(M168) Another account of the Javanese custom runs as follows. When the rice at harvest is to be brought home, two handfuls of common unhusked rice (paddy) are tied together into a sheaf, and two handfuls of a special kind of rice (_kleefrijst_) are tied up into another sheaf; then the two sheaves are fastened together in a bundle which goes by the name of “the bridal pair” (_pĕn-gantenan_). The special rice is the bridegroom, the common rice is the bride. At the barn “the bridal pair” is received on a winnowing-fan by a wizard, who removes them from the fan and lays them on the floor with a couch of _kloewih_ leaves under them “in order that the rice may increase,” and beside them he places a _kĕmiri_ nut, tamarind pips, and a top and string as playthings with which the young couple may divert themselves. The bride is called Emboq Sri and the bridegroom Sadana, and the wizard addresses them by name, saying: “Emboq Sri and Sadana, I have now brought you home and I have prepared a place for you. May you sleep agreeably in this agreeable place! Emboq Sri and Sadana, you have been received by So-and-So (the owner), let So-and-So lead a life free from care. May Emboq Sri’s luck continue in this very agreeable place!”(608) (M169) The same idea of the rice-spirit as a husband and wife meets us also in the harvest customs of Bali and Lombok, two islands which lie immediately to the east of Java. “The inhabitants of Lombok,” we are told, “think of the rice-plant as animated by a soul. They regard it as one with a divinity and treat it with the distinction and honour that are shewn to a very important person. But as it is impossible to treat all the rice-stalks in a field ceremoniously, the native, feeling the need of a visible and tangible representative of the rice-deity and taking a part for the whole, picks out some stalks and conceives them as the visible abode of the rice-soul, to which he can pay his homage and from which he hopes to derive advantage. These few stalks, the foremost among their many peers, form what is called the _ninin pantun_ by the people of Bali and the _inan paré_ by the Sassaks” of Lombok.(609) The name _ina paré_ is sometimes translated Rice-mother, but the more correct translation is said to be “the principal rice.” The stalks of which this “principal rice” consists are the first nine shoots which the husbandman himself takes with his own hands from the nursery or bedding-out ground and plants at the upper end of the rice-field beside the inlet of the irrigation water. They are planted with great care in a definite order, one of them in the middle and the other eight in a circle about it. When the whole field has been planted, an offering, which usually consists of rice in many forms, is made to “the principal rice” (_inan paré_). When the rice-stalks begin to swell the rice is said to be pregnant, and the “principal rice” is treated with the delicate attentions which are paid to a woman with child. Thus