I ought perhaps, before leaving the subject, to enumerate three other methods of decoration practised by the leaders of fashion among the Moï. The women powder their hair with an odorous substance obtained from the berries of the vetiver. Both men and women smear their teeth with a kind of lacquer to protect the enamel from the action of lime, the principal ingredient of the betel leaf.
Finally the society ladies dye their nails a vivid vermilion with the sap of the plant "Semrang."
As I said above, our matches soon went to a premium as a medium of exchange, but the Moï already employed two methods of kindling a fire. One was by striking a flint against a piece of pyrite of iron, the other by simply rubbing together two pieces of wood. The process is as follows. A very dry bamboo is split at one end for about five inches of its length. The two sections are kept apart by the insertion of a wooden wedge. In this way a rude ventilating chimney is made under which the operator piles up some dead leaves, bamboo cuttings and moss. He now passes a long cane under the apparatus (which he keeps steady with his foot) and rubs it rapidly backwards and forwards until a spark appears, which is usually within a minute. The movement closely resembles that of sawing.
This last method is only practised in the bush, for in the villages the fires are carefully preserved under the ashes and seldom allowed to go out. This preservation of fire is a phenomenon which characterizes all primitive peoples in every clime.
[CHAPTER II]
INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS
Agriculture—Industries—Weaving, iron and copper mining—Commerce and industrial products—Food supplies—Fishing—How we once fished with dynamite—Hunting—Various methods of big-game hunting—My first elephant hunt—Some useful hints to big-game hunters—Poisons—Arms and weapons of defence—The tiger, a dangerous neighbour—A bathing tragedy.
The principal industry of the Moï is the cultivation of rice. The method adopted, however, is unlike that of the Annamites of the plains. Instead of cultivating a rice-field by continuous irrigation which produces three crops a year, the Moï wait until November, the end of the rainy season. They then clear a portion of the forest large enough to raise a crop for the entire population of the village. In April they set fire to the fallen trunks which the sun has dried. For several days the whole mountain is illuminated by these immense braziers and the crackling of the timbers can be heard for miles around. Finally the ground is covered with a layer of fine ashes, which are washed into the soil by the first rains. Then begins the sowing.