Video Overview
A villager hollows out bamboos in order to supply water through bamboo pipes. Where good springs are available on the slopes above the village, bamboo pipelines (katoa-mpui) are often constructed, and an additional water-supply is brought to troughs sited in the village street. The pipes are made of bamboos split lengthways, the nodes being chipped out. The sections are laid with their ends overlapping so that they form a continuous open runnel, and they are propped up on crotches whose varying height keeps the line's gradient constant over the uneven ground; (30) (From the field notes of Ursula Betts, Date: 1950)
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- Naga
MASTER TAPE INFO Master Tape Label: NDRP Master 1 Recorded: 1940-01-01
(F11558)
Field Notes Continued:
... the sections are tied to each other and to their supports by strips of bamboo. Lines may be a mile or more long. The troughs (katoa-bung) into which they deliver are 12 feet or more long and are hollowed out of a tree-trunk. The ends project as shelves, are ornamented with female breasts carved in high relief, and have basins hollowed in them for the pounding of soap-creeper. Each kienga owns and maintains a pipeline and trough and receives an annual payment of one bamboo tube of rice-beer from each household using that supply. The village troughs are used chiefly by women, who draw water there and wash themselves, their children and their clothes. Men use separate bathing-places a little way from the village, wherever suitable spots, such as a point on the pipeline or a spring in the jungle, are available.