The Solomon Islands and Their Natives

by H. B. Guppy

In the island of Treasury acres and acres of taro and banana plantations lie in the immediate vicinity of the village; and I passed through similarly cultivated tracts in the east and west districts of the island. The wide and level region, which constitutes the margin of the island, is covered with a deep productive soil. Cultivation is not confined, however, to the more level districts. Large cultivated patches lie on the hill-slopes behind the village; and in other places fire and the axe are constantly employed in the preliminary work of clearing the hill-side. The islands of the Shortlands exhibit a corresponding degree of industry on the part of their inhabitants. When crossing the eastern part of the island of Morgusaia, I traversed for nearly a mile one continuous tract of cultivation. In the midst of the taro and banana plantations stood groves of the stately sago palm and clumps of the betel-nut palm. An occasional bread-fruit tree towered over all; and now and then a lime tree was pointed out by my guides. This extensive tract belonged to the chief. Some of the cultivated patches in the Shortlands are marked out by lines of poles laid flat on the ground into long, narrow divisions, about twenty feet in width, each wife of the owner of the patch confining her labours to her own division.

On the east side of the island of Fauro, the interval between the villages of Toma and Sinasoro is to a great extent under cultivation, and is occupied chiefly by banana and taro plantations. Similar indications of the prosperity of the inhabitants are displayed in the number of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees, with here and there a grove of sago palms, which occupy the low tract of land on which the village of Toma stands. In the planting season natives of the Straits spend weeks in their distant plantations in the interior of their islands; and in the instance of Fauro Island, many of them possess other plantations in the small outlying uninhabited islands which they visit in parties at the regular periods.

In the islands of Bougainville Straits, the banana, taro, and the sweet potato are the vegetables which are grown in greatest quantity. The yam does not appear to be such a favourite article of food as in the eastern islands. I observed in Treasury that the natives protect the short stems of the large taro against the depredations of the large frugivorous bats (Pteropidæ) by lashing them round with sticks.

Here, as in the eastern islands, the following method of climbing the cocoa-nut palm and other trees prevailed. A lashing or thong around the ankles supports much of the weight of the body, and serves as a fulcrum for each effort of the climber towards the top. When the cocoa-nut palm is rather inclined to one side, I have seen a native adopt the mode of the West Indian negro, and walking up the trunk on all fours, after the style of monkeys. . . . . It is a singular circumstance, as residents in the group inform me, that natives never seem to be struck by a falling cocoa-nut, notwithstanding that they must be frequently exposed to injury from this cause. I have often, when sitting amongst a group of natives in a village under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees, been warned by those around me that the nuts might fall on us. On two occasions I have had heavy cocoa-nuts fall to the ground within reach of my arm, which, if they had struck my head with the momentum imparted by a drop of some fifty feet, would undoubtedly have stunned me.

I may here refer to the sago palm, which is grown in far greater numbers in the islands of Bougainville Straits than in St. Christoval and its vicinity. It furnishes not only the vegetable-ivory nut of these islands and the sago, which is an important item in the native dietary, but its leaves supply the thatch for the roofs and sides of the houses. Although belonging to the same genus, Sagus, it is evidently distinct in species from the sago palm of Fiji (Sagus vitiensis), which, according to Mr. Home, grows on the low-lying swampy land, and attains a height of about 35 feet.[52] In the Solomon Islands, the height of full-grown sago palms varies between 60 and 70 feet; whilst the situations in which they are usually found, lie on the hill-slopes and in the drier districts of the islands. In the islands of Fauro and Treasury groves of sago palms occur both on the lower slopes and in the higher districts. They occur on the summit of Treasury at a height of a thousand feet above the sea; and I observed a few at Fauro at a height of 1400 feet. I found them in the middle of the breadth of St. Christoval, between Wano and Makira. . . . . The sago palm in these islands is the finest specimen of the Palmaceæ. I often used to admire its heavy bole terminating above in its handsome crown of massive branches.[53]

[52] “A Year in Fiji,” by John Horne, F.L.S. London, 1881, p. 68.

[53] Although this palm, when full grown, has the appearance of great age and durability, it does not live for more than 20 years, when it flowers, bears, and dies.

In the extraction and preparation of the sago, the natives of Bougainville Straits employ the following method. After the palm has been felled and all the pith removed, either by scooping it out or splitting the trunk, the pith is then torn up into small pieces and placed in a trough extemporised from the broad sheathing base of one of the branches of the felled tree. The trough is then tilted up and is kept filled with water, which running away at the lower end passes through a kind of strainer, made of a fold of the vegetable matting that invests the bases of the branches of the cocoa-nut tree, and is then received in another trough of similar material. The fibrous portion of the pith is thus left behind, and the sago is deposited as a sediment in the lower trough. When this trough is full of sago, the superfluous water is poured off, and the whole is placed over a fire so as to get rid of the remaining moisture. This method of sago-washing is similar to that which is employed in the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The sago is now fit for consumption, and is wrapped up in the leaves in the form of cylindrical packages 1¹⁄₂ to 2 feet in length. For the convenience of the water-supply, sago-washing is carried out usually on the side of a stream. The refuse is afterwards allowed to decay on the banks, and the water of the stream is contaminated for a long time after, whilst the air in the vicinity is impregnated with the unpleasant sour odour of the decaying debris.

The diet of these islanders is essentially a vegetable one, and most of the common articles of food have already been referred to. Yams, sweet potatoes, two kinds of taro,[54] cocoa-nuts, plantains, and sugar-cane form the staple substances of their diet. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands the yam is more extensively cultivated; whilst in the islands of Bougainville Straits the taro and the sago-palm are more usually grown and the yam is less preferred. The bread-fruit appears to be but an occasional article of food; and it was only now and then, as in the vicinity of the village of Toma in Fauro Island, that I observed the tree in any numbers. In Bougainville Straits there appears to be but one variety of the bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa) which ripens in August. Its leaves are deeply lobed (pinnatisect) and have an even surface; and the fruit are stalked, seedless, rough, and of a somewhat oval shape. In Santa Anna there is another variety of the Artocarpus incisa, the fruit of which has seeds and ripens in October. In the plantations of Treasury Island I came upon a tree which is apparently a variety of the Jack-fruit tree (Artocarpus integrifolia); it is known to the natives as the “tafati,” whilst the bread-fruit tree is known in this part of the group as the “balia.” Two cucurbitaceous fruits are commonly grown in the islands of Bougainville Straits. One is a large pumpkin, and the other is an oval “pepo,” about six inches long, known to the natives as the “kusiwura;” it is a variety of Cucumis melo, and is a very good substitute for the ordinary cucumber. Amongst other vegetables grown in the cultivated patches of this region are two varieties of a species of Solanum, probably repandum, which are known to the natives as “kobureki” and “kirkami;” and a second species of yam, Dioscorea sativa (“alapa”).[55]

[54] The small taro, which also grows wild on the sides of the streams and is called “koko” in Bougainville Straits, is apparently Colocasia esculenta. The large taro, which grows to a height of 7 or 8 feet, and is known as the “kalafai,” may be the same as the “via kana” of Fiji (Cyrtosperma edulis). I cannot, however, speak with any authority on this subject, as I collected no specimens.