| caption: |
Chapter One. The Material Background |
| caption: |
work in fields, at leisurely pace, with breaks |
| text: |
What happened inside a village during the middle hours of an ordinary working day was of comparatively little importance, for each morning during the agricultural period the social life of the village was transferred to the fields, where family worked with family and labour gangs were employed on a basis of cooperation and reciprocity or hired by those sufficiently wealthy to engage them. No Konyak enjoys long periods of sustained work, and even agricultural activities were carried out in a leisurely manner, with periods of digging, sowing, or reaping alternating with times of relaxation, when girls and boys would flirt with each other and married couples retired to a field house and refresh themselves with sips of rice beer or tea. |
