The Reaping Ceremony
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Skeat, Walter William
There are several varieties, of which the best is called Tongkat Mandah; it may be described as an ordinary “rice-head” bending over to meet the tip of a second (adventitious) “rice-head,” but it is produced only by a freak of nature. There is some risk connected with this variety, however, for if the “Reception (Sambut) Ceremony” is not properly performed the owner will die. The second best is called “The Kite” (Lang). The third best is called “The Veiled Princess” (Pŭtri Bĕrtudong); in this case the sheath of the “head” is of unusual length, and overshadows the “head” itself. A fourth kind is called Padi Bĕrtel’kum, and is described as a “Female Rice” (padi bĕtina); like the “Veiled Princess,” it has an unusually well-developed sheath; whilst a fifth kind is the “Padi Mendhara”—a rice-plant whose leaves show white lines or markings.
How women should reap on ordinary occasions.—Whenever women go out to reap they should repeat certain charms before leaving the house,222 and again before depositing their baskets on the ground. Their heads should be covered, and they should always be careful to reap, as has been said, facing the sun, to prevent their shadow from falling upon the rice in the basket at their side. Occasionally, however, the body is uncovered, and I was even told of one, Inche Fatimah of Jugra, in Selangor, who when reaping stripped herself bare from the waist upwards, and when asked why she did so said it was “to make the rice-husks thinner, as she was tired of pounding thick-husked rice.”
The sheaf which is left standing after the taking home of the Rice-soul is called the Mother of the Rice-soul (Ibu Sĕmangat Padi), and treated as a newly-made mother; that is to say, young shoots of trees (putik-putik kayu) are taken, pounded together (di-tumbok), and scattered broadcast (di-tabor) every evening for three successive days.
When the three days are up you take cocoa-nut pulp (isi niyor) and what are called “goat flowers” (bunga kambing), mix them, and eat them with a little sugar, spitting some of the mixture out among the rice. [So, after a birth (as the Pawang informed me), the young shoots of the jack-fruit (kababal nangka), the rose-apple (jambu), and certain kinds of banana (such as pisang abu and pisang Bĕnggala), and the thin pulp of young cocoa-nuts (kĕlongkong niyor) are mixed with dried fish, salt, acid (asam), prawn-condiment (b’lachan), and similar ingredients, to form a species of salad (rojak). For three successive days this salad is administered to mother and child, the person who administers it saying, if the child be a girl, “Your mother is here, eat this salad,” and if the child be a boy, “Your father is here, eat this salad.”]
Invariably, too, when you enter the rice-clearing (mĕnĕmpoh ladang) you must kiss the rice-stalks (chium tangkei padi), saying, “Cluck, cluck, soul of my child!” (kur, sĕmangat anak aku!) just as if you were kissing an infant of your own.
The last sheaf (as I think I have said) is reaped by the wife of the owner, who carries it back to the house (where it is threshed out and mixed with the Rice-soul). The owner then takes the Rice-soul and its basket and deposits it in the big circular rice-bin used by the Malays, together with the product of the last sheaf. Some of the product of the first seven “heads” will be mixed with next year’s seed, and the rest will be mixed with next year’s tĕpong tawar.223