AGRICULTURE in 



crop. If they encounter on their way to the fields 

 any one of the following creatures, they must at 

 once return home, and stay there a day and a night, 

 on pain of illness or early death : certain snakes, 

 spiders, centipedes, millipedes, and birds of two 

 speciQS, j'erml and dudzc^ (a cuckoo). Or again, if the 

 shoulder straps of their large baskets should break 

 on the way, if a stump should fall against them, or 

 the note of the spider-hunter be heard, or if a 

 woman strikes her foot by accident against any 

 object, the party must return as before. 



It will be clear from the foregoing account that 

 the women play the principal part in the rites and 

 actual operations of the padz culture; the men only 

 being called in to clear the ground and to assist in 

 some of the later stages. The women select and 

 keep the seed grain, and they are the repositories 

 of most of the lore connected with it. It seems to 

 be felt that they have a natural affinity to the 

 fruitful grain, which they speak of as becoming 

 pregnant. Women sometimes sleep out in the 

 padz fields while the crop is growing, probably for 

 the purpose of increasing their own fertility or that 

 of the padi\ but they are very reticent on this 

 matter. 



The Harvest Festival 



When the crop is all gathered in, the house is 

 malan to all outsiders for some ten days, during 

 which the grain is transported from the fields to the 

 village and stored in the padi barns. When this 

 process is completed or well advanced, the festival 

 begins with the preparation of the seed grain for 

 the following season. Some of the best of the new 

 grain is carefully selected by the women of each 

 room, enough for the sowing of the next season. 

 This is mixed with a small quantity of the seed 

 grain of the foregoing seasons which has been care- 



