[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

PORT OLRY AND A “SING—SING” n7

caste to eat food cooked on the fire of a lower caste.
Women are considered unworthy to cook a man’s
meal; in fact, their standing here is probably the
lowest in all the archipelago. Still, they do not lack
amusement; they gather like the men for social
carousals, and are giggling and chattering all day
long. Their principal occupation is the cultivation
of the fields, but where Nature is so open-handed
this is not such a task as we might think when we see
them coming home in the afternoon, panting under
an immense load of fruit, with a pile of firewood on
top, a child on their back and possibly dragging
another by the hand. Port Olry is the only place in
the New Hebrides where the women carry loads on
their heads. Everywhere else they carry them on
their backs in baskets of cocoa-nut leaves. In conse—
quence the women here are remarkable for their
erect and supple carriage.

The work in the fields consists merely of digging
out the yam and picking other fruit, and it is a
sociable affair, with much talking and laughter.
There is always something to eat, such as an
unripe cocoa-nut or a banana. Serious work is not
necessary except at the planting season, when the
bush has to be cleared. Then a whole clan usually
works together, the men helping quite energetically,
until the fields are fenced in and ready for planting ;
then they hold a feast, a big “ kai-kai,” and leave the
rest of the work to the women. The fences are
made to keep out the pigs, and are built in the
Simplest way: sticks of the wild cotton-wood tree,