The Farmers - Everyday Life in Traditional Japan - page 52

(32) Rice-planting. Men bring seedlings from the nursery-bed, and young women plant
them out.
The main fields were prepared by plowing or digging, to get rid of any stubble remain-
ing and to turn in weeds and manure in the form of vegetable compost, ashes, mud from
ditches, and so on. If the field was not already naturally flooded, this cultivation might be
done before the water was brought in, but at all events the field was flooded before the
planting. This was one of the great occasions of the year. It was organized as a communal
operation, with persons from a group of farms co-operating. The actual planters were usu-
ally young women, partly perhaps because of their dexterity, but mainly from a traditional
feeling that their potential fertility as child-bearers would transfer itself to the rice. They
workedinline—usuallybackwards,butsometimesforwards—acrossthefield,pushingthe
roots of the plants into the soft mud at regular intervals ( 32 ) . Plants were taken from the
beds by more experienced workers, to avoid root-damage, tied into bundles and thrown in-
to the fields so that the transplanters could pick them up. An important duty of the owner
of the field was the provision of food, and pictures of rice planting nearly always include
a young girl loaded with trays and carrying liquid refreshment. The work is very arduous,
done with bent backs and requiring speed, rhythm, and endurance; in many places songs
were sungaccompanied bymusic anddancing onthe embankments, asmuch torelieve the
tedium of the planting and provide a rhythmical stimulus as to celebrate the joy of restart-