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always so strictly observed in Acheh. In former times the headman of a gampōng who did not make provision in due time for the holding of this annual feast was fined by the ulèëbalang for neglect of duty.
Although the 12th of this month is accepted as the birthday of the prophet and thus as the feast-day par excellence, the commemoration of the birth of Mohammad is not confined to this date. Throughout the whole Moslem world maulids (or as they are generally called in the Archipelago mauluds) are held on various occasions. These are declamations by learned men in verse or rhyming prose dealing with events in the life of the Prophet, and concluding with a prayer and a feast for those assembled.
Acheh is no exception to the rule; funeral feasts for example are often here enlivened by a Mòʾlōt. But the Mòʾlōt, which the Achehnese regard as obligatory, must be held in all gampōngs either in the month Mòʾlōt (on or after the 12th day) or in one of the two following months. It is from this that the latter derive their names "Younger Brother of Mòʾlōt" and "Final Mòʾlōt."
The place where the Mòʾlōt is celebrated is the meunasah. The day is fixed year by year by the headman so as not to clash with the pursuits of the villagers. Care is taken at the same time to fix the dates so that no two gampōngs of the same name shall celebrate the Mòʾlōt on the same day or after too short an interval, because all the people of the same mukim are invited to each feast.
Those who live in other gampōngs in the same mukim are the guests of the whole gampōng and receive a formal invitation through a messenger of the keuchiʾ.
Such official invitations (muròh) to kanduris or religious festivals are always given in the form of an offering, as it is called, of ranub baté (ranub or sirih in its baté[1], a copper or silver bowl lined with an ornamental piece of cloth). The baté contains, besides the sirih, only a little betelnut, but none of the other requisites for betel-chewing. Where the invitation to one of these kanduris is addressed to persons of high consideration such as tuankus (royal princes) the symbolical gift is presented in a more costly sort of sirih-bowl (karaih) in place of the baté.
The official invitation to the kanduri Mòʾlōt is addressed only to
- ↑ See p. 42 above, This custom also prevails among the Malays. They call it menyirih.
