is performed by the women. They dig the soil with a hoe and plant maize and manioc. A field is used only once.(379) So with the Ba-Mbala, a Bantu tribe between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu, the men clear the ground for cultivation, but all the rest of the work of tillage falls to the women, whose only tool is an iron hoe. Fresh ground is cleared for cultivation every year.(380) The Mpongwe of the Gaboon, in West Africa, cultivate manioc (cassava), maize, yams, plantains, sweet potatoes, and ground nuts. When new clearings have to be made in the forest, the men cut down and burn the trees, and the women put in the crop. The only tool they use is a dibble, with which they turn up a sod, put in a seed, and cover it over.(381) Among the Ashira of the same region the cultivation of the soil is in the hands of the women.(382) (M89) A similar division of labour between men and women prevails among many primitive agricultural tribes of Indians in South America. “In the interior of the villages,” says an eminent authority on aboriginal South America, “the man often absents himself to hunt or to go into the heart of the forest in search of the honey of the wild bees, and he always goes alone. He fells the trees in the places where he wishes to make a field for cultivation, he fashions his weapons, he digs out his canoe, while the woman rears the children, makes the garments, busies herself with the interior, cultivates the field, gathers the fruits, collects the roots, and prepares the food. Such is, generally at least, the respective condition of the two sexes among almost all the Americans. The Peruvians alone had already, in their semi-civilised state, partially modified these customs; for among them the man shared the toils of the other sex or took on himself the most laborious tasks.”(383) Thus, to take examples, among the Caribs of the West Indies the men used to fell the trees and leave the fallen trunks to cumber the ground, burning off only the smaller boughs. Then the women came and planted manioc, potatoes, yams, and bananas wherever they found room among the tree-trunks. In digging the ground to receive the seed or the shoots they did not use hoes but simply pointed sticks. The men, we are told, would rather have died of hunger than undertake such agricultural labours.(384) Again, the staple vegetable food of the Indians of British Guiana is cassava bread, made from the roots of the manioc or cassava plant, which the Indians cultivate in clearings of the forest. The men fell the trees, cut down the undergrowth, and in dry weather set fire to the fallen lumber, thus creating open patches in the forest which are covered with white ashes. When the rains set in, the women repair to these clearings, heavily laden with baskets full of cassava sticks to be used as cuttings. These they insert at irregular intervals in the soil, and so the field is formed. While the cassava is growing, the women do just as much weeding as is necessary to prevent the