Lestariweb
culture and traditions in Aceh
Lestariweb
Situated in the Special Region of Aceh the northernmost provincial-level unit of Sumatra, the more than 3.4 million Acehnese are most famous throughout the archipelago for their devotion to Islam and their militant resistance to colonial and republican rule. Renowned throughout the nineteenth century for their pepper plantations, most Acehnese were rice growers in the coastal regions in the early 1990s.
Acehnese
do not have large descent groups; the nuclear family consisting of
mother, father, and children is the central social unit. Unlike the
Javanese or Balinese family, the Acehnese family system shows marked
separation of men's and women's spheres of activity.
Traditionally,
males are directed outwardly towards the world of trade. In the practice
of merantau--going abroad or away from one's birthplace--young
adult males leave their homelands for a time to seek their fortune,
experience, and reputation through commerce.
This may involve travel to
another village, province, or island. This maturation process among
males is viewed as growing out of the domestic female-dominated world of
sensory indulgence and into the male world of reasoned rationality,
whose practice is expressed through trade.One model of Acehnese family
life is that a woman sends a man out of the house to trade and welcomes
him back when he brings home money. When he has exhausted his money, she
sends him out again. Meanwhile, women and their kin are responsible for
working the fields and keeping the gardens and rice fields productive.
This oscillating pattern of migration encountered some difficulties in
the 1980s as increasing numbers of men failed to return to the Acehnese
homeland, but instead remained and married in remote locations, such as
Jakarta and Kalimantan. In addition, northern Sumatra experienced
important changes because of the influx of temporary workers seeking
employment in the oil and timber industries.
Written by The Library of Congress - Country
Studies
Data as of November 1992
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