For the first three or four years, the young plants are fenced, to protect them from the depredations of hogs, &c. to whom the young, delicate leaves would form a tempting morsel. In five or six years, (if the tree is planted in a healthy situation,) the tree will have attained an elevation, probably, of eight feet; and at that time the enormous size of its fronds are more conspicuous than when the tree has obtained its full elevation: it then usually commences to bear fruit, and continues for sixty years to yield it in abundance; but beyond that period, the produce begins decreasing, until it ceases altogether.
The wood of this tree is used for various purposes: among the Polynesians it is used for spears, rafters for their huts, fences &c.; and it also makes excellent charcoal. When the tree has ceased to bear, it is most valuable, and is imported into the European markets under the name of porcupine wood. Among the Singalese it is used for rafters, laths, shingles, chairs, ladies’ work-boxes, &c.; but during the period of its most abundant bearing, (considered to be between ten and thirty-five years’ growth,) the heart is of so soft and spongy a nature, that it is merely used for fences, water-pipes, &c.
The fronds are from eighteen to twenty feet long, and composed of a strong, tough stalk, diminishing from the base, and has a number of narrow leaflets[121] ranged on each side. The Singalese split the fronds in halves, and plait the leaflets neatly, so as to make excellent baskets; and, under the denomination of cadjans, form the usual covering of their huts, as well as the European bungalows. Many of the natives’ huts are constructed there, as well as in Polynesia, almost entirely of materials derived from the cocoa-nut tree.
The Tahitans also plait the branches (niau) for screens, or a covering for the floors; for similar purposes, and also as a thatch for the huts, it is also used by the natives of the islands of Rótuma, Tongatabu,[122] and other of the Polynesian islands. The Tahitans call these screens paua, and they also manufacture neat baskets, one kind of which is called arairi, and another kind of basket called oini; a shade for their eyes, called tapo niau, is made of the plaited leaves, and placed by the natives over the eyes to protect them from the unpleasant solar reflection from their sandy roads and beaches; the yellow leaves (rau-para) are preferred for the purpose, their colour being much admired. The leaves were used in many of the religious ceremonies of the Tahitans, and was also an emblem of authority; it was sent by the chief to his dependents when any requisition was made: through the cocoa-nut leaf, tied to the sacrifice, the god was supposed to enter; and by the same road the evil spirits, who, it was imagined, tormented those affected with diseases, were driven out. Bunches or strings of the leaflets were also suspended in the temple on certain occasions, and answered the same purpose as beads in Roman Catholic worship, reminding the priest, or the worshipper, of the order of his prayers.[123]
The heart, or very young foliaceous fronds of this tree, is called the cabbage, which is an excellent vegetable, either cooked or dressed, in stews, hashes, or ragouts.[124] The Singalese use the dried fronds as torches, both for themselves during the dark nights, or to carry before the carriages and palanquins of Europeans; they also use the spathe for a similar purpose, as well as for fuel; and at Rótuma and other Polynesian islands it is also adopted for a like purpose. At Tongatabu (one of the Friendly Islands) combs are made by the women of the midrib of the leaflets of the cocoa-nut tree, the upper part being beautifully worked with the fibre of the husk of the cocoa-nut, or Bulu; these combs, from their neat and ornamental appearance, were in great requisition during the time I visited that interesting island, and all the women were busily employed during the stay of the ship in making these combs, which they readily exchanged with the Papalangi[125] (foreign) officers and crew for trifling articles. The combs were stained by the bark of the Koka-tree, of a dark reddish colour, intended as a rude imitation of tortoiseshell.
