The Rice-mother among the Tomori of Celebes. Special words used at reaping among the Tomori. Riddles and stories in connexion with the rice.
When the Tomori of Central Celebes are about to plant the rice, they bury in the field some betel as an offering to the spirits who cause the rice to grow. Over the spot where the offering is buried a small floor of wood is laid, and the family sits on it and consumes betel together as a sort of silent prayer or charm to ensure the growth of the crop. The rice that is planted round this spot is the last to be reaped at harvest. At the commencement of the reaping the stalks of this patch of rice are tied together into a sheaf, which is called “the Mother of the Rice” (ineno pae), and offerings in the shape of rice, fowl's liver, eggs, and other things are laid down before it. When all the rest of the rice in the field has been reaped, “the Mother of the Rice” is cut down and carried with due honour to the rice-barn, where it is laid on the floor, and all the other sheaves are piled upon it. The Tomori, we are told, regard the Mother of the Rice as a special offering made to the rice-spirit Omonga, who dwells in the moon. If that spirit is not treated with proper respect, for example if the people who fetch rice from the barn are not decently clad, he is angry and punishes the offenders by eating up twice as much rice in the barn as they have taken out of it; some people have heard him smacking his lips in the barn, as he devoured the rice. On the other hand the Toradjas of Central Celebes, who also practise the custom of the Rice-mother at harvest, regard her as the actual mother of the whole harvest, and therefore keep her carefully, lest in her absence the garnered store of rice should all melt away and disappear.[596] Among the Tomori, as among other Indonesian peoples, reapers at work in the field make use of special words which differ from the terms in ordinary use; the reason for adopting this peculiar form of speech at reaping appears to be, as I have already pointed out, a fear of alarming the timid soul of the rice by revealing the fate in store for it.[597] To the same [pg 194] motive is perhaps to be ascribed the practice observed by the Tomori of asking each other riddles at harvest.[598] Similarly among the Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso, in Central Celebes, while the people are watching the crops in the fields they amuse themselves with asking each other riddles and telling stories, and when any one guesses a riddle aright, the whole company cries out, “Let our rice come up, let fat ears come up both in the lowlands and on the heights.” But all the time between harvest and the laying out of new fields the asking of riddles and the telling of stories is strictly forbidden.[599] Thus among these people it seems that the asking of riddles is for some reason regarded as a charm which may make or mar the crops.
The Rice-mother among the Toradjas of Celebes.
Among some of the Toradjas of Celebes the ceremony of cutting and bringing home the Mother of the Rice is observed as follows. When the crop is ripe in the fields, the Mother of the Rice (ânrong pâre) must be fetched before the rest of the harvest is reaped. The ceremony is performed on a lucky day by a woman, who knows the rites. For three days previously she observes certain precautions to prevent the soul (soemangâna âse) of the rice from escaping out of the field, as it might be apt to do, if it got wind that the reapers with their cruel knives were so soon to crop the ripe ears. With this view she ties up a handful of standing stalks of the rice into a bunch in each corner of the field, while she recites an invocation to the spirits of the rice, bidding them gather in the field from the four quarters of the heaven. As a further precaution she stops the sluices, lest with the outrush of the water from the rice-field the sly soul of the rice should make good its escape. And she ties knots in the leaves of the rice-plants, all to hinder the soul of the rice from running away. This she does in the afternoon of three successive days. On the morning of the fourth day she comes again to the field, sits down in a corner of it, and kisses the rice three times, again inviting the souls of the rice to come thither and assuring them of her affection and care. Then [pg 195] she cuts the bunch of rice-stalks which she had tied together on one of the previous days. The stalks in the bunch must be nine in number, and their leaves must be cut with them, not thrown away. As she cuts, she may not look about her, nor cry out, nor speak to any one, nor be spoken to; but she says to the rice, “The prophet reaps you. I take you, but you diminish not; I hold you in my hand and you increase. You are the links of my soul, the support of my body, my blessing, my salvation. There is no God but God.” Then she passes to another corner of the field to cut the bunch of standing rice in it with the same ceremony; but before coming to it she stops half way to pluck another bunch of five stalks in like manner. Thus from the four sides of the field she collects in all fifty-six stalks of rice, which together make up the Mother of the Rice (ânrong pâre). Then in a corner of the field she makes a little stage and lays the Mother of the Rice on it, with the ears turned towards the standing rice and the cut stalks towards the dyke which encloses the field. After that she binds the fifty-six stalks of the Rice-mother into a sheaf with the bark of a particular kind of tree. As she does so, she says, “The prophet binds you into a sheaf; the angel increases you; the awâlli cares for you. We loved and cared for each other.” Then, after anointing the sheaf and fumigating it with incense, she lays it on the little stage. On this stage she had previously placed several kinds of rice, betel, one or more eggs, sweetmeats, and young coco-nuts, all as offerings to the Mother of the Rice, who, if she did not receive these attentions, would be offended and visit people with sickness or even vanish away altogether. Sometimes on large farms a fowl is killed and its blood deposited in the half of a coco-nut on the stage. The standing rice round about the stage is the last of the whole field to be reaped. When it has been cut, it is bound up with the Mother of the Rice into a single sheaf and carried home. Any body may carry the sheaf, but in doing so he or she must take care not to let it fall, or the Rice-mother would be angry and might disappear.[600]
The rice personified as a young woman among the Bataks of Sumatra.
