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Chapter 2
ENVIRONMENT on RONGELAP
and AILINGINAE ATOLLS
2.1
RONGELAP VILLAGE
Rongelap Island is located at the southeastern edge of Rongelap Atoll. A sketch of
the native village and its location on Rongelap Island are presented on the following page
(Figure 2.1). 1
:
2.2
DWELLINGS 2
The majority of the natives’ homes were pole and palm-leaf construction (Figures
2.2 and 2.3). A few houses were partially constructed of lumber (Figure 2.4). The average home had a coral ‘‘pebble’’ floor, either bare or covered in part with palm-leaf
mats. A few houses had a connecting shed or lean-to type of roof with facilities for cook“ndoors’’ during rainy weather (Figure 2.5). Strips of burlap or canvas were hung at
windows and doorways.
most of the time.
There was little screening.
Doors and windows were left open
Several houses had a partially elevated floor or storage loft. A few
natives had cots; however, most of them slept on palm-leaf mats on the floor.
Out-buildings, t.e., cook houses (see Figure 2.6), chicken houses, copra dryingsheds, and storage sheds, were usually shared by one or more families who lived as a
group (see also References 1, 3, 5, and 6).
2.3
FOODS
Coconuts and starch-foods comprised the bulk of the native diet. Coconut meat was
eaten fresh or dried (copra). Coconut milk served as an important supplement to the
scanty water supply during the dry months. Coconut sprouts are edible. Babies are
breast-fed by the mother for a short time and then fed the freshly collected sap of the
coconut tree (jekaro). When allowed to ferment, jekaro is a potent alcoholic beverage.
The principal starch foods eaten were rice, taro, arrowroot (a potato-like edible
root), and starch tubes (mokmok, made from arrowroot, is similar to macaroni). (See
Reference 7, page 172 for preparation of mokmok.) Taro root is powdered, then moistened, and compressed into cakes or balls, approximately a foot in diameter. It can be
kept indefinitely in this form. Taro is used for making bread and doughnuts.
Various sea foods comprise the next most important part of the native diet. Fish
are plentiful and are eaten fresh or dried, raw or cooked. Clams, oysters, crabs,
! Maps showing location of Marshall Islands included in References 1—6.
2 The key to Holmes and Narver, Rongelap Map, Misc. 254, contains the dimensions
and type construction of each building.