They quietly observed others at work. Old people directed, corrected,a dnt aught by example skills such as weaving, cordage-making, and carving that can only be learned in performance. While all this went on people needed to eat. That is, you must feed the te puke builders. Being a traditional Polynesian community on a remote island, Taumako cannot simply send out a pizza order.
All comestibles come from the land, the sea, or, on rare occasions, a cargo ship.
While some people built the canoes, others grew and cooked the food for them. Yet almost everyone wanted the chance to help with the building. Project organizers solved this problem by rotating the work of cooking and canoe building through the community s fifteen tribal groups. Each one in turn had both the opportunity to work on the canoe and the obligation to feed other canoe workers. A variation of the same difficulty presented itself to those who planned the September 12 launch.