The principal work of the little girl's father is to tend his taro patch and keep each little hillock surrounded by water. From the time of planting until the ripening of the beet-like bulbs, he watches it with the most loving care. When fully ripe, he pulls up the plants and bakes the bulbs in his underground oven.
When they have been sufficiently dried, he prepares for his most difficult task by stripping himself of his cotton shirt and trousers. You remember that the climate here is a warm one, and when the man is working hard he suffers much from the heat.
He now takes the baked taro and puts it on a wooden platter and beats it with a heavy stone pestle. From time to time he dips his hands into water as they grow sticky from handling the pasty mass. After he has pounded it for a long time, he puts it into calabashes, adds water, and sets it away for several days to ferment.
He grows very tired before his work is over, but does it gladly, rather than do without his favourite food. It would not suit us, I fear, as it tastes very much like sour buckwheat paste. In Hawaii white people often eat the taro root sliced and boiled or baked, but they seldom touch it when prepared in the native fashion.
Now let us return to Auwae's dinner-table. The food is quickly eaten, after which the little girl passes a calabash of water around among the company. It is to serve as a finger-bowl. Does this surprise you? Ah! but you must remember these Hawaiians ate with their fingers. These same fingers are now sticky with poi, and as the people are natural lovers of water, they are fond of having every part of their bodies spotless.
A pipe and tobacco are passed around for a smoke. These people, so cleanly in some other ways, do not object to using the one pipe in common. The women put away the food, and the company prepare for a picnic at the shore but a short distance from the house. They will spend the afternoon in surf-bathing, and all of them will perform feats in the water that would astonish the best swimmers in other countries.
CHAPTER III.
SURF-RIDING.