When the wet-rice fields have been soaked and softened, the task of ploughing begins. In some cases, where the terraces are too small for buffaloes to move in, hoeing is done to break up the earth instead of ploughing. It is interesting to note that while the hoeing of wet-rice fields is described by a full Karen term in palokhi, ploughing is not, containing as it does the Northern Thai term for “plough”, thaaj. This is because the Karen have their own word for “hoe” and “wet-rice field” (see also Jones [1961: 157]), but not for plough. The ploughshares, which the Palokhi Karen use, are all purchased from Northern Thai shops, but the frames are made in Palokhi. A further interesting feature about the influence of Northern Thai on ploughing in Palokhi is the use of Northern Thai commands in driving buffaloes, khwaa (“right”) and tauj (“turn around”). Although some buffaloes in Palokhi actually belong to Northern Thai and therefore “they understand only Northern Thai”, nonetheless, the Palokhi Karen will often use these commands when they handle their own buffaloes.

Ploughing is hard work indeed, but it can only be done by two men at a time — one to lead the buffalo, and another to work the plough. All wet-rice cultivating households have buffaloes but almost all of them make mutual arrangements of one sort or another in ploughing. The most common of these are work exchange arrangements between households which have only one adult male capable of undertaking the hard work of ploughing which women cannot, and which old men are unable to because of their infirmity. Those households which have more working age males are, of course, able to carry out the ploughing of their fields entirely with their own internal supplies of labour. It is also worth noting that in Palokhi, the buffaloes which do not belong to the villagers have been left with them by Northern Thai, or Karen, on agistment. This is a great advantage to the households which rear them because they may use the animals without charge, and at the same time acquire buffaloes eventually according to the terms of agistment agreements which usually specify equal shares in the calves bred by the buffaloes on agistment (see Appendix G).

The process of ploughing itself has the effect of breaking up the earth and mixing the stubble and buffalo dung left by grazing buffaloes into the soil. It thus assists, though only partially, in recycling nutrients back into the soil. This process would be more efficient if the stubble were burnt prior to flooding and ploughing (Hanks [1972:37]) but, in Palokhi, this is hardly ever done and, when it is, only parts of fields are treated in this way.