Making Sugar on Tanegashima Pt. 2
Sugar Cane Harvesting
Today I spent the whole of my morning harvesting sugar cane. Well, that is not actually true, let me try that again.
Today I spent the whole of my morning cleaning sugarcane and bundling it up. The cane had been already cut down by the time that we had started, and all that I needed to do was cut off the dried leaves from the green sugarcane stalks. I was working with five other people, only one of whom was not over the age of 60. That being said, I was the slowest among them. Everyone had a role to play in their well practiced harvesting method.
First, (a few days before) they would cut the cane down and leave it in the field to dry out. Then once he leaves had dried the two oldest men would walk up the rows of cane and trim the tops off of the stalks. They determined where to cut based on the diameter of the cane, once it had narrowed to be smaller than your pinkie finger it was a good place to cut if it was within the top 40 cm of the stalk.
They would then separate these two pieces on either side of the furrow, tying up the tops to be disposed of later. That's where I would come in. My job was to clean and prepare the sugarcane to be bundled into 15 kilogram sections for easy transportation to the sugar hut. We used a type of kama that is split into two ends on the top like the letter Y. This made it much easier to cut off the dried leaves and the roots from each stalk of sugarcane.
Based on the size of the cane the amount in each bundle changed quite a bit, but most bundles were about 60cm around and slightly curved due to the bends in the sugarcane. When we had finished wrapping the cane, we moved it into a kei-truck and it was taken to the sugar hut. there we wrapped it in a tarp and left there until it will be time to make the kokutou with this specific crop.
Next time I will be helping to make the sugar again, so stay tuned for more details.
First, (a few days before) they would cut the cane down and leave it in the field to dry out. Then once he leaves had dried the two oldest men would walk up the rows of cane and trim the tops off of the stalks. They determined where to cut based on the diameter of the cane, once it had narrowed to be smaller than your pinkie finger it was a good place to cut if it was within the top 40 cm of the stalk.
They would then separate these two pieces on either side of the furrow, tying up the tops to be disposed of later. That's where I would come in. My job was to clean and prepare the sugarcane to be bundled into 15 kilogram sections for easy transportation to the sugar hut. We used a type of kama that is split into two ends on the top like the letter Y. This made it much easier to cut off the dried leaves and the roots from each stalk of sugarcane.
Based on the size of the cane the amount in each bundle changed quite a bit, but most bundles were about 60cm around and slightly curved due to the bends in the sugarcane. When we had finished wrapping the cane, we moved it into a kei-truck and it was taken to the sugar hut. there we wrapped it in a tarp and left there until it will be time to make the kokutou with this specific crop.
Next time I will be helping to make the sugar again, so stay tuned for more details.
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