| caption: |
sixth day. Haba-para-piak-penna |
| text: |
6th day. Haba-para-piak-penna. |
| text: |
In the morning all the women and girls go to the path below the village, each taking some cotton seeds and a kodali. They dig up a little patch of earth, mix the seeds with the earth, and rub their hands with it as if washing, saying as they do so: "I have cleaned my hands and thrown away any bad thing so that it will not go into the jhums." As each finishes she goes back to the village. As the women are coming out of the village the tingkhupeo is standing by and waving a chick, presumably with appropriate remarks, but he does not do a separate ceremony for each woman. When they have all returned to the village he shuts the chick's beak with his hand and suffocates it and then throws it away and goes home himself. The village is not closed, but rice is not planted on this day. |
