596 



vegetable food is imported from the mainland, with a conse- 

 quent decrease in the interest taken by the natives in their 

 gardens. Every man grows his coconuts on his own plot of 

 ground, and cultivates part of it for bananas, taro, and yams. 

 Low and slender fences are built round the plots in order to 

 protect them from the wallabies, and as the soil has to lie 

 fallow for a number of years only small patches are under 

 cultivation. It would seem that in olden days, before the 

 white man's advent, the island could not have been self- 

 supporting, and this was my first idea, which was confirmed 

 by the opinion of the Rev. W. J. V. Saville. But all my 

 native informants, when questioned independently, contra- 

 dicted this view categorically, all of them affirming that no 

 trading for vegetable food was carried on with the mainland 

 villages, and that the island was entirely self-supporting. I 

 feel convinced that the native information is correct, and it 

 seems the more probable, as the fish supply on the island is 

 plentiful and the soil very fertile. Garden making on the island 

 was not so difficult as on the mainland, as there was neither the 

 high jungle to remove nor the bulky pig-proof fence to con- 

 struct. The only hard work in Mailu gardening was the 

 clearing of the high, dense thickets of Lalang grass (in Mailu, 

 TsilowoJ. The grass is first burnt, and then uprooted. This 

 latter was done by means of long, strong, and well-shaped 

 sticks, pointed at the end. They were made of hard wood, and 

 called Gehatsa. The men drive the sticks into the ground 

 with vigorous blows, and, using them as levers, loosen the 

 soil and turn up the sods. A row of men, some eight or ten, 

 each holding a Gehatsa in either hand, work together, slowly 

 moving backwards. In this way the ground is thoroughly 

 broken up in a relatively short time.^^'^^ 



On the mainland the heavy work comprises the burning 

 down of the scrub and the making of the strong palisade which 

 protects the garden against the intrusion of bush pigs and 

 wallabies. The big trees and the scrub are cut about mid- 

 winter, in the Aurdri season. They are left to dry during the 

 rainless season of Lioro, and at the end of this, just before the 

 rains set in (December, January), they are burned. The 

 fence is made round the cleared area, and consists of strong, 

 round, vertical stakes, to which horizontal wooden bars are 

 lashed with lawyer cane. Within this enclosure the ground is 

 subdivided among the members of a clan, and the different 

 plots are so grouped that access to each can be obtained 



(47) I saw the process in the Koifa tribe. It is well described 

 in the Rev. H. Newton's book (op. cit., p. 123), from which I 

 have borrowed some expressions. 



