If anyone is certain they know what is happening in this scene, please explain it to me and my viewers, because I'm at a loss. What I see when I look at this photo is a barrel that is half wrapped in what appears to be burlap. The wrapper is bent downwards, and below it is a mound of what I can only assume is grain. I'd be tempted to say the people are operating a mill of some kind, but for that to be the case the pole they're holding would need to be attached to something that goes around in circles, preferably inside the barrel. Maybe they're putting the finishing touches on the barrel, and the object into which the pole is stuck somehow cinches the barrel staves together tighter. But neither explanation really seems to fit here. Uncle Elstner, who usually added comments to explain some of the less obvious aspects of a photo, fell down on the job here, leaving it to posterity to answer: > what is the contraption at the base of the pole all three people are holding onto? > does said contraption assist with managing the barrel or managing its contents? > why is there grain not only on the fabric "downspout" but also in the crevices on both sides of the barrel? Well, if the people in this photo saw a picture of me at my MacBook Pro, they'd have no idea what I'm doing, so I guess we're even. This photo is from an album my spouse's uncle Elstner Hilton compiled in Japan between 1914 and 1918. While Uncle Elstner was pretty good about annotating the photos that required an explanation of some sort, he did not date the pictures. So all we know is they date to between January, 1914 and December, 1918.
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