lowed to take him up, you're not allowed to hold him [gendong]." When we
asked why, she explained as if it were self-evident, "Later, he'd smell of my
wea at."^' Genduk Ginem (who asked us to call her by the name used by her
Dutch employers), on the other hand, had been allowed to gendong, but hardly
remembered this contact nostalgically. She recalled having to carry children
who were too old and heavy to be cradled in a slendang, whose bodies weighed
heavily on her owns2