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Chapter Eight. The Harvest |
| caption: |
drunken feast at end of weeding |
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One evening, as I was coming home with Shankok through the ripening fields, we heard peals of laughter coming from one of the field-houses. Shankok whispered to me, it must be an "end-of-the-weeding feast." Sure enough, the next moment out tottered a girl, who subsided almost at once on the ground. Boys tumbled screaming out of the hut, and with roars of laughter tried to drag the fallen girl to her feet. The six other girls, who one after the other appeared in the door-way, did not seem to me any more sober than the first -- the pretty Meniu of Shankok's clan, by now hanging helplessly round the neck of a Bala boy. He made short work of it, and taking the half-unconscious girl on his back, walked triumphantly ahead, while the other tottering girls followed, very much with the support of their friends. The light of the deep yellow moon creeping over the mountains shone full on this rollicking bacchanal, and the evening stillness was rent by shrill, drunken laughter. |
