412 FOOD AND DRINKS. [1841. 



fans, screens, mats, cocoa-nut shells, wooden bowls and 

 troughs, spoons fashioned out of human ribs, and the skulls 

 of their enemies, used as drinking vessels, are the principal 

 articles of furniture in the habitations of the Kingsmill 

 Islanders. Some of their mats are very beautiful, the bright 

 yellow of the young pandanus leaves contrasting finely with the 

 dark brown of the older ones, and the clear white of those that 

 have been bleached, with which they are interwoven. They 

 always have an abundance of conch shells in their houses, 

 and they use the tridachna gig-as, which are found here of 

 an enormous size, for troughs to catch rain water. 



For cooking, the natives have stone ovens built above the 

 ground, and they roast the bread-fruit on hot stones. Their 

 food consists chiefly of fish of all kinds, from a whale to a 

 sea-slug, of the cocoa and pandanus nuts, bread-fruit and taro. 

 Yams and purslane are eaten when other articles of food are 

 scarce. Of the pandanus-nut they make a preparation which 

 will keep for several years ; the edible portions of the nut are 

 first pounded to the consistence of dough, and then baked in an 

 oven, after which they are reduced to powder and fashioned 

 into rolls, or karapapa. The taro, too, is often baked hard, 

 and grated to a powder, which is dried and formed into rolls, 

 called kabuibui, which keep for a long time. Another prep- 

 aration, called manam, is made of baked taro and cocoa-nut, 

 grated fine, and then mixed together and rolled up in large 

 balls. They have no intoxicating drinks, but they procure a 

 toddy, called karaca, from the spathes of the cocoa-nut ; the 

 formation of the fruit being prevented by tying a bandage of 

 sennit tightly around the spathe, and then cutting off the end 

 of the latter. When this sap is first obtained it is like the milk 

 of the young cocoa-nut, but it soon ferments and forms a 

 pleasant aeidulous beverage. Of the karaca, a molasses is 

 made called kamoimoi, by boiling the former down in cocoa- 

 nut shells placed on hot stones, which in color and flavor re- 

 sembles that obtained from the cane. The kamoimoi is eaten 

 with the preparations of pandanus, bread-fruit, taro, and 



