Note 23 — DOMESTIC LIFE

The Lhota fowl (hono) much resembles the red jungle fowl (Gallus ferrugineus), with which it often interbreeds. Crosses with the kalij pheasant (Gennæus horsfieldi) too are by no means unknown. Fowls live on what they can pick up, but never seem to wander far from home. Old baskets are put up on shelves in the mpongki for hens to lay in and hatch their chickens out of the reach of rats. The owner must take the chickens down from the basket either after sunset or before sunrise. Before doing so he puts a piece of burnt wood (or in some villages five pieces of burnt wood) into the basket and says: “When you wander may you not be lost or fall a prey to wild cat or hawk.” The egg-shells are strung on a bit of bamboo and hung up in the house, it is said in order to keep a reckoning of the number of eggs hatched in the year.23 Nowadays pigeons (vephu) are kept by a few people. Ducks are never kept, though large numbers are brought up from the plains for food.