The time of year and the rhythm of the seasons are of great importance for agricultural societies, and many ceremonies are rhythm of nature . Farm labor is a rite performed on Mother Earth and unleashes the sacred powers of vegetation and presupposes a series of ceremonies of various kinds intended to assist the growth of crops. There has always been a link between women and agrhculture. Among the Finns, seed used to be brought to the fields in cloth worn during menstruation, in the shoe of a prostitute, or the stocking of a bastard . Among the Estonians, flax seed is always brought to the field by young girls; the Swedes allow flax to be sown only by women. In Germany, it is women, particularly married pregnant ones, who sow the grain. Finnish peasant women sprinkled the furrows where the grain was sown with milk from their breasts. In Estonia and Finland, they used to sow at night sometimes, naked, saying, "Lord, I am naked! Bless my flax!" In Estonia the farmers guaranteed good crops by doing their ploughing and harrowing naked. Hindu women go naked through the fields in a drought, trying to conjure up rain. It is common to sprinkle a plough with water before ploughing, symbolizing rain, and in Germany, Estonia and Finland, they sprinkle the ploughman with water. In India, they say the rain fulfills the same role as semen in the relations between men and women. Women, fertility, sexuality, and nudity are all centers of power, and they are all rituals, so man must begin work in agriculture in a state of ritual purity . Sacrifices are made at seed time and at harvest time. The Finns and the Germans sacrificed rams, lambs, cats, dogs, and other animals. In some places in Central and North America, some parts of Africa, a few Pacific Islands, and a number of Dravidian tribes of India, human sacrifice was offered for a good harvest . The Aztecs of Mexico, as part of the rites for the maize crop, beheaded a young girl r...