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

§ 4. The Rice-mother in the East Indies. 229into a sheaf, which is called “the Mother of the Rice” (inenopae), and offerings in the shape of rice, fowl's liver, eggs, andother things are laid down before it. When all the rest of therice in the field has been reaped, “the Mother of the Rice” iscut down and carried with due honour to the rice-barn, whereit is laid on the floor, and all the other sheaves are piled uponit. The Tomori, we are told, regard the Mother of the Rice asa special offering made to the rice-spirit Omonga, who dwellsin the moon. If that spirit is not treated with proper respect,for example if the people who fetch rice from the barn are notdecently clad, he is angry and punishes the offenders by eatingup 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, ashe devoured the rice. On the other hand the Toradjas of CentralCelebes, who also practise the custom of the Rice-mother atharvest, regard her as the actual mother of the whole harvest,and therefore keep her carefully, lest in her absence the garneredstore of rice should all melt away and disappear. 596 Among theTomori, as among other Indonesian peoples, reapers at work inthe field make use of special words which differ from the termsin ordinary use; the reason for adopting this peculiar form ofspeech at reaping appears to be, as I have already pointed out, afear of alarming the timid soul of the rice by revealing the fatein store for it. 597 To the same motive is perhaps to be ascribed [194]the practice observed by the Tomori of asking each other riddlesat harvest. 598 Similarly among the Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso,in Central Celebes, while the people are watching the crops inthe fields they amuse themselves with asking each other riddlesand telling stories, and when any one guesses a riddle aright,596 A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent deToboengkoe en de Tomori,” Mededeelingen van wege het NederlandscheZendelinggenootschap, xliv. (1900) pp. 227, 230 sq.597 See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 411 sq.598 A. C. Kruijt, op. cit. p. 228.