The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

AGRICULTURE in
crop. If they encounter on their way to the fields
any one of the following creatures, they must at
once return home, and stay there a day and a night,
on pain of illness or early death : certain snakes,
spiders, centipedes, millipedes, and birds of two
speciQS, j'erml and dudzc^ (a cuckoo). Or again, if the
shoulder straps of their large baskets should break
on the way, if a stump should fall against them, or
the note of the spider-hunter be heard, or if a
woman strikes her foot by accident against any
object, the party must return as before.
It will be clear from the foregoing account that
the women play the principal part in the rites and
actual operations of the padz culture; the men only
being called in to clear the ground and to assist in
some of the later stages. The women select and
keep the seed grain, and they are the repositories
of most of the lore connected with it. It seems to
be felt that they have a natural affinity to the
fruitful grain, which they speak of as becoming
pregnant. Women sometimes sleep out in the
padz fields while the crop is growing, probably for
the purpose of increasing their own fertility or that
of the padi\ but they are very reticent on this
matter.
The Harvest Festival
When the crop is all gathered in, the house is
malan to all outsiders for some ten days, during
which the grain is transported from the fields to the
village and stored in the padi barns. When this
process is completed or well advanced, the festival
begins with the preparation of the seed grain for
the following season. Some of the best of the new
grain is carefully selected by the women of each
room, enough for the sowing of the next season.
This is mixed with a small quantity of the seed
grain of the foregoing seasons which has been care-