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Easter Island: Early Witnesses

George Cooke


709


   In place of plank floors the bare earth is strewn with dried bulrushes and grass to the depth of several inches, and as this litter is rarely renewed, the result is obvious. Occasionally a bunk may be found knocked up at one end of the single apartment of which the house consists, or, as in the more pretentious houses, a square bedstead may be seen, built of planed, unpainted wood, with a wild attempt at scroll carving about the head and foot boards. Chairs and tables are unknown luxuries.
   The same house is often occupied by several families, or by several generations of the same family, but as the individuals composing these are never very numerous there is no overcrowding.
   A few of the more ordinary cooking utensils may occasionally be seen, but as a rule the natives, as is generally the case among the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, prepare their food in stone ovens in the following manner: A circular excavation is made in the earth outside of the dwelling, several feet in diameter and a foot or two in depth, which is then neatly lined with a porous stone of some sort. Other stones are loosely laid in, and a quantity of dry wood or brush of any kind, with more stones, piled on. The wood is then set on fire, and, when the stones have become sufficiently heated, the loose ones are taken out, and the brands and cinders removed, leaving the lining of heated stones intact. Over these is then spread a layer of banana, breadfruit, or other large leaves to keep the food from contact with ashes. The food, taro, yams, sweet potatoes, fowl, short, or "long pig," or whatever else there may be, previously prepared for cooking, is then placed on the layer of leaves, piece by piece, until all are in position, when the mound of food is carefully covered over with several thicknesses of large green leaves to prevent any dirt from falling in among the edibles. The heated stones, previously removed, are then placed in position all over the mass and finally a thick layer of fine, dry earth, ashes, and cinders is piled over all, these being for the purpose of retaining the heat. In from two to three or four hours the baking is finished, and, barring the "long pig," perhaps, a more healthful and toothsome method of preparing and cooking food, when superintended by an expert native Samoan chef, for example, could not, in the estimation of the writer, who has had opportunities for judging, be devised. The thought suggests itself here that the "clambakes" of our Atlantic States are a feeble imitation of this style of cooking among the islanders.
   As wood or solid fuel of any kind is a most rare commodity on Rapa Nui the natives are compelled to use brush, twigs, and trash cast up on their island by the sea, anything, in fact, of an inflammable nature which they can pick up. They even economize the dried droppings of the cattle, as the Arab does those of his camel, for this purpose, and I saw great basketfuls of these carefully stowed away in their houses for future use.
   They have no fixed time for eating, and while their menu, as may be

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