302 CULTIVATION OF RICE IN MALACCA 



where the rice is best and where it is " female" (that is to say 

 where the bunch of stalks is big) and where there are seven 

 joints in the stalk. You beg-in with a bunch of this kind and 

 clip seven stems to be the " soul of the rice "; and then you clip 

 3et another handful to be the " mother seed " for the following 

 year. The " Soul " is wrapped in a white cloth tied with a cord 

 of terap bark and made into the shape of a little child in swad- 

 dling clothes, and put into the small basket. The " mother 

 seed " is put into another basket and both are fumigated with 

 benzoin and then the two baskets are piled the one on the other 

 and taken home and put into the kepuk (the receptacle in which 

 rice is stored). 



10. — One must wait three days (called the pantang tuai) 

 before one may clip or cut any more of the rice. At first only 

 one or two basketfuls of rice are cut : the rice is dried in the sun, 

 winnowed in a winnowing basket and cleaned in a fanning ma- 

 chine, pounded to free it from the husk so that it becomes herciR 

 and then bulled so that it becomes nasi, and people are invited to 

 feast on it. 



11. — Then a bucket is made for the purpose of threshing 

 the rest of the rice, and a granary built to keep it in while it re- 

 mains in the field, and five or six labourers are engaged to reap 

 and thresh it. Their hours of working are from 6 to 11.30 a.m. 

 and all the rice they thresh they put into the granary. 



12. — If the ci-op is a good one, a gallon of seed will pro- 

 duce a hundred fold. Each plot in a field takes about a gallon 

 of seed. 



13. — When the rice has all been ent, it is winnowed in or- 

 der to get rid of the chaff and then laid out in the sun till quite 

 dry so that it may not get mouldy if kept for a year. 



Then the wages of the labourers are taken out of it at the 

 rate of two gallons out of every ten. \¥hen that is settled, if 

 the rice is not to be sold, it is taken home and put into the rice- 

 chest. 



Whenever you want to eat of it, you take out a basketful at 

 a time and dry it in the sun. Then you turn it in the winnowing 

 basket and clean it in the fanning machine, pound it to convert 

 it into herns (husked rice) and put a sufficiency of it in a pot and 

 wash it. Enough water is then poured over it to cover it and it 



