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In the morning I took Kauffmann through the village. We sat down in Shankok's house and I translated some of Kauffmann's questions as he still has problems with his Assamese. Of course he is especially interested in agriculture. We discovered that for the harvest the people take a bundle of rice stalks with the left hand, the thumb at the top, and cut it off, (that is the rice stalk), with a fine toothed knife which they hold in the right hand, the back of the hand facing up. For the ceremonial first cutting the sheaf is put into a small basket which is carried over the shoulder, but for the actual harvest the reapers throw them behind themselves. Millet is harvested differently. For that people carry a large basket on their backs, pick off the shoot and throw it over their shoulder into the basket. |
