The women with their heads loaded
high with ripened grain are striking figures -- and one wonders at
the security of the loads.
When a load is made it is borne to the transportation baskets in some
part of the harvested section of the sementera, where it is gently slid
to the earth over the front of the head as the woman stoops forward. It
is loaded into the basket at once unless there is a scarcity of binders
in the field, in which case it awaits the completion of the harvest.
In all agricultural labors the Igorot is industrious, yet his humor,
ever present with him, brings relief from continued toil. The harvest
field is no exception, since there is much quiet gossip and jest
during the labors.
In 1903 rice was first harvested May 2. The harvest continued one
month, the crop of a sementera being gathered here and there as it
ripened. The Igorot calls this first harvest month the "moon of the
small harvest." During June the crop is ripened everywhere, and the
harvest is on in earnest; the Igorot speaks of it as the "moon of
the all harvest."
I had no view of the harvest of millet or maize; however, I have seen
in the pueblo much of each grain of some previous harvest.
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