Rice harvesting knife

“My husband made this rice knife in 1989 and I have been using it for nearly 20 years. It consists of two parts: Its blade and its body. Its iron blade, made from the broken sickle, is used to cut rice and is hidden inside. Its body is made from wood. It also has a string to circle my wrist in case I drop it when tying the rice sheaves.
Shifting cultivation is very important to the Thai. The annual harvest often begins in October (according to the lunar calendar). I place my hand on the bamboo tube on his body, clasp my index and middle fingers on its body and in the middle of the knife when cutting. Two fingers hold the rice stem and pull the blade to cut the stalks. The distance of the rice plants are different because we did hole manually to plant the seeds. Therefore, we have to harvest it stem by stem or only three to four stems at once. As the rice fills our hand, we tie them in a bunch and put them into the basket to bring home.”