All the harvesters were women, and they scolded our
party long and severely while we were yet six or eight rods distant;
my Igorot boys carrying the photographic outfit -- boys who had
lived four months in my house -- laughingly but positively refused
to follow me closer than three or four rods to the sementera. No
photographs were obtained at that time. It was only after the matter
was talked over by some of the men of the pueblo that photographs
could be willingly obtained, and the force of the warning pud-i-pud'
withdrawn for our party. Even during the time my Igorot boys were
in the trail by a harvest party all other Igorot passed around the
warning runo. The Igorot says he believes the harvest will be blasted
even while being gathered should one pass along a pathway skirting
any side of the sementera.
Several harvesters, from four to a dozen, labor together in
each sementera. They begin at one side and pass across the plat,
gathering all grain as they pass. Men and women work together,
but women are recognized the better harvesters, since their hands
are more nimble. Each fruited stalk is grasped shortly below the
fruit head, and the upper section or joint of the stalk, together
with the fruit head and topmost leaf, is pulled off.
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