II. The haari, or cocoa-palm (Cocos nucifera), whose trunk, bark, leaves, and fruit are pressed into their service by the natives. The fruit, however, is the most important, as it is used as meat for man and beast, as well as a beverage, and to obtain oil from it. Mixed with fine sandal-wood shavings and other aromatic substances, the oily liquid pressed out from the cocoa-nut is used by the Tahiti women as a much-prized cosmetic (monoï), with which to lubricate their long beautiful black hair. Here, as among the other South Sea islands, the cocoa-palm begins to bear after the first seven or eight years only, after which, however, it becomes so abundant that the fruit of each tree is valued at five francs annually. It takes 20 to 25 cocoa-nuts to make a gallon of oil.[90]
III. The urú (also called Maioré), or bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus
incisa), is, after the cocoa-palm, the most useful tree on the island. The fruit, baked in a canak (or native) oven, (vide ante, p. 162), between two heated stones, is the substitute for bread to the Tahitians. At the period of the war, or in consequence of a short crop, the natives, like the New Zealanders and the aborigines of the Caroline Archipelago, buried the fruit of the urú in the earth, and ate it in the putrefied state. The bread-tree is productive thrice in the year. The first crop, the best and largest, ripens in March, the second in July, the third, Manavahói, at the end of November. The fruit varies from eight to twelve pounds in weight.
IV. The fara, or pandanus, the fruit of which is treated in the same manner as that of the urú, while the leaves serve as a thatch for the bamboo-cane huts of the aborigines. Of the red seeds of the pandanus odoratissimus, the ornament-loving Tahitian women prepare exceedingly fine coronals and necklaces. The leaves of another species, called irí by the natives, are used for enveloping tobacco, and making cigarettes, as also in the manufacture of house mats, and mats on which to sleep.
V. The taro (Caladium esculentum), a sort of tuber, which at certain seasons supplies any deficiency in the bread-fruit, and is very carefully cultivated by the natives. Of this plant there are in Tahiti thirteen varieties.
VI. Pia (Tacca pinnatifida), a sort of tuber resembling the taro, the mealy substance of which is chiefly used as nutriment for children and convalescent persons, and which in
commerce is erroneously confounded with arrow-root, the latter being chiefly procured from the Antilles and India, more especially from Marantha Indica and Marantha arundinacea. The pia is also much used in Tahitian households in the preparation of small sweet cakes (Poe-pia), and is a not unpalatable substitute for wheaten flour.
VII. Hói, or yams (Dioscorea alata), of which useful tuber a variety of species are extensively used on the island.
VIII. Umará, or sweet potato (Convolvulus Batata), preferred by the natives to the European potato, and widely cultivated, though it has somewhat degenerated in Tahiti.
IX. Fare-rupe (Pteris esculentum), a kind of fern, the root of which was in former times much used for food here, as also in New Zealand.