The Tale of the Cocoanut

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The Tale of the Cocoanul By John Q. Adams, President of the Samoan Mission

• On a nine-year scale, just what would a re-enacted Rip Vau Winkle episode reveal to one who retraced his steps to former scenes where were routined some of the epochal events of life? Such a question took possession of my mind some time ago, and at this moment, as I view gently sloping, zephyr-kissed — Mapusaga the word itself literally meaning a resting place from the upper story of the fine, comparatively new Elders' house, the twin conflicting emotions of memory and its counterpart of the tense of the present take alternate hold of the mental helm, and glimpses of the then and the now flash by, distinct and correlated. No more extended reference to the past need appear here, beyond the merest mention of the fact that the writer came to this village eleven years ago, aided in its fundamental development as a school center, and cocoanut plantation, all of which was thoroughly gone into in a number of articles that appeared in this magazine a decade since. With the picture of the place before us as it was, we may consistently proceed to append these pages in which we shall endeavor to briefly portray some of the conditions as they are. Let us instantly transfer our view from the center of the village to its most remote boundary as it stretches toward the five-mile distant coast. Crammed tightly down into the very heart of a high cluster of sharp-nosed mountains, a level hundred acres of virgin volcanic soil sustains perhaps 6,000 plumy cocoanut palms that are just emerging in age on the border that wedges apart into indistinct spheres the two distinct stages of youth and maturity. This is but a fourth of the whole and sets off by itself as a great green peninsula, its side punctured deeply with a sharp mountain point and its light hue in contrast to the dark forest. Occasionally a few nuts, ranging from delicate green to somber brown, the younger, as is the way of nature, more plump and attractive to the eye, are discernible, hanging low enough to be plucked by hand were that the proper method of harvesting. Cocoanuts, to be saleable as dried copra, must be permitted to fall of their own weight and volition, when the exact hour of ripeness has been attained, otherwise two things occur:

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a few pieces of immature cocoanut meat discovered by vigilant eyes of government inspectors among a ton of crisp copra, and a heavy fine, for it spoils fast. From these younger outposts or sentinels, the age and size of the various plantings succeed one another in regular and well defined gradations. Here a forty acre strip was all, within a fewdays, sprinkled at thirty foot intervals with striplings of embryo trees, nureery-sprouted to begin. There a larger or smaller tract was similarly brought under cultivation, a few months later on, and so it went, each section of a uniform size and fecundity. As the first section to be subjugated from the wilderness is passed, the trees are seen to be well along towards a profitable age, on some as many as fifty nuts clustering. Part of the land is enclosed in a three-foot wall of black, loosely laid volcanic rock fragments, a fence that doesn't decay, rust, nor loosen, but which might suddenly see itself a tumbled and humbled mass, should one of the numerous earthquakes, that occur almost daily here, take on a little more force in its quiverings. Within the fenced sections, carpeted beneath the cocoanut trees with a layer of perpetually fresh and juicy grass, a hundred head of quiet cattle munch at any hour of day or night, all sleek and clean and fat. No cows nor heifers are disposed of, and within a decade there should have developed an army of weeders and beef producers that shall precede the cocoanut in point of profit, as they keep down the weeds as well as transform the vegetation into tender beef. In fact we have been inviting the natives of other villages to pasture their cattle in our plantation free, as we gain such great benefit in having the under-growth held in check. All we ask is that they aid us in maintaining the wall in good shape. Easy is the life of a Samoan range animal, amidst the Paradise it browses in from birth — to death no cold, no snowy bedding grounds, no irregular feeding hours, and the sun never within twenty degrees as hot as it is in America. Neither does its owner have to go to the expense of barn, wagons, implements, and the hundred and one other paraphernalia that go to make up the necessary equipment of a farm in the states or elsewhere. There is practically no loss to figure against, with the exception of some sporadic and infrequent sickness of single animals. There is always a ready sale for all beef put on the local market. The principal drawback to present cattle raising conditions, in the islands, is the inattention directed to proper up-breeding. Anything with four legs passes as real. One of the recent innovations that we are impressing on the minds of our people is the fact that their children require a more digestible sort of food than the hard taro and breadfruit,

