DISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR

In Bali one may see a woman laying bricks or breaking stones to pave a road, or find men in the market in Den Pasar sitting at their sewing-machines making blouses for women, but it would be unthinkable for a woman to paint a picture or to climb a coconut tree; a man would be disgraced if seen performing work that is the perquisite of women.

The labour allotted to each sex is sharply defined; all heavy work requiring manly attributes - agriculture, building in wood or thatch, the care of cattle - as well as most of the trades and crafts, such as carpentry, wood- and stone-carving, painting, writing, playing musical instruments, is the work of men.

Women own, raise, and sell chickens and pigs, but only men care for cow buffaloes, and ducks. Since men dislike working for wages, the women of the lower classes are obliged to engage as coolies transporting building-materials, carrying coconuts to sell to the Chinese for making copra, delivering charcoal, or obtaining broke coral from the beach to make lime. Although only men build Balinese houses, women are the house-painters and work as masons in constructions of Western style.

Domestic duties such as fetching water for the kitchen, threshing rice, making flour, weaving, and making domestic offerings are performed by women, but men take an equal interest in the care of children and are proud to carry their sons everywhere While the daily food is cooked by women, only men may prepare the pork and turtle dishes for banquets, and rice may be cooked by both.

When at harvest-time both sexes help cut the rice and carry it home, every woman holds one of the heavy sheaves on h head, and the men carry two, one on each end of a pole swung across the shoulders. It is a rule that a woman carries only on her head and a man on his shoulders, except for offerings and holy objects, which must be carried on the head.