The yie bu or jababui ceremony — literally “bringing rice” — is the formal visit paid by the husband’s mother to her daughter-in-law at some time between the fourth and sixth months of pregnancy, in accordance with Achehnese adat. The mother-in-law is accompanied on such occasions by about ten other women. Where persons of wealth and position are spoken of, the ceremony is called ja me bu dangdang, “bringing a great pot of rice”; of humbler folk it is said that they “bring a naleh” (a small measure of raw rice). The ceremony is one of a series of observances that surround pregnancy in Acheh and, together with the subsequent ba meundeum visit of the mother-in-law about a month later, marks the progressive incorporation of the expectant mother into her husband’s family.
The gifts
As a matter of fact, well-to-do people take with them a large pot (kanét) of boiled rice, another of goatsʾ-flesh, and a great tray (dalòng) of fruit, to the total value of about twenty-five dollars, or else they save themselves the trouble by giving “the dangdang uncooked” (dangdang meuntah), i.e. the actual sum of money named above. Those of humbler rank confine their gift to a kating of cooked rice and a bowl of meat, or to bu kulah and some additional dishes. The mother-in-law remains for two or three nights under her daughter-in-law’s roof, but it is only on the day of her arrival that she is entertained in the way described, an entertainment known as peujamee. At her departure she is presented with some tobacco or clothing material as a return gift.
The following visit: ba meundeum
A second visit of the same description and of similar duration is paid by the mother-in-law about a month after the yie bu, and is known as ba meundeum. On this occasion she brings with her sundry kinds of sweetmeats (peunajoh) and fruits. The two visits together bracket the middle period of pregnancy with formal gestures of recognition and support, by means of which the family of the husband publicly assumes its share of responsibility for the coming child. The names of the two ceremonies — yie bu (“bringing rice”) and ba meundeum (“bringing sweetmeats”) — thus describe the kind of gift which constitutes the formal content of each.
Place in the system of Achehnese marriage and pregnancy observances
The yie bu is one of a long series of ceremonies which, beginning with the betrothal and the wedding (peujamee), accompany the Achehnese woman through marriage and motherhood. The earlier stages include the wedding-gift (bungkay of gold) and the biaya (support) given by the husband to the wife on the seventh evening after marriage; the seunalén or reciprocal gift of clothing on the seventh day; the “cooling” ceremony at the conclusion of the wedding-feast. After marriage, the successive stages of pregnancy are marked by the yie bu and the ba meundeum, and the birth itself by a complex of observances including the bathing of the mother, the naming of the child, the shaving of its head, and the peuson (cf. peusonat), the ceremony of the first cutting of the child’s hair.
The whole sequence is significant as an instance of the predominance, in Achehnese domestic life, of matrilocal custom combined with the formal recognition of the husband’s kin. The wife continues to reside in her mother’s house, and the husband “goes home” (wòë) to her; but the husband’s mother is not thereby excluded from the life of her daughter-in-law, and the yie bu is the most striking formal recognition of the continuing bond between them. The ceremony is paralleled, in the sphere of funeral observance, by the tutuʾe or “bridge” of white cotton which the gampong tears up at the passing of a funeral cortege, and in the sphere of religious life by the peujamee or kanduri with which any formal visit of ceremony is inaugurated.
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.