believes that she takes care of the rice in the barn and even multiplies it not uncommonly.(595) (M162) When the Tomori of Central Celebes are about to plant the rice, they bury in the field some betel as an offering to the spirits who cause the rice to grow. Over the spot where the offering is buried a small floor of wood is laid, and the family sits on it and consumes betel together as a sort of silent prayer or charm to ensure the growth of the crop. The rice that is planted round this spot is the last to be reaped at harvest. At the commencement of the reaping the stalks of this patch of rice are tied together into a sheaf, which is called “the Mother of the Rice” (_ineno pae_), and offerings in the shape of rice, fowl’s liver, eggs, and other things are laid down before it. When all the rest of the rice in the field has been reaped, “the Mother of the Rice” is cut down and carried with due honour to the rice-barn, where it is laid on the floor, and all the other sheaves are piled upon it. The Tomori, we are told, regard the Mother of the Rice as a special offering made to the rice-spirit Omonga, who dwells in the moon. If that spirit is not treated with proper respect, for example if the people who fetch rice from the barn are not decently clad, he is angry and punishes the offenders by eating up twice as much rice in the barn as they have taken out of it; some people have heard him smacking his lips in the barn, as he devoured the rice. On the other hand the Toradjas of Central Celebes, who also practise the custom of the Rice-mother at harvest, regard her as the actual mother of the whole harvest, and therefore keep her carefully, lest in her absence the garnered store of rice should all melt away and disappear.(596) Among the Tomori, as among other Indonesian peoples, reapers at work in the field make use of special words which differ from the terms in ordinary use; the reason for adopting this peculiar form of speech at reaping appears to be, as I have already pointed out, a fear of alarming the timid soul of the rice by revealing the fate in store for it.(597) To the same motive is perhaps to be ascribed the practice observed by the Tomori of asking each other riddles at harvest.(598) Similarly among the Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso, in Central Celebes, while the people are watching the crops in the fields they amuse themselves with asking each other riddles and telling stories, and when any one guesses a riddle aright, the whole company cries out, “Let our rice come up, let fat ears come up both in the lowlands and on the heights.” But all the time between harvest and the laying out of new fields the asking of riddles and the telling of stories is strictly forbidden.(599) Thus among these people it seems that the asking of riddles is for some reason regarded as a charm which may make or mar the crops.