The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitantsMarsden, William
History
The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants
Marsden, William
Natural history -- Indonesia -- Sumatra; Sumatra (Indonesia)
The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being
entirely without any species of chronology. Among those country people
who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra
known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in
ten can pronounce in what year of it he was born. After a few taun padi
(harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an
event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circumstance of
notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a
certain enemy, or the like. As far as can be judged from observation it
would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of
fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.
NAMES.
The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by
their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging. The
galar (cognomen), another species of name, or title, as we improperly
translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate,
period: sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given
by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage.
It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages,
when assembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly assumed by
the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar. It is also not
unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the
galar of one or two of the principal personages to others of superior
estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence
consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of
those who confer them: perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous
allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an
extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang bumi,
or Shaker of the World, the title of a pangeran of Manna. But a climax is
not always perceptible in the change.
FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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