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Chapter One. The Material Background |
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working parties for weeding ; courtship and entertaining |
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To enliven the monotonous task of weeding, boys and girls of different morung joined forces and worked side by side. The boys of one work gang would invite their girlfriends to go with them to the fields, and on the following day they would in return help these girls with the work on the fields of their parents. The girls had to be from a village ward from which the boys could take wives, and the young people working together were, hence, potential mates and often already lovers. Many a romance began in the rice fields at weeding time, and wherever such mixed labour groups were at work, there was much laughing and joking. Toward the end of the weeding the boys of the gang would entertain their girlfriends in one of the field huts, and on that occasion they took pride in providing sufficient rice beer to make their guests drunk. If the girls could not walk unaided the boys would carry them home on their backs and deposit them proudly at the houses of their parents. |
