IN TIMOR. 455 



the one hand and the maidens on the other, advance from the 

 margin of the field, stripping off between their fingers the 

 grains of corn into little baskets carried in the hand. The 

 older men strike up a song, to which the youths and maidens 

 sing a chorus, while sometimes the youths sing, and are replied 

 to by the maidens, in more or less amorous strains. Behind 

 this line two carriers bear an immense basket for the reception 

 of the contents of the smaller ones in the hands of the reapers, 

 who call out when these are filled. When the crop is all 

 gathered a great feast — called Sallalah — is given, at which 

 immense quantities of the new and sweet rice are consumed, 

 along with pig or goat flesh and abundant libations of Jcanipa, 

 followed by music and dancing throughout the entire night. 



In Bibifufu rice was grown largely ; but the most exten- 

 sively cultivated and consumed cereal in Timor is the Indian 

 corn, which is grown often on the very steepest slopes, where a 

 cool head and a sure foot are required to move about safely. 

 A simple pointed stake for making holes to receive the corns, 

 and a rude hoe called haissuaM, with which they roughly 

 scrape the ground after it has been cleared by fire, are their 

 only agricultural implements. In the flat lands by the coast, 

 where rice is grown in water-covered fields, entailing in their 

 preparation much greater labour, the people of a Suku com- 

 bine together to construct their common irrigating channels. 

 ■ Before the sowing of the fields a fowl or a small pig is 

 sacrificed in the Luli chamber of the owner's house and a rich 

 head of rice and Indian corn suspended as an invocation for a 

 bountiful harvest. It amused me to observe how meanly they 

 had occasionally tricked their invisible Spirit by offering only 

 a husk of maize from which all the corns had been carefully 

 picked ! In the month Fotan when the grain has all been 

 gathered, the greatest Luli feast of the year takes place, at 

 which a buffalo is offered by the Dato in the great Luli house 

 of the Suku as a harvest thanksgiving. 



Only on the return of the Eajah, three days after my arrival, 

 was I able to obtain horses to send back to Fatunaba for the 

 botanical drying-paper and the trade goods which I was 

 unable to bring with me. He had been in a distant part of his 

 kingdom near the south coast, looking after the harvesting of 

 rice-fields that he had there, and had returned for a day only 



