Chapter 4 Summary

In Tindican, rice season always occurs in December, so Laye manages to find a way to be there at that time. On the day of the harvest, the head of each family rises at dawn to cut the first swath of rice from the field. As soon as the first swaths are cut, the tom-tom announces that the harvest has begun.

Laye doesn't understand where this tradition came from. He considers that the first swaths destroy the inviolability of the fields but admits that he never bothered to ask and didn't spend enough time there to learn much about the traditions. Once the tom-tom sounds, the reapers head out to the fields to begin their arduous work. These reapers are sturdy young men, precise in their movements and not easily tired. They sing as they work, their sickles rising and falling, naked to...