184 MELANESIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
and the natives themselves make sennit and string from it. The dry 
sheath, the covering of the new bunch of fruit, serves the natives both as 
tinder and as a torch. ‘The leaves of the tree make the very strongest 
baskets, and in some islands are used to make the walls of the 
houses. In the equatorial Pacific toddy is distilled from the growing 
tree and the topmost shoots form a veritable king’s banquet, but the 
cutting of them destroys the tree. 
Other fruits are the vi-apple (Spondias dulcis, commonly known as 
uli or uri), the canarium nut (ngalz), the nut of the salite tree, which is 
found oftenest growing at the mouths of the streams, the banana, and 
the breadfruit. Both the banana and breadfruit are always cooked. 
The indigenous banana needs cooking to make it eatable, but the com- 
mon varieties, Musa cavendishi or gros michel, or the sugar banana of 
Queensland, have been introduced and flourish. Many other tropical 
and subtropical fruits have also been introduced—oranges, mandarins, 
lemons, limes, granadilla, soursop, papaya, pineapples, mangoes, cocoa, 
coffee; most of these need careful cultivation, and with the exception 
of limes and papayas they all tend to die out if allowed to run wild. 
Animal food is but rarely partaken of by Melanesians. Pigs they 
all have, but they keep them for great events, for death feasts or for 
wedding banquets. Opossums (cuscus) and the large fruit-eating bats 
and wood pigeons and the monitor lizard are often eaten as relishes 
with the vegetable food. ‘The coast people get large quantities of 
shellfish at the low spring tides, and on an island like Ulawa a great 
deal of fishing is done both from the rocks and also out of canoes. The 
people make all their own fishing-lines out of home-made string or out 
of strong creepers found in the forest, and in old days their hooks were 
cut out of tortoise-shell or out of black pearl-shell. Even to-day the 
hooks for the bonito fishing are of native manufacture and the tiny 
hooks for whifhing sardines are exquisitely made. 
Fishing with nets is followed extensively by the Lau-speaking 
peoples who live on the artificial islets off the northeast coast of Ma- 
laita. ‘These peoples and the people of the Reef Islands at Santa Cruz 
live almost entirely on a fish diet. The flesh of the porpoise is much 
prized by the peoples of Malaita and regular drives of porpoises are 
held, the animals being surrounded and forced ashore into muddy 
creeks, where they are captured. ‘The main value of the porpoise lies 
in the teeth, which form one of the native currencies. On the lee side 
of the large islands in the Solomons there is a great deal of fishing 
with hand nets; men stand in the water at the mouth of the 
streams, holding a pole to which two bent sticks are attached with a 
net tied to the four ends of the sticks, and lowered to the bottom. 
The small fish (sardines and others) are chased inshore by large 
kingfish, and pass over the net, which is promptly pulled up by the 
fisherman. ‘The fish are transferred by a deft movement to a bag 
hanging on the man’s back and suspended from his head. 
