Every day for nearly two months,
or until the fruit heads appear, the cultivators are diligently at
work in the sementeras. No tools or agricultural implements other
than bare hands are used in this work.
The men keep constant watch of the sementera walls and the irrigating
canals, repairing all, thus indirectly assisting the women in their
cultivation by directing water to the growing crop and by conserving
it when it is obtained.
Protecting
The rice begins to fruit early in April, at which time systematic
effort to protect the new grain from birds, rats, monkeys, and wild
hogs commences. This effort continues until the harvest is completed,
practically for three months. Much of this labor is performed by
water power, much by wind power, and about all the children and old
people in a pueblo are busied from early dawn until twilight in the
sementera as independent guards. Besides, throughout the long night
men and women build fires among the sementeras and guard their crop
from the wild hog. It is a critical time with the Igorot.
The most natural, simplest, and undoubtedly the most successful
protection of the grain is the presence of a person on the terrace
walls of the sementera, whether by day or night.
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