| caption: |
women's work - cooking, fetching water, brewing, weaving |
| text: |
In the grey of the morning, the females of the family are astir, and the village resounds with the blows of the long (48) pestle in the wooden mortar beating out the rice from the husk. This finished, breakfast is cooked both for the family and the pigs, for the latter, the husk mixed with other refuse serves the purpose. Breakfast over, which it usually is about sunrise, the women proceed for water which they fill into bamboo tubes and bring in on their backs in baskets. Them they go for fire-wood, and this brought, they set about the internal economy of the house; that is to see to their husbands drink being in proper quantity, and quality, to their spinning or to their weaving, or any of the other household occupations except sweeping the house clean, an act in which they have no pride. In fact, they rather seem to glory in a dirty house, and in having the front room half covered with rice husk, in which pigs are lying fast asleep, or grunting about, and fowls are busy seeking for food. |