There is one portion of this valuable tree which attracts much the attention of the observer,—it is a kind of net-work; when very young it is delicate, beautifully white, and transparent, and is seen at the bases of the young fronds; but as the frond attains maturity, this natural matting becomes coarser and tough, and changes to a brown colour;[126] it may be stripped off the tree in large pieces, which are used in Ceylon as strainers, particularly for the toddy, which is usually full of impurities when recently taken from the tree, as its sweetness attracts insects innumerable. In most countries which I have visited, where this valuable tree is produced, this portion of it is used for a similar purpose. At the island of Tahiti (Otaheite) it is called Aa; and besides being used as sieves for straining arrow-root, cocoa-nut oil, &c., the natives, when engaged in such occupations as digging, fishing, &c., in order to save their bark cloth, would join several portions of this net-work together, and having a hole in the centre, in a manner similar to their mat-garment, called Tiabuta, wear it as an article of apparel, merely for the time in which they may be engaged in those occupations. It is certainly a garment, neither to be admired for its flexibility or firmness, but better calculated for fishermen, or those occupied in the water, as it will not be destroyed by wet, whereas their bark cloth would be utterly destroyed in the water, its substance resembling paper, both in strength and appearance.[127]
This fibrous net-work must also act as a security to the huge fronds, against the violence of the winds; and a valuable precaution, by which the sudden fall of the branch is prevented, which otherwise might endanger the lives of those passing under the trees; it is not uncommon to see the dead branches hanging from the trees perfectly dry, attached to the trunk only by this tenacious substance, and even then it requires no little muscular exertion to bring them down.
When a large bunch of the fruit is seen pending from, apparently, so fragile a stalk, it seems as if it were an impossibility that it could support such a cluster; from twelve to twenty large nuts, besides several small, unproductive nuts, may be seen on each bunch, and in good situations the tree will admit of the fruit being gathered four or five times in the course of the year. The state in which the fruit is most used as an article of food, both meat and drink, is the green or young cocoa-nut, (Oua of the Tahitans, Koroomba of the Singalese,) at which time it yields an abundance of a delicious, cooling beverage, to which, sometimes, Madeira wine, brandy, &c. is added. The water, beautifully clear, has a sweetness, with a slight degree of astringency which renders it very agreeable; this liquid has been erroneously considered by most persons as injurious, producing a predisposition to dropsical complaints, and has been considered among the Tahitans one of the exciting causes of that prevalent disease amongst them termed féfé or elephantiasis; but I have recommended and adopted this cooling beverage during my frequent and long visits to intertropical countries, and have always found it the most cooling and refreshing beverage during my botanical and other excursions; but when an immoderate quantity is drunk, I have known a slight degree of strangury produced by it. The ladies, however, who may fear taking it internally, are informed that to the water of the green cocoa-nut is ascribed that inestimable property, to them, of clearing the face of all wrinkles and imperfections whatever, and imparting to it the rosy tints of youthful days!
In Ceylon, house-plasterers use the water of the green cocoa-nut, to which they attribute an adhesive quality in their white and other washes, in which Chunam[128] forms a chief ingredient for the walls of houses, &c. &c.; and the shells of the green cocoa-nut,[129] fixed on stakes, are used as illumination lamps for roads, trees, &c. The pulp in the interior of the young nut is very delicate, easily removed from the shell with a spoon, and may very well be named a vegetable blanc mange; in this state it is called niaa by the Tahitans, who use it as well as the natives of other of the Polynesian Islands, in several made dishes. After the fruit is suffered to remain a short time longer, and the pulp becomes firmer, the Tahitans change the name to Omato, and the fully ripe nut is called Opaa; in this state it is sometimes but seldom eaten, being used principally for making oil, and contains a small quantity of oily milk; it is in this state the nuts are seen and sold in England. In Ceylon, when the nut is fully ripe, it is denominated by the Singalese Pol, or Curry cocoa-nut, the kernel of which is reduced to a very small size by an instrument called Hiromane; (a circle of notched iron fastened to the raised end of a piece of wood;) the kernel thus reduced is placed in a cloth, and water being poured on it, a white juice, which may with propriety be termed “cocoa-nut milk,” is extracted by pressure, and used invariably, either with or without the grated kernel, in their various curries and mulligatawnies.
I have never met with the water contained in a cocoa-nut of a brackish taste, as has been asserted, although the tree from which it had been produced had its roots laved by the sprays of the ocean. Mr. Finlayson[130] says, respecting some plantations of cocoa-nut trees, which surrounded a village situated on Pulo Condore, at the extremity of a plain, that “although they grow in great abundance, they are rather stunted in the stem, and their fruit, as well as the fluid it contains, has a peculiar and rather bitter taste.”