He Told Me That Nearly All The Children Were Ill, Also Two Adults, But Nobody Had Died From A Disease Which Was Raging, Evidently Measles.

At Ado a harvest-festival was in progress in the balei, which, there, was of rectangular shape.

Within I found quite elaborate preparations, among which was prominently displayed a wooden image of the great hornbill. There was also a tall, ornamental stand resembling a candelabrum, made of wood and decorated with a profusion of long, slightly twisted strips of leaves from the sugar-palm, which hung down to the floor. From here nine men returned to our last camping-place, where they had left a similar feast in order to serve me. The harvest-festival is called bluput, which means that the people fulfil their promise to antoh. It lasts from five to seven days, and consists mostly of dancing at night. Neighbouring kampongs are invited and the guests are given boiled rice, and sometimes babi, also young bamboo shoots, which are in great favour and are eaten as a sayur. When the harvest is poor, no feast is made.

The balei was very stuffy, and little light or air could enter, so I continued my journey, arriving later in the afternoon at Beringan, where a tiny, but clean, pasang-grahan awaited us. It consisted mainly of four small bamboo stalls, in which there was room for all of us to sleep, but the confined air produced a disagreeable congestion in my head the next day.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 313 of 489
Words from 83395 to 83645 of 132281