Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (4.1980/1983)

92

AX. STEENSBERG

taro in the wet areas around the Paniai lakes.
The fertilizing qualities of mud were also
recognized in antiquity on riverine plains in
the Near East and Egypt, and it has been
used in a smaller scale in Europe, dug up
from village ponds and moats, probably at
least since medieval times (Steensberg 1980,
85-87).
The Harvesting of Rice
When the rice crops are ripening someone
must stay in the fields in the daytime to scare
birds and other pests that would eat the


grain. For that purpose roof-covered plat-
forms are built on dividing baulks between
rice fields.
The technique of harvesting the rice crops
in Java is different from the methods prac-
tised in mainland South-East Asia, India and
Japan. The women harvesters use a small
rice-knife called e(p)tem in the local Sunda-
nese and aniani in the Indonesian language
(fig. 16 and 14 left). Its haft has a transverse
peg which is pointed at one end so that it can
be tucked into the bundles of rice carried
home, or put behind a beam or rib in the
house, where it can easily be found when
needed.
The woman harvester holds it in the palm
of her right hand with the two middle fingers
round the peg, leaving the thumb, forefinger


Fig. 14. A collection of harvesting, pruning and
weeding tools, drawn in the Herbarium at Bogor.
Eine Sammlung von Ernte-, Beschneide- und
Jatwerkzeugen, gezeichnet im Herbarium von
Bogor.

Fig. 15. Water is distributed by means of bam-
boo-tubes resting on portable cross-bars, d
Wasser wird mittels Bambusrohren, die auf be-
weglichen Querbalken aufliegen, verteilt.



Bandung, Java.
*s, Hr

Fig. 16. The typical Javanese rice-knife, bought
in a shop near Bandung. Drawing to scale.
Typisches javanisches Reismesser, gekauft in ei-
nem Geschaft in der Nahe von Bandung.