2. Ceconut The coconut was traditionally and still in some circumstances continues to be the focal point upon which the Islander's diet revolves. Indeed nothing is found in greater abundance among the atolls than coconut. The tree itself was an important foundation upon which Island life evolved. The leaves being woven ints shelters and the fibrous strands of the husk twisted into sennit rope for the lashings of houses and outrigger canoes. The bud-sheath was used as a bowl in hich to pour ingredients to bake in ground ovens. Baskets woven from the learlets of the tree were, and occasionally still are, commonly used for eating anu cisplaving and transporting food. The coconut fruit requires approximately 12 months to ripen and usually falls off itself after an additional few months due to stem decay. At this stage it is reacy to be husked, broken open and dried under the sun or in a smoke-house into copra, the major island export. and at this stage it can be opened and the nut cut “rom the shell and eaten as jiral (with something else) fish, for instance or breadfruit or both. [It has a high oil content however and a two to four ounce portion is seldom exceeded unless there is a scarcity of imported or other local foocs. Children seem to eat considerably more of it than adults do. The elderly, on tne other hand, especially those lacking teeth, eat it normally only when it is mixed into the family food. B3inbin is a term that is used to describe the preparation of a variety of dishes in which mashed banana or tarro or breadfruit © or more likely rice, is formed by hand into a ball and rolled over coconut gratings whicn stick to the surface and help preserve its shape. These gratings are produced in a process called ranke whereby the nut is scraped from its shell by a rounded, tooth edged blade normally screwed onto a stool on which one can sit while engaced at the grating or ranke process. The water of the mature coconut or waini is sometimes drunk. More often, however, it is mixed with food as an ingredient before cooking or not being as sweet or flavorful as the water in the unripe nuts discarded altogether. The earliest stage at which the water begins to sweeten and is used for drinking is termed obleb--around its sixth month of growth. The shell is still soft enough to break with the fingers and the nut itself--if it has started to form at all~-is but a thin :elatin lining the bottom of the shell that can be loosened with a thumbnail and drunk. The next stage when the gelatin hardens as does the shell allowing itselr to be husked is called ni. This is the stage at seven to nine months when |. the nut is normally used for drinking. During this period, the nut continues to form thougn its texture remains soft and removable from the shell by the thumbnail. When it becomes too hard for this and begins to become cemented to its shell at around nine to ten months, it is called mejob. The meat of the nut is hard though not quite as hard as in the mature, waini, stage and not as oily. Mejob is seldom eaten today though it was in the past and may one day again be a staple to ward off hunger in times of famine. This is due to its abundance and to the fact that the lower oil content allows for a larger quantity to be eaten before bringing distress to the bowel. It can be grated by the ranke process and is sometimes used in this way mixed as an ingredient into food or put in a bowl with jekaro and eaten as a sort of cereal called jekbwa. Jekaro is a nectar collected by binding and repeatedly (morning and evening) cutting the budding composit flower of the coconut tree. As the tree produces one bud a month and as a bud can be tapped for a period of up to four months, a good - 37 ~