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Chapter Six. Death in the Rain |
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depression and difficulties of fieldwork |
| text: |
There I sat in the rain, not making nearly as much progress with my work as I had hoped. At the beginning everything had been promising, for then I was still a novelty to the people, and the gaonbura sacrificed many an hour to answer my first questions. But my Assamese was still meagre, and most conversations had to be carried on with Nlamo as interpreter. This tired the people, and took away much of the pleasure of telling stories, for even talkative Konyaks are naturally bored if every sentence must be translated. And then it was weeding time, and they were all extremely busy on their fields. It was not always easy to attract enough informants. |