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and other native articles of diet that sometimes tests the stom ach of the adult to assimilate. The heavy mortality among the babes of Samoa could very well be reduced to a minimum, were that naturally precarious year-after-weaning bridged over by at least a partial diet of milk for the scrawny youngster. It is the case usually that the children, those who survive the heroic test of indigestible food, thatthey are thin of limb, and protruding in the region of the belt, and a sort of scabby sore appears in profusion as a result. Our people are permitted and encouraged to care for one of the plantation cows, and a common sight now-a-days is the brigade of milkers that night and morn go with pails out under the cocoanut tree where is staked their best friend, and return shortly with a foamy mass that will save many of their babies. Leaving the cattle and their unassuming corner of the plantation, we come presently to the village borders, and are confronted with a medium-sized, corrugated, tin building not far to the left. Smoke is observed issuing from a pipe at one end, and at the rear, in a pit, we see a heater much like the hot air sort so prevalent in buildings of colder climes. Closer investigation discloses the fact that it is a copra drier. And what might that be? Our question will shortly find its answer, as we soon see Samoan men and large boys stringing in from the plantation with the freshly cut, white, crisp nuts sliced with great knives into snowy chips and curls. A couple of cocoanut leaf baskets, quickly and dexterously woven on the spot, were plaited where the nuts were gathered and husked, and cracked and sliced, all by hand and at a remarkable speed. On each end of a stick like a fork handle one of the baskets of nut-meat hangs, the two making a heavy load, as it is balanced on bare brown shoulders, all calloused. The meat is weighed at the copra house, and then spread on slat-trays that slide into frames like drawers inside the building on each side. The men receive a cent per pound for cutting, and make as high as $3 per day. The white meat changes to brown through the action of the heat that is conveyed through the room in a large pipe. Overhead, in the garret, the copra may also be spread on the floor and be cured by the ascending heat. Within three days it is sufficiently dried to be ready for shipment. The native method is sun-drying, but it is slow and uncertain, and the copra never comes through in the nice, light shade that the artificially heated does. The furnace is fed by long sections of split logs cut from the adjacent forest and still heavy and green. The fire isn't maintained during the night. One man manipulates the whole process of drying, from fire to finish. The browned copra is scooped into bags of an average weight of a hundred

Sister Ellen Kenison and a bunch of bright Mapusaga school girls she supervises One of the three ice cream booths at the Mapusaga conference. Sister Adams and tliree children and Elder Tingey patronizing the stand Elder Tingey baptizing in the new cemjent tank at the last conference in Mapusaga

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pounds and carted to Leone, six miles up the coast, where it is received and paid for by the U. S. government. It handles all of the copra of this island and also Manula. There is a deduction of one cent made from the seven cents per pound that copra now brings, and if any balance remains at the close of the year, after all expense incident to disposing of it has been met, that surplus is returned to the producers, at a pro rata to their contribution. It is an interesting story this, the tale of the cocoanut, only the salient features, not previously dealt with being touched on in this article. As the cocoanut is winning its way into popular favor as butter, stock food, the latter from the pulp after the oil has been expressed, etc., it promises to assume even more importance as the one big universal product of the earth's warm belt. In the barest of mention, in conclusion, it may be stated that Mapusaga's immediate destiny promises well. Its location is ideal, it has an excellent piped water system, the climate, in-

land and elevated, is cool and healthful, its plantation is of the best soil and well in hand, and the opportunities for the people to progress along all lines will develop with the times. Bananas, taro, breadfruit, and other native foods, come up to the back doors of the double row of homes that lines each side of its one thoroughfare. Its rapid rehabilitation, as of yore, is well under way, for it is a chosen site for the Samoan Saints to gather on, a sign of Latter-day Saint strength. Apia, Upolu, Samoa

TAYLOR STAKE CHORAL SOCIETY This organization recently presented Prof. Evan Stephens' Cantata* "The Vision," under direction of C. W. Stone, conductor, and N. L. Mitchell, organist, and scored a signal success.