Come
from the country of the Shan and Burman. From the distant kingdoms
come. From all granaries come. O rice-_kelah,_ come to the rice."
The Corn-mother of our European peasants has her match in the
Rice-mother of the Minangkabauers of Sumatra. The Minangkabauers
definitely attribute a soul to rice, and will sometimes assert that
rice pounded in the usual way tastes better than rice ground in a
mill, because in the mill the body of the rice was so bruised and
battered that the soul has fled from it. Like the Javanese they
think that the rice is under the special guardianship of a female
spirit called Saning Sari, who is conceived as so closely knit up
with the plant that the rice often goes by her name, as with the
Romans the corn might be called Ceres. In particular Saning Sari is
represented by certain stalks or grains called _indoea padi,_ that
is, literally, "Mother of Rice," a name that is often given to the
guardian spirit herself. This so-called Mother of Rice is the
occasion of a number of ceremonies observed at the planting and
harvesting of the rice as well as during its preservation in the
barn.
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