Notes: |
A few days after Papuq Sip's death in January 1998, his bereaved wife, assisted by a female neighbour, was busy taking down bundles of 'red rice' (<i>pare beaq ganggas</i>) from the granary. All morning rhythmic pounding was heard throughout the compound as the women separated the red-brown rice kernels from the stalks, using long bamboo poles. Pausing from the strenuous work, the old widow noted that the rice was almost ten years old, and that it probably had lost much of its aroma. She and her husband had kept the rice so that when one of them died, 'some rice from their own house would follow along.' Several rice-bundles had been removed from the granary the morning Papuq Sop died, and more bundles would be taken down for Nyatus, the final mortuary feast to be held one hundred days after death. This morning she was pounding rice for the upcoming nine-day feast, for her husband should 'not die in a state of neglect' (<i>adin ndeq mate butung</i>).
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