BY MOTOR THROUGH THE EAST COAST OF SUMATRA 



91 



AN ELABORATE SCARECROW ERECTED TO 

 PROTECT SUMATRAN GRAIN ElEEDS 



This lookout is made of bamboo, and from 

 the numerous poles long strings are run to all 

 parts of the. field. On these strings are tied 

 bits of cloth, which are made to dance as the 

 boy watchman strikes the pole whenever feath- 

 ered marauders appear. 



spaces and closed the similar ends of 

 huge dormer-like projections thrown out 

 from the roofs of the more pretentious 

 buildings. 



On the communal house and a few 

 others, the vast roofs had a double over- 

 hang, with gigantic, top-heavy cupolas 

 towering above them, thatched and 

 shaped in miniature of the dormered 

 roofs below. From their corners, and 

 from the ends of all the ridge-poles and 

 the blind dormers carved wooden buffalo 

 heads with arched, white-painted necks 

 and savagely lowered horns, looked 

 fiercely down to challenge the intruder. 



The cupolas were surmounted by curi- 

 ous wooden figures, some on foot, some 

 riding Batak ponies, but all, brilliantly 



POUNDING GRAIN : IN SUMATRA THE 

 MIELER IS THE DAUGHTER 



The European traveling in this island fre- 

 quently finds it difficult to get food, especially 

 in the season when vegetables are scarce. Dur- 

 ing the wet season the natives live almost ex- 

 clusively on rice. The cereal is cooked very 

 dry and eaten with salt and peppers. 



colored, facing out over the treetops, with 

 hands raised in supplication toward the 

 little white house of the Dutch Con- 

 troleur on the plain. 



A PIGEON-HOUSE AND A TOMB 



Beside the communal house stood two 

 remarkable structures quite similar in de- 

 sign, both gay with colored carving and 

 decoration. One was a pigeon-house; 

 the other a tomb, from within which the 

 upright body of the last head-man looked 

 out on the village he had once directed. 



Under the thatched roof of an open 

 building near by, a group of women with 

 long poles were pounding grain in hol- 

 lowed-out wooden logs, while other blue- 

 garbed figures, bearing flat trays or 



