A rice pounder is an agricultural tool made from a simple machine. This one is located in Doi Pui, a Hmong Village in the northern province of Chiang Mai in Thailand.
Rice pounders are commonly used in Southeast Asia to dehull rice or to turn rice into rice flour. The device has similar functionality to a mortar and pestle, but the one in Doi Pui is water-driven to conserve manual labor.
When the water fills the cavity in the “handle”, the heavy head (or pestle) of the pounder rises, the water spills in the river down below, and then the head drops into the mortar crushing its contents.
As Doi Pui is a village for tourists set up to experience what Hmong lifestyle is supposedly like, there was no rice in the mortar…
Now, watch the water-driven rice pounder in action:
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