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

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THE VILLAGE AND VILLAGE LIFE 37
_ _In the evening when the day's work is done everyone retums
to the village and the -evening meal is prepared. Both men and
women may do the cooking. "Passing a village at sundown,
they are cooking their evening meal (breadfruit) at their ï¬Åres,
the women separately, the men together in the club-house, the
blue smoke curling up lazily through the overshadowing branches
of some great banyan tree." An interesting account has been
preserved in the dialect of Larnbumbu of the method of preparing
vegetable food, a method which is probably oommon, with minor
variations, throughout Malekula as well as in the neighbouring
islands. The oven, which is a pit in the ground, is cleaned out,
the oven stones being left where they are, and a ï¬Åre is kindled
in it to heat them. While the ï¬Åre is burning, the yams are
scraped to remove the outer skin, cut up, kneaded into a
pudding and mixed with leaves of the native cabbage. The
pudding is then wrapped up in layers of leaves. When the
oven ï¬Åre has become a glowing mass, and the stones are red hot,
the latter are arranged with a pair oi wooden tongs so that
they line the oven, and the pudding is laid upon them. It
is covered over with more leaves and perhaps (though this
is not clear) with some more of the hot stones, and is left to
cook. How lung it is left in or how the natives judge when
it will be ready, the translated part of the text unfortunately
dpes not tell us.
‘ff; j" Marznï¬Ång nggï¬Åt mbmmmp / "
L‘V’ ;l'o-clay we shall cook l â€ù »
Q, .106, bvliang, mbwitï¬Åvu, mbwiszr nazzm tb'nggd't/'
“_)‘.‘.Yes, right. we will go, we will take ï¬Årewood our."
Mqman - bwescr msaaja, mwman bwmgganeh
One‘ man will take pudding leaves,‘ one mim will nip
nawani, m/uruan bu’ur'1/.1 mwulnh. "Guwans11/ans en nazzm
oft ca bage, one man will sweep out the oven. “Break* the
ngei, kw b1ul:m Irugut, gusï¬Åbi nuvulah ngei."
ï¬Årewood that, take it it comes inside heat up the oven that."
Muman boghaglfaret, ivm/m’: nggï¬Åm tuan mbavu bwmggeneh
One man he will scrape,‘ he says: “Of you one go nip oft
1 msrmp are the leaves ' 2; h at dd‘ . . a boi ' i
We the own to Wok. All v re G pu ings are wrappe ore being put
I guwamwuvu signiï¬Åes " break by hitting against 5 stone
I baghrxgharzt. This refers to the scraping of the yams to remove the hard,
rough outer skin.