The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

VI AGRICULTURE 103
watcher remains in the hut all day long, while his
companions are at work in the field ; he
varies the
monotony of his task by shouting and beating with
a pair of mallets on a hollow wooden cylinder. The
watcher is relieved from time to time, but the watch
is maintained continuously day and night from the
time that the corn is about two feet above the ground
until it is all gathered in. In this way they strive
with partial success to keep off the wild pigs,
monkeys, deer, and, as the corn ripens, the ricesparrow
[Mu7zta).
When the hut and the pest-scaring system have
been erected, the men proceed to provide further
protection against wild pig and deer by running a
rude fence round a number of closely adjacent
patches of growing corn. The fence, some three to
four feet high, is made by lashing to poles thrust
vertically into the ground and to convenient trees
and stumps, bamboos or saplings as horizontal bars,
five or six in vertical row. When this is completed
the men take no further part until the harvest,
except perhaps to lend a hand occasionally with the
weeding. This is the time generally chosen by
them for long excursions into the jungle in search
of rattans, rubber, camphor, and for warlike expeditions
or the paying of distant visits.
It is the duty of the women to prevent th& padz
being choked by weeds. The women of each room
will go over each patch completely at least twice, at
an interval of about one month, hoeing down the
weeds with a short-handled hoe ; the hoe consists
of a fiat blade projecting at right angles from the
iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter is bent downwards
at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane perpendicular
to that of the blade, and its other end is
prolonged by a short wooden handle, into the end of
which it is thrust. The woman stoops to the work,
hoeing carefully round each padi plant, by holding