VI 



AGRICULTURE 103 



watcher remains in the hut all day long, while his 

 companions are at work in the field ; he varies the 

 monotony of his task by shouting and beating with 

 a pair of mallets on a hollow wooden cylinder. The 

 watcher is relieved from time to time, but the watch 

 is maintained continuously day and night from the 

 time that the corn is about two feet above the ground 

 until it is all gathered in. In this way they strive 

 with partial success to keep off the wild pigs, 

 monkeys, deer, and, as the corn ripens, the rice- 

 sparrow [Mu7zta). 



When the hut and the pest-scaring system have 

 been erected, the men proceed to provide further 

 protection against wild pig and deer by running a 

 rude fence round a number of closely adjacent 

 patches of growing corn. The fence, some three to 

 four feet high, is made by lashing to poles thrust 

 vertically into the ground and to convenient trees 

 and stumps, bamboos or saplings as horizontal bars, 

 five or six in vertical row. When this is completed 

 the men take no further part until the harvest, 

 except perhaps to lend a hand occasionally with the 

 weeding. This is the time generally chosen by 

 them for long excursions into the jungle in search 

 of rattans, rubber, camphor, and for warlike ex- 

 peditions or the paying of distant visits. 



It is the duty of the women to prevent th& p adz 

 being choked by weeds. The women of each room 

 will go over each patch completely at least twice, at 

 an interval of about one month, hoeing down the 

 weeds with a short-handled hoe ; the hoe consists 

 of a fiat blade projecting at right angles from the 

 iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter is bent downwards 

 at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane per- 

 pendicular to that of the blade, and its other end is 

 prolonged by a short wooden handle, into the end of 

 which it is thrust. The woman stoops to the work, 

 hoeing carefully round each padi plant, by holding 



