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The high tide surging across the paths has not occured before, during 
Rick's eight months' sojourn, so the seas are really high. One house, near 
the beach, has dug trenches to divert the high waves from rushing into the 
house. Jakob Pu Koroatu, the Chief, lives just beside the sea, but the 
waves did not quite reach the house a few feet away. Near his house is an 
old sea wall, which is usually not reached by high tides, but which is now 
pounded heavily and at times breached. 
The modesty of men and boys, covering their genitalia with their palms 
cupped over the penis and scrotum, even while bathing or showering together, 
ostensibly because the girls and women pass and bathe nearby quite in view 
through the foliage, is not very deep. Boys and girls to the age of eight, 
or even ten, run about stark naked at home, in the village, and on the beach. 
Older children are considerably more modest. However, some of the boys who 
hang about with us, such as Christopher Topumarl and Ataban, suddenly give 
up their traditional modesty and shower or bathe without protective hand 
covering. They boast that they are doing it "American style", having 
watched us breach their male etiquette so often, even though we try to 
"cover up", as the custom here dictates. 
Artifacts of Interest are carved, but not with the polished carving of 
some of the Rennellese work I had purchased in the past. Coconut grating 
seats are very well made, and are similar to those of the Mortlocks and 
Tench Islands, to some extent. Dance paddles, clubs and spears are made in 
the traditional pattern, most for Rick at his request. Model canoes of 
their sown style are made in lengths of .5 to over one meter, and these 
are sold to the ship visitors. Their pandanus leaf mats are finely woven, 
and forms another interesting artifact. Dance paddles are well carved, while 
the canoe paddles are rather simple; the canoe bailers are all heavy and not 
particularly graceful in design, the trough-like canoe-shaped bowls for 
mixing ground taro and other foods are the largest wood carvings I have seen, 
other than the canoes . 
The cemetery lies just beyond the village, but there are some graves 
on the sand within the village, between the houses and adjacent to the 
beach and coconut leaf mat-covered canoes. The careful sheathing of the 
canoes from the sun, with the tight-fitting, custom- tailored armor of coconut 
matting, is a very impressive thing. We have seen no canoes out on the 
beaches, other than the one used to land us, and that was covered promptly 
from the sun even when it was left for only a few hours on the beach. In 
the graveyard, the children identified for me the more recent graves, but 
said they knew nothing about who were in the earlier graves. 
To dispose of garbage we have been accumulating, I got some of the 
men to dig a deep pit, in which we burned what we could and covered up the 
rest. The sea will only sweep much back to the beaches, and put burial 
is the usual way of disposal. 
Defecation is done with little modesty, and women or men may pass 
near the beach, where others are defecating, without embarrassment, but 
also without diverting their gaze or attention to those so engaged. They 
usually dig a small pit in the sand just above the wave line at that time. 
