VII 



DAILY LIFE 125 



throws an arm across his guest's shoulders or 

 strokes him endearingly with the palm of his hand. 

 In the meantime the women are busy preparing 

 a meal, a pig having been killed and hastily cut up. 

 When it is ready, the visitors, if old friends, are 

 invited to partake of it in the chief's room. But 

 if they are not familiar acquaintances, the meal is 

 spread for them in the gallery on platters placed 

 in a long row, one for each guest ; each platter 

 containing many cubes of hot boiled pork and two 

 packets of hot boiled rice wrapped in leaves. The 

 space is surrounded with a slight bamboo fence 

 to keep away the dogs. In either case the visitors 

 eat alone, their hosts retiring until the meal is 

 finished. As the chief's wife retires, she says, " Eat 

 slowly, my children, our food is poor stuff. There is 

 no pork, no fish, nothing that is good." Before 

 withdrawing, one of the people of the house pours 

 a little water from a bamboo vessel on the right 

 hand of the visiting chief, who then passes on the 

 vessel to his followers. With the hand thus cleansed 

 each guest conveys the food to his mouth, dipping 

 his pieces of pork in coarse salt placed in a leaf 

 beside his platter ; and when he has finished eating, 

 he drinks water from a bamboo vessel. The chief, 

 and perhaps also one or more of his upper-class 

 companions, leaves a little of the pork and a little 

 rice on the platter to show that he is not greedy 

 or ravenous ; and his good breeding prompts him 

 to prove his satisfaction with the meal by belching 

 up a quantity of wind with a loud and prolonged 

 noise, which is echoed by his followers to the best 

 of their ability. After thus publicly expressing 

 his appreciation of his host's hospitality, he rinses 

 out his mouth, squirting out the water towards the 

 nearest gap between the fioor boards, rubs his 

 teeth with his forefinger, again rinses his mouth, 

 and washes his hand. Then relighting his cigarette, 



