IN TJMOB, 



455 



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

 margin of the field, strippint? 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 conttiuts of the smaller ones m the hands of the reapers, 

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

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

 immense quantities of the new and sweet rice are consumed, 

 along with pig or goat flesh and abundant libations of hampat 

 followed by music and dancing throughout the entire night. 



In Bibif uf u rice was grown largely » but the most exten- 

 sively cultivated and consumed cereal in Timor is the Indian 

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

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

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

 and a rude hoe called Iiaissmke^ with which they roughly 

 scmpe the ground after it has been cleared by firCj are their 

 only agricultural implements. Li the tlat lands by tho ccnist, 

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

 prejmration 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 Ltdi chamber of the owner*s house and a rich 

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

 bountiful harvest. It amused me to observe how meanly tliey 

 had occasionally tricked their invisible Spirit by (jfTering only 

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

 picked 1 In the month Fotan when the grain has all been 

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

 which a buffalo is oilered by the Dato in the great LuU htmso 

 of the Sukn as a harvest thanksgiving. 



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

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

 botanical drying-paper and the trade goods which I was 

 unable to bring with mo. 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 



