| text: |
The village is strictly closed. No water may be carried or work done. The girls of each dekachang have a feast, bringing a fowl, meat, dried fish or some other delicacy, or sometimes salt, from their parents' houses. The fowls are sent to the corresponding morung, where the bucks pluck, singe and cut them up, and bring them back to the girls. Two girls are appointed as cooks. The fowls, etc. are cooked in the dekachang, but cooked rice is brought from the houses. The meat and gravy are shared out equally in leaf plates and handed round by the two cooks, who also have their share. The surplus is taken home by the girls for their parents. They then return to the dekachang and drink zu, and what is left over from that is taken to their homes in the same way as the meat. |
