(M163) Among some of the Toradjas of Celebes the ceremony of cutting and bringing home the Mother of the Rice is observed as follows. When the crop is ripe in the fields, the Mother of the Rice (_ânrong pâre_) must be fetched before the rest of the harvest is reaped. The ceremony is performed on a lucky day by a woman, who knows the rites. For three days previously she observes certain precautions to prevent the soul (_soemangâna âse_) of the rice from escaping out of the field, as it might be apt to do, if it got wind that the reapers with their cruel knives were so soon to crop the ripe ears. With this view she ties up a handful of standing stalks of the rice into a bunch in each corner of the field, while she recites an invocation to the spirits of the rice, bidding them gather in the field from the four quarters of the heaven. As a further precaution she stops the sluices, lest with the outrush of the water from the rice-field the sly soul of the rice should make good its escape. And she ties knots in the leaves of the rice-plants, all to hinder the soul of the rice from running away. This she does in the afternoon of three successive days. On the morning of the fourth day she comes again to the field, sits down in a corner of it, and kisses the rice three times, again inviting the souls of the rice to come thither and assuring them of her affection and care. Then she cuts the bunch of rice-stalks which she had tied together on one of the previous days. The stalks in the bunch must be nine in number, and their leaves must be cut with them, not thrown away. As she cuts, she may not look about her, nor cry out, nor speak to any one, nor be spoken to; but she says to the rice, “The prophet reaps you. I take you, but you diminish not; I hold you in my hand and you increase. You are the links of my soul, the support of my body, my blessing, my salvation. There is no God but God.” Then she passes to another corner of the field to cut the bunch of standing rice in it with the same ceremony; but before coming to it she stops half way to pluck another bunch of five stalks in like manner. Thus from the four sides of the field she collects in all fifty-six stalks of rice, which together make up the Mother of the Rice (_ânrong pâre_). Then in a corner of the field she makes a little stage and lays the Mother of the Rice on it, with the ears turned towards the standing rice and the cut stalks towards the dyke which encloses the field. After that she binds the fifty-six stalks of the Rice-mother into a sheaf with the bark of a particular kind of tree. As she does so, she says, “The prophet binds you into a sheaf; the angel increases you; the _awâlli_ cares for you. We loved and cared for each other.” Then, after anointing the sheaf and fumigating it with incense, she lays it on the little stage. On this stage she had previously placed several kinds of rice, betel, one or more eggs, sweetmeats, and young coco-nuts, all as