110 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
above the ground, and the women make the matting which serves 
for carpet. No glass, no hardware of any sort is needed. Above 
all he has no labor unions to deal with, neither is there any walk- 
ing delegate to delay the work or pile on additional costs. 
The furniture need concern him little. With a few shillings he 
purchases a porcelain plate, like a deep soup-plate about two feet 
across, in which the family meal is served, having been cooked out- 
side on a sort of picnic fire used by several families in common. 
There are no beds nor bed clothes, except the fine tapa made by 
the women; no chairs, for all sit cross-legged on the floor; no 
plates, saucers, knives, forks, or spoons. Cups are made of halves 
of coconut shells and bowls are made of calabashes or gourds. 
There are no carpets, wall paper nor stoves, and very little kitchen 
ware. In fact his home is made merely to sleep in, for he and 
his family live out-of-doors, unless it rains, when they seek shelter 
until the shower passes. No stoves, fireplaces, nor furnaces are 
rreeded for heating purposes; therefore, there is no coal to shovel 
or pay for, no bill for gas, electric lights, water or telephone. 
The women have no beds to make, dishes to wash, carpets to 
sweep or tables to set and their lives are devoid of the daily grind 
of endless nerve-wearing drudgery in the lives of the women of 
the middle and lower classes in America. 
For food, a few pennies per week will supply the luxuries not 
produced in the community garden patch where they cultivate 
taro, yams, plantain and other vegetables; bread-fruit, mangos, 
coconuts, and pineapples are raised sufficient for their needs. 
Fijians eat very little meat but are very fond of it. There is 
usually a pig or two, sometimes a goat and almost always a few 
chickens around the native house. I suppose they never have 
sufficient meat to satisfy their craving and this may have some- 
thing to do with the cannibalism so universal in the South Seas 
in early days. It was taking advantage of about the only reliable 
source and really satisfactory supply of meat! 
Fish are plentiful and good and the people living along the 
coast or the large streams can easily catch enough to supply their 
needs. From the size and number of weirs, nets, fish-traps, fish- 
pots, ete., that we saw near the mouth of the Rewa I should judge 
that fishing is one of their important industries and the source of 
much really excellent food. 
These people of the simple life appear to be well nourished and 
content, often happy. Theirs is an out-of-doors existence and 
