Rice block

Palungang-lampe

Note: The following text is taken from a 19th-century collection catalog and, in its language and perspective, partially reflects colonial thought patterns. We present the text in its original version to make the collection's history transparent and promote a critical examination of the colonial legacy. Certain terms and formulations may be perceived as problematic today. A 2009 research project concluded that most descriptions are factually correct and still usable; only a few details were found to be inaccurate or incorrect. The results of this project were published in the following collection catalog: https://khm-wmw-tm-library.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1457155265

"373. Rice block - "Palungang-lampe".
The present rice block is the smallest of this kind that exists. Rice blocks are made from whole tree trunks, often three or four meters long. This one has only two depressions, like mortars, while the larger ones have, besides these round cavities, also elongated, trough-shaped cavities. In the latter the collected rice heads are separated from the grains by means of wooden pestles, a procedure which is like our threshing. In the bowl-shaped cavities, on the other hand, the rice grains are freed from their hulls by pounding and thus changed into edible rice. The rice block is the most typical implement of all the natives in the entire East Indian Archipelago, it is the most important tool that must be present in every household since with this the best food, rice, can be prepared for eating.
Only women pound the rice. They stand dressed only in their cotton skirts, "sarong", at the block either with their whole upper body naked or the sarong tied simply under their arms above the breast. They are dressed as lightly as possible for this tiring work. Pounding demands that the pounder (large pestle), which is about one and a half meters long, is held in the middle and as it is thrust downwards it is thrown from one hand to the other so that the hands alternately raise and lower the pestle: one hand works while the other rests. The pounding requires a certain rhythm and creates a peculiar sound which can be heard from far away.
Normally rice is pounded all through the year, as much as is needed for a short time since the native is not a friend of great stores.
After the harvest the pounding is done in great style in every village in every house since one does not only need the ready-to-cook rice for selling, but also for the preparation of many dishes for the now numerous festivals and feasts. For the harvest time is the time of festivities, all religious and national celebrations have been transferred to this time, in this time most of the weddings are held, with magnificent celebrations. Rice pounding normally takes place in moonlit nights. All of the women and girls gather around the rice block, shortening the time by chatting and singing, and here is the place where the girls from the farming community find the admirers and husbands. In such nights, the young men of the village swarm around in the village from house to house wherever young girls are standing at the rice block, they begin making jokes and polite comments of all kinds in order to approach the girls. But never would one hear a rough word or frivolity, this is foreign to these nature-people. Just as it is for us on the dance-floor that girls will try to win a man by using the arts of coquette, also here the half-naked child, following the natural drives, will understand how to come closer to the other sex in a childish, naive way, and to join him. 
But the rice block does not only serve peaceful purposes, it is also the storm-warning bell of the villages in times of disturbance or danger. When the indescribable patience of the very good-natured natives comes to an end because of unprecedented oppression of any kind, he reaches for his weapons to free himself from his shackles, to fight a fight of life and death. If he is fired on into the fight by fanatic priests or his prince then both men and women stand in front of the rice blocks of their houses and show by their pounding in the empty block and by cries of war the signal to do battle. This spreads from house to house, village to village in the whole region - often over the whole island, continues day and night until the decision comes which normally means the slaughter of thousands of these poor people.
 And there is a third purpose of this simple household utensil. It is, namely, the best help in driving out devils. Its voice drives out the evil spirit, the approaching danger. If there is an eclipse of the moon where the moon fights with the evil spirit who wants to destroy him, then the rice block is hit all night in every house in the whole village and throughout the whole island, everywhere where the spectacle is visible; and far and wide the peculiar sound rings through the magnificent night of this paradise. When there is an epidemic which decimates the people as well as with other elemental occurrences which threaten the defenceless people and their work, then they flee to the to the rice block. The monotone singing of the natives is silenced, one sees no happy faces, no romantic pairs standing by the blocks; visible is only fear and despair and one hears only the dull beating of the block. The concept of God is not developed in the native, he reaches in his fear to other mean to stay the unseen powers and to quiet his excited fantasy by making noise."

Translation of: Czurda, F. A. J. (1883). Catalog mit Erklärungen der Etnografischen Privatsammlung des Dr. F. A. J. Czurda in Postelberg (Böhmen). (p. 75-77). Wien, Wilhelm Braumüller