Among the Battas or Bataks of Sumatra the rice appears to be personified as a young unmarried woman rather than as a mother. On the first day of reaping the crop only a few ears of rice are plucked and made up into a little sheaf. After that the reaping may begin, and while it is going forward offerings of rice and betel are presented in the middle of the field to the spirit of the rice, who is personified under the name of Miss Dajang. The offering is accompanied by a common meal shared by the reapers. When all the rice has been reaped, threshed and garnered, the little sheaf which was first cut is brought in and laid on the top of the heap in the granary, together with an egg or a stone, which is supposed to watch over the rice.[601] Though we are not told, we may assume that the personified spirit of the rice is supposed to be present in the first sheaf cut and in that form to keep guard over the rice in the granary. Another writer, who has independently described the customs of the Karo-Bataks at the rice-harvest, tells us that the largest sheaf, which is usually the one first made up, is regarded as the seat of the rice-soul and is treated exactly like a person; at the trampling of the paddy to separate the grain from the husks the sheaf in question is specially entrusted to a girl who has a lucky name, and whose parents are both alive.[602]
The King of the Rice in Mandeling.
In Mandeling, a district of Sumatra, contrary to what seems to be the usual practice, the spirit of the rice is personified as a male instead of as a female and is called the Rajah or King of the Rice. He is supposed to be immanent in certain rice-plants, which are recognised by their peculiar formation, such as a concealment of the ears in the sheath, an unusual arrangement of the leaves, or a stunted growth. When one or more such plants have been discovered in the field, they are sprinkled with lime-juice, and the spirits are invoked by name and informed that they are expected at home and that all is ready for their reception. Then the King of the Rice is plucked with the hand and seven neighbouring rice-stalks cut with a knife. He and his seven companions are then carefully brought home; the bearer may not speak a word, and the children in the house may make no noise till the King of the Rice has been safely lodged in the granary and tethered, for greater security, with a grass rope to one of the posts. As soon as that is done, the doors are shut to prevent the spirits of the rice from escaping. The person who fetches the King of the Rice from the field should prepare himself for the important duty by eating a hearty meal, for it would be an omen of a bad harvest if he presented himself before the King of the Rice with an empty stomach. For the same reason the sower of rice should sow the seed on a full stomach, in order that the ears which spring from the seed may be full also.[603]
The Rice-mother and the Rice-child at harvest in the Malay Peninsula.
Again, just as in Scotland the old and the young spirit of the corn are represented as an Old Wife (Cailleach) and a Maiden respectively, so in the Malay Peninsula we find both the Rice-mother and her child represented by different sheaves or bundles of ears on the harvest-field. The following directions for obtaining both are translated from a native Malay work on the cultivation of rice: “When the rice is [pg 198] ripe all over, one must first take the ‘soul’ out of all the plots of one's field. You choose the spot where the rice is best and where it is ‘female’ (that is to say, where the bunch of stalks is big) and where there are seven joints in the stalk. You begin with a bunch of this kind and clip seven stems to be the ‘soul of the rice’; and then you clip yet another handful to be the ‘mother-seed’ for the following year. The ‘soul’ is wrapped in a white cloth tied with a cord of tĕrap bark, and made into the shape of a little child in swaddling clothes, and put into the small basket. The ‘mother-seed’ is put into another basket, and both are fumigated with benzoin, and then the two baskets are piled the one on the other and taken home, and put into the kĕpuk (the receptacle in which rice is stored).”[604] The ceremony of cutting and bringing home the Soul of the Rice was witnessed by Mr. W. W. Skeat at Chodoi in Selangor on the twenty-eighth of January 1897. The particular bunch or sheaf which was to serve as the Mother of the Rice-soul had previously been sought and identified by means of the markings or shape of the ears. From this sheaf an aged sorceress, with much solemnity, cut a little bundle of seven ears, anointed them with oil, tied them round with parti-coloured thread, fumigated them with incense, and having wrapt them in a white cloth deposited them in a little oval-shaped basket. These seven ears were the infant Soul of the Rice and the little basket was its cradle. It was carried home to the farmer's house by another woman, who held up an umbrella to screen the tender infant from the hot rays of the sun. Arrived at the house the Rice-child was welcomed by the women of the family, and laid, cradle and all, on a new sleeping-mat with pillows at the head. After that the farmer's wife was instructed to observe certain rules of taboo for three days, the rules being in many respects identical with those which have to be observed for three days after the birth of a real child. For example, perfect quiet must be observed, as in a house where a baby has just been born; a light was placed near the head of the Rice-child's bed and might not go out at night, while the fire on the hearth had to be kept [pg 199] up both day and night till the three days were over; hair might not be cut; and money, rice, salt, oil, and so forth were forbidden to go out of the house, though of course these valuable articles were quite free to come in. Something of the same tender care which is thus bestowed on the newly-born Rice-child is naturally extended also to its parent, the sheaf from whose body it was taken. This sheaf, which remains standing in the field after the Rice-soul has been carried home and put to bed, is treated as a newly-made mother; that is to say, young shoots of trees are pounded together and scattered broadcast every evening for three successive days, and when the three days are up you take the pulp of a coco-nut and what are called “goat-flowers,” mix them up, eat them with a little sugar, and spit some of the mixture out among the rice. So after a real birth the young shoots of the jack-fruit, the rose-apple, certain kinds of banana, and the thin pulp of young coco-nuts are mixed with dried fish, salt, acid, prawn-condiment, and the like dainties to form a sort of salad, which is administered to mother and child for three successive days. The last sheaf is reaped by the farmer's wife, who carries it back to the house, where it is threshed and mixed with the Rice-soul. The farmer then takes the Rice-soul and its basket and deposits it, together with the product of the last sheaf, in the big circular rice-bin used by the Malays. Some grains from the Rice-soul are mixed with the seed which is to be sown in the following year.[605] In this Rice-mother and Rice-child of the Malay Peninsula we may see the counterpart and in a sense the prototype of the Demeter and Persephone of ancient Greece.