| caption: |
Chapter One. The Material Background |
| caption: |
daily routine after harvest, October-December |
| text: |
The daily routine which has been described here applied only to the period of cultivation, a period beginning in December with the clearing of the jungle on the new seasons fields and ending in October at the time of the harvest. Between the middle of October and the middle of December, when the fields needed little attention, the people of Wakching were engaged in tasks which, for the most part, kept them within the confines of the village. Women spent the days in spinning and weaving, dyeing cloth, making pots, and various other house-based occupations. Men built new houses and repaired old ones; they made a great many baskets and mats and worked in wood, fashioning and carving utensils, implements, and ornaments. Occasionally, they went hunting or fishing. This too was the time when they organized trading expeditions to other villages or went to barter their produce in the markets of the plains. |
