They surround their burial places with strong fences, for if any one were to walk across a grave he must inevitably break through its thin, ill-supported top, which would be disconcerting, to say the least. One of our neighbor’s pigs, an exceptionally large and heavy one, one day wanders into the cemetery and, judging from the howl of wrath that ensues, raises havoc in the graveyard. At any rate, when the noise has quieted down, the pig is dead, and for some reason it is buried in the grave it has just despoiled.
The death of the old man casts a gloom over the entire kampong and for a few days we leave the inhabitants to their own devices. The few kodak pictures we have snapped aroused their resentment to such an extent that we have decided discretion to be the better part of destitution. We fill diaries, these days, with notes of happenings observed from a discreet distance.
One of the things that comes to our notice is the way the women gather cocoanuts. When the family larder is low, one of the men will call the attention of one of the women to the fact and she dutifully prepares to replenish the stock. Her preparations are interesting. It is a considerable distance straight up in the air to the crown of a full-bearing cocoanut-palm, and the nuts cluster well up in the lower fronds about forty feet from the ground. The tapering trunk offers a good grip for the legs and one could climb it easily by simply clasping the legs about it after the fashion of our own boyhood, but the Kia Kia has a method all his own.
The native climbs a cocoanut-palm in a series of humps and stretches, like a giant inch-worm
Making fire. A piece of hard wood is rotated by hand while in contact with a softer piece
When about to ascend the trunk, the woman first gathers a bunch of long grass which she twists into a rope and ties snugly about her ankles. This done, the feet are placed against the trunk of the palm, with the soles gripping it, while the grass binding on the ankles serves as the fulcrum of a lever of which the lower leg forms the long end. The legs are bowed outward so that with set muscles a surprising grip is obtained. With the feet in this position, the arms grasp the trunk and lift the body upward six or eight inches and the legs are drawn up to a higher position. In this manner the native proceeds upward like a great inch-worm, in a series of humps and stretches. When the top is reached one hand only is clasped around the trunk, while the other twists the nuts off their stems. This is done by merely grasping the lower surface of the nut and rotating it until the fibers of the stem are broken. The nut is then allowed to drop to the ground, where it lands with a thud and a bounce that make one shudder at the thought of what it might do were it to land squarely upon one’s head. When a sufficient number of ripe nuts are gathered, the woman descends the trunk much as she climbed upward, though this seems to be a more arduous undertaking. Apparently, however, this is due to fatigue rather than to the actual difficulty of climbing down, for these people have no stamina and seem to tire quickly.
The cocoanut supplies both food and drink to the Kia Kia. True, he eats many other things, but the flesh of this fruit is the great staple, the others being sago cake, surf-fish, wild pig, bush kangaroo, and “long pig” (human flesh), the use of each being in ratio to the order named. When a Kia Kia is thirsty he goes to the pile of nuts beside the house and selects one that appeals to him, walks to a shady place, and leisurely sits down. He places the nut between his feet, which are drawn well against the body, and with a deft blow of his stone war-club breaks the thick husk at the small end of the nut. This he grips in his teeth and peels off, holding the nut between his palms, with his elbows raised. After the husk is removed one blow of the club opens the end of the nut and the cool water is attainable.
The Kia Kias do not drink. That is, they do not drink in the sense that we use the term. When a Kia Kia desires water, he wants it in sufficient volume to wet his throat and stomach at one and the same instant, so he simply throws back his head, opens his gullet, and without swallowing lets the fluid run in and down. It goes down in one continuous stream. Nowhere in the world can one see a similar operation. It is absolutely unique and all Kia Kias have the same drinking—let us call it technique.