The two great Mohammedan feasts of the Islamic year—known to the Achehnese collectively as the two uroë raya (great days)—were the feast at the end of the fasting month (‘Īd al-Fitr, the Achehnese Raya Puasa) and the feast of sacrifice on the tenth of Dul-hijjah (‘Īd al-Aḍḥā, the Achehnese Raya Hajj). In Acheh, these two feasts were the chief calendrical landmarks of the social and religious year, and were marked by distinctive Achehnese customs: the formation of small societies for the slaughter of buffaloes before the feast days; the bringing home of meat to one’s wife; the bride’s visits of salutation to her parents-in-law; and the buying of new clothes universal at the end of the fast.
The pre-Puasa fair and slaughter
The feast at the end of the fasting month was preceded in Acheh by a great three-days’ fair, opened in the Sultan’s time by the Sianta or royal proclamation. Live-stock were brought down from the highlands, sold in the bustling market, and slaughtered in bulk on the third day (the uroë seumeusie or slaughter day), so that every household might enter upon the fast with a store of cooked meat sufficient for the first weeks of abstinence. A second fair was held at the close of the fast; in the Sultan’s time there was, however, no sranta or proclamation by heralds for this latter market, and in point of animation it 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.
The adat of buffalo-slaughter societies
In the description of the feasts, Snouck Hurgronje observes, it is an established adat in Acheh to form small societies for the slaughter of buffaloes before these feast days. The members of such a society shared the cost of one or more animals and divided the meat among them. This arrangement made it possible even for households of modest means to celebrate the feast with the traditional abundance of meat, while at the same time regulating the supply so that the butchering was concentrated in the days immediately before the feast.
The bringing home of meat
A special feature of Achehnese domestic life at the two great feasts was the husband’s obligation, during the janji jinanèe period (the years during which his bride still remained a charge upon her parents), to “bring home meat” (peuroë sië) to his wife. This obligation was especially marked at the feast at the end of the fasting month. The ancient custom required the young man to bring home to his wife a handsome share of the meat from the slaughter in his own gampong; this was one of the gifts that the adat imposed on the husband in lieu of the regular maintenance from which he was free during the jinanèe period. The bringing home of meat was thus one of the characteristic ways in which the two great Mohammedan feasts were observed in the domestic sphere; it linked the public slaughter of buffaloes to the private economy of the marital household.
Visits of salutation
The two great Mohammedan feasts were also the appointed occasions on which the bride, after her first visit to her parents-in-law, was required to go and make her respectful salutations (seumbah)—a duty for which she received a further present of money. When she had been about three years married she was absolved from the necessity of presenting herself on these occasions, and in any case received no more money presents. The two feasts thus served not merely as the great public ceremonies of the Muslim year but as the regular milestones of Achehnese married life, at which the social obligations of kinship were renewed and the bonds between households were strengthened.
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.