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

232 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)The ricepersonified asa young womanamong the Bataksof Sumatra.Among the Battas or Bataks of Sumatra the rice appears tobe personified as a young unmarried woman rather than as amother. On the first day of reaping the crop only a few earsof rice are plucked and made up into a little sheaf. After thatthe reaping may begin, and while it is going forward offeringsof rice and betel are presented in the middle of the field to thespirit of the rice, who is personified under the name of MissDajang. The offering is accompanied by a common meal sharedby the reapers. When all the rice has been reaped, threshed andgarnered, the little sheaf which was first cut is brought in andlaid on the top of the heap in the granary, together with an egg ora stone, which is supposed to watch over the rice. 601 Though weare not told, we may assume that the personified spirit of the riceis supposed to be present in the first sheaf cut and in that formto keep guard over the rice in the granary. Another writer, whohas independently described the customs of the Karo-Bataks atthe rice-harvest, tells us that the largest sheaf, which is usuallythe one first made up, is regarded as the seat of the rice-soul andis treated exactly like a person; at the trampling of the paddyto separate the grain from the husks the sheaf in question isspecially entrusted to a girl who has a lucky name, and whosearticle from Tanneteya (in Celebes?), but otherwise gives no indication of thegeographical position of the people he describes. A similar omission is commonwith Dutch writers on the geography and ethnology of the East Indies, whotoo often appear to assume that the uncouth names of these barbarous tribesand obscure hamlets are as familiar to European readers as Amsterdam or theHague. The Toerateyas whose customs Mr. Maan describes in this article arethe inland inhabitants of Celebes. Their name Toerateyas or Toradjas signifiessimply “inlanders” and is applied to them by their neighbours who live nearerthe sea; it is not a name used by the people themselves. The Toradjas includemany tribes and the particular tribe whose usages in regard to the Rice-motherare described in the text is probably not one of those whose customs and beliefshave been described by Mr. A. C. Kruijt in many valuable papers. See above,p. 183 note 1, and The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 109 note 1.601 M. Joustra, “Het leven, de zeden en gewoonten der Bataks,” Mededeelingenvan wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlvi. (1902) pp. 425 sq.