The middle part of a rice field marked during a rice planting ceremony.
A specialist tabib goes with other people to the field to be planted. They stand in the middle of the field. He waits until someone says something really nice/good or he looks for a certain little dirt pile made by an insect. When he finds it or hears something good he plants a small square with rice and puts markers on the four corners. Sometimes a little fence is made around it. After that the whole field is planted. Ten deppe (approx. 5m) are measured from the edge of the field, and the whole field is divided into sections of approximately ten deppe each. The sections are marked with sticks. Sometimes each section is planted with a different kind of rice. But the whole field may be planted with the same kind of grain. When the heads of grain start coming out, the same tabib takes incense to the middle of the field and he speaks to the rice so that it will produce much fruit. When some of the rice is ripe the tabib goes and ties several of the ripe stalks near the ubang together (tinembukuhan). This is accompanied by another ceremony. Incense is used and prayers are said. The rice is addressed and told not to be afraid to be cut. The tinembukuhan is left standing and harvested together with the antanan. If at harvest time one kind ripens before the others, that one is harvested first. If the section first harvested happens to be in the middle of the field, a narrow strip of grain of approx 50 cm is left standing to connect the other sections with the very center. And that is the antanan.
Put rice into the coconut shell for the marked middle part of the field.
Atag ingge ubang tana'nun?
Where is the marked middle part of your field?