Let us watch the typical group of the three women and the youth:  Each has a sharpened wooden turning stick, the kay-kay, a pole about 6 feet long and 2 inches in diameter.  The four stand side by side with their kay-kay stuck in the earth, and, in unison, they take one step forward and push their tools from them, the earth under which the tools are thrust falling away and crumbling in the water before them.  While it is falling away the toilers begin to sing, led by the elder woman.  The purport of the most common soil-turning song is this:  “It is hard work to turn the soil, but eating the rice is good.”  The song continues while the implements are withdrawn from the earth and jabbed in again in a new place, while the syllable pronounced at that instant is also noticeably jabbed into the air.  Again they withdraw their implements and, singing and working in rhythmic unison, again jab kay-kay and syllable.  The implements are now thrust about 8 inches below the surface; the song ceases; each toiler pries her section of the soil loose and, in a moment, together they push their tools from them, the mass of soil —­ some 2 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 8 inches deep —­ falls away in the water, and the song begins again.  As the earth is turned a camote, passed by in the camote harvest, is discovered; the old woman picks it up and lays it on the dry ground beside her.  The little girl shyly comes for it and stores it in a basket on the terrace wall with a few dozen others found during the morning.

After a section of earth 10 or 15 feet square has been turned the rhythmic labor and song ceases.  Each person now grasps her kay-kay with one hand at the middle and the other near the sharpened end and with it rapidly crumbles and spreads about the new-turned soil.  Now they trample the bed thoroughly, throwing out any stones or pebbles discovered by their feet, and frequently using the kay-kay further to break up some small clod of earth.  Finally a large section of the sementera is prepared, and the toilers form in line abreast and slowly tread back and forth over the plat, making the bed soft and smooth beneath the water for the transplanting.

It is a delightful picture in the soil-turning season to see the acres of terraces covered by groups of toilers, relieving their labors with almost constant song.

I saw only one variation from the above methods in the Bontoc area.  In some of the large sementeras in the flat river bottom near Bontoc pueblo a herd of seventeen carabaos was skillfully milled round and round in the water, after the soil was turned, stirring and mixing the bed into a uniform ooze.  The animals were managed by a man who drove them and turned them at will, using only his voice and a long switch.  It is impossible to get carabaos to many irrigated sementeras because of the high terrace walls, but this herd is used annually in the Bontoc river bottom.