A BIT OF USELESSNESS 117 



Indians as the air they breathe. It is their wheat 

 and corn and rice, their soup and salad and des- 

 sert, their ice and their wine, for besides being 

 their staple food, it provides casareep which pre- 

 serves their meat, and piwarie which, like excel- 

 len* wine, brightens life for them occasionally, or 

 dims it if overindulged in which is equally true 

 of food, or companionship, or the oxygen in the 

 air we breathe. 



Besides this cultivation, Grandmother has a 

 small group of plants which are only indirectly 

 concerned with food. One is kunami, whose 

 leaves are pounded into pulp, and used for poi- 

 soning the water of jungle streams, with the sur- 

 prising result that the fish all leap out on the 

 bank and can be gathered as one picks up nuts. 

 When I first visited Grandmother's garden, she 

 had a few pitiful little cotton plants from whose 

 stunted bolls she extracted every fiber and made 

 a most excellent thread. In fact, when she made 

 some bead aprons for me, she rejected my spool 

 of cotton and chose her own, twisted between 

 thumb and finger. I sent for seed of the big 

 Sea Island cotton, and her face almost un- 

 wrinkled with delight when she saw the packets 

 with seed larger than she had ever known. 



