five or six young men of the Sultan’s suite—which, as Snouck Hurgronje had earlier noted, was not recruited from the best class of the people—appeared in the market, where buyers and sellers had already assembled in unusually large numbers. Business was in full swing before the official inauguration, for everyone knew that the fast was close at hand, and even the exact date of the first day of the Puasa had become generally known long before its official announcement. The Sultan’s emissaries now proceeded to beat loudly and repeatedly on a great gong in the midst of the bustling crowd, and in the intervals between the strokes, one of their number, acting as herald, cried aloud:
“Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-two! Such is the command of our lord (the Sultan): on this day (the cattle is) brought down (from the highlands); to-morrow let the beasts fight; the next day let them be slaughtered.”
The numbers addressed the people of the three sagis of Great Acheh—the XXVI, the XXV and the XXII—in the same traditional order of precedence observed at the coronation of a new king.
The privilege of free taking
The adat permitted these royal messengers to take without payment, on this day, all that they wished of the victuals, sirih, tobacco, etc. displayed on the stalls. Owing, however, to the large attendance at the fair and the unusually large number of sellers, these last did not individually suffer much from the depredations of this little band of marauders.
The three feast days that followed
The names given to the three non-official feast days of the market corresponded exactly with the herald’s proclamation. Collectively they were known as uroë ma-eungang, which appears to mean “days of the inauguration of the fast.” The first day (the 27th or 28th of the month) was called uroë peutron (“the day of the bringing down”); the next, uroë pupo (“the day of the fighting”); and the last, uroë seumeusie (“the slaughter day”). The last was also specially known as uroë ma-eungang. The names were not to be taken too literally: live-stock were brought down to the town before as well as on the uroë peutron, and the uroë pupo was not in fact devoted to beast-fights, the name being given half in jest because this was the day on which most cattle were sold and underwent examination with a view to purchase. Only the “day of slaughter” corresponded exactly with its name: on this day the teungku slaughtered the beasts, the authorities of the gampong divided the meat among the purchasers, and the women cooked it—the whole community being in a state of incessant bustle.
Contrast with the post-Puasa fair
Although the same three-days’ fair recurred after the close of the fast, in that latter case there was, in the Sultan’s time, no sranta or proclamation by heralds. In point of animation, however, this second annual fair fell far behind the first. On the post-Puasa occasion the object of the slaughter was not to supply a store of cooked meat for a couple of weeks (as before the Puasa), and the buying of new clothes, though universal at the end of the fast, did not produce the same bustling concentration of buyers and sellers that marked the pre-Puasa market.
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.