310 Transactions. — Botany. 



Guinea, and the Malay Archipelago as far north as India and 

 Malacca. It is largely planted in most of the Pacific islands,, 

 mainly for the sake of the huge tuberous root, which often 

 weighs from 101b. to 151b. This is usually wrapped up in 

 leaves and baked on hot stones, and is often mixed with the 

 root of the kape, or gigantic taro. It cooks slowly, and in 

 Earotonga I was told that the baking of a good-sized parcel 

 often extends over a whole day. It has a sweetish, sugary 

 taste, which has been compared to that of stick-liquorice. 

 In the Sandwich Islands the roots were bruised and mixed 

 with water and then fermented, forming an intoxicating 

 drink, but this practice does not seem to have been known 

 in the southern Pacific. The introduction of European foods 

 and customs has largely interfered with the use of the Ti pore, 

 but in the olden days it constituted a very appreciable portion 

 of the diet of a Polynesian. It is therefore in every way prob- 

 able that its introduction would be attempted when the 

 Maoris colonised New Zealand. 



So far as botanical inquiry has been made into the origin 

 of the common food-plants of Polynesia, it certainly seems to 

 point to the belief that most of them are introductions from 

 abroad, coming in the majority of cases from the direction 

 of the Malay x\rchipelago or eastern tropical Asia. And it 

 appears to me that this view is in harmony with the tradi- 

 tional history and legends of the Polynesian race, although 

 my limited knowledge of these causes me to make the state- 

 ment with some little hesitation. The actual introduction of 

 the plants must have taken place at some far remote period, 

 in order to give time not only for their spread through most 

 parts of the Pacific, but also to allow of the gradual selection 

 of so many different local varieties, in itself a proof of long- 

 continued cultivation. The question as to how they entered 

 Polynesia — whether they simply passed step by step from 

 one tribe to another along the chain of islands connecting 

 Malaya with the southern Pacific, or whether they were 

 brought by the Polynesians themselves on their gradual 

 advance southwards — is a matter which cannot be dealt with 

 here. 



Before going further I wish to make another point per- 

 fectly clear, which is this : that the Polynesians were not 

 only great cultivators, but that they regularly carried culti- 

 vated plants from one part of the Pacific to another. Of 

 course, this statement follows naturally on the assumption 

 that the cultivated plants are not indigenous, and it is 

 also supported by many traditions. But it must also be 

 true if we assume that the cultivated plants are natives- 

 of Polynesia. For, even on this hypothesis, we cannot state 

 with any reasonable degree of probability that all the food- 



