By late September and early October, the rice in Palokhi terraces are about ready for harvesting. Before it can be harvested, however, the terraces must be drained of water and this is done by breaching the dams in the Huai Thung Choa. At this time of the year, the wet season is also approaching its close, and within a week to a fortnight of breaching the dams, the wet-rice terraces are completely dry. The harvesting of wet-rice is similar to that of swidden rice and, as I have already described the three phases involved (that is, reaping, threshing and the transport and storing of the harvest) in Appendix D, I shall not therefore deal with this aspect of the wet-rice cycle in Palokhi.

However, it may be noted that this particular stage in the wet-rice cycle is not surrounded by the rituals associated with its corresponding stage in the swidden cycle unless the cultivation of wet-rice is the sole form of agriculture undertaken by a household. That is to say, where households cultivate both swiddens and wet-rice fields, the rituals in swiddens are deemed to suffice for wet-rice fields as well. Quite apart from the calendrical system, this is a clear indication of the ideological weight attached to swiddening in Palokhi despite the very important part played by wet-rice agriculture in the subsistence economy of the Palokhi Karen.