The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

Chapter IV. Woman's Part in Primitive Agriculture. 149backs. They cultivate rice, millet, and bananas. 395 So among thenatives of Kaimani Bay in Dutch New Guinea the men occupythemselves only with fishing and hunting, while all the field workfalls on the women. 396 In the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain,when the natives have decided to convert a piece of grass-landinto a plantation, the men cut down the long grass, burn it, digup the soil with sharp-pointed sticks, and enclose the land witha fence of saplings. Then the women plant the banana shoots,weed the ground, and in the intervals between the bananas insertslips of yams, sweet potatoes, sugar-cane, or ginger. When theproduce is ripe, they carry it to the village. Thus the bulk of thelabour of cultivation devolves on the women. 397 [124]Among some peoples of the Indian Archipelago, after the Division ofagricultural workland has been cleared for cultivation by the men, the work ofbetween menplanting and sowing is divided between men and women, the and womenmen digging holes in the ground with pointed sticks, and the in the IndianArchipelago.women following them, putting the seeds or shoots into the holes,and then huddling the earth over them; for savages seldom sowbroadcast, they laboriously dig holes and insert the seed in them.This division of agricultural labour between the sexes is adoptedby various tribes of Celebes, Ceram, Borneo, Nias, and NewGuinea. 398 Sometimes the custom of entrusting the sowing of395 Nieuw Guinea, ethnographisch en natuurkundig onderzocht en beschreven(Amsterdam, 1862), p. 159.396 Op. cit. p. 119; H. von Rosenberg, Der Malayische Archipel (Leipsic,1878), p. 433.397 P. A. Kleintitschen, Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel (Hiltrupbei Münster, preface dated Christmas, 1906), pp. 60 sq.; G. Brown, D.D.,Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 324 sq.398 A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en maatschappelijkleven van den Poso-Alfoer,” Mededeelingen van wege het NederlandscheZendelinggenootschap, xxxix. (1895) pp. 132, 134; J. Boot, “Korte schetsder noordkust van Ceram,” Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch AardrijkskundigGenootschap, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) p. 672; E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Yearsamong the Sea Dyaks of Borneo (London, 1911), p. 46; E. Modigliani, UnViaggio a Nías (Milan, 1890), pp. 590 sq.; K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf