(M160) Among the Taungthu of Upper Burma it is customary, when all the rice-fields have been reaped, to make a trail of unhusked rice (paddy) and husks all the way from the fields to the farm-house in order to guide the spirit or butterfly, as they call it, of the rice home to the granary. Care is taken that there should be no break in the trail, and the butterfly of the rice is invited with loud cries to come to the house. Were the spirit of the rice not secured in this manner, next year’s harvest would be bad.(591) Similarly among the Cherokee Indians of North America “care was always taken to keep a clean trail from the field to the house, so that the corn might be encouraged to stay at home and not go wandering elsewhere,” and “seven ears from the last year’s crop were always put carefully aside, in order to _attract the corn_, until the new crop was ripened.”(592) In Hsa Möng Hkam, a native state of Upper Burma, when two men work rice-fields in partnership, they take particular care as to the division of the grain between them. Each partner has a basket made, of which both top and bottom are carefully closed with wood to prevent the butterfly spirit of the rice from escaping; for if it were to flutter away, the next year’s crop would be but poor.(593) Among the Talaings of Lower Burma “the last sheaf is larger than the rest; it is brought home separately, usually if not invariably on the morning after the remainder of the harvest has been carted to the threshing-floor. The cultivators drive out in their bullock-cart, taking with them a woman’s comb, a looking-glass, and a woman’s skirt. The sheaf is dressed in the skirt, and apparently the form is gone through of presenting it with the glass and comb. It is then brought home in triumph, the people decking the cart with their silk kerchiefs, and cheering and singing the whole way. On their arrival home they celebrate the occasion with a feast. Strictly speaking the sheaf should be kept apart from the rest of the harvest; owing, however, to the high price of paddy it often finds its way to the threshing-floor. Even when this is not the case it is rarely tended so carefully as it is said to have been in former days, and if not threshed with the remaining crop is apt to be eaten by the cattle. So far as I could ascertain it had never been the custom to keep it throughout the year; but on the first ploughing of the ensuing season there was some ceremony in connection with it. The name of the sheaf was _Bonmagyi_; at first I was inclined to fancy that this was a contraction of _thelinbon ma gyi_, ‘the old woman of the threshing-floor.’ There are, however, various reasons for discarding this derivation, and I am unable to suggest any other.”(594) In this custom the personification of the last sheaf of rice as a woman comes out clearly in the practice of dressing it up in female attire.