The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-09-15
sMisreHaneuus.
THE COCOANUT.
A Legend Concerning Its Origin.

Letter rom Gilbert Island Pacific Ocean, {
the Detroit Tribune.l
Once on a time, before big tree e1
{ listed, when the sea was the garden
flesh pot, etc., of the original Gilber
! Islander, a daughter-in- law rebelleC
! against the family law by which al
sons wives become wives ex-officio o
the old man. The father asked a kis!
I and was denied; then took the refusa
| to heart and starved himself. On hi.
dying bed he told the ungraciou:
daughter that his death lay at her door
that though she never kissed him alive,
she should of her own will when dead.
To his son he said: "You have ever
been good boy. All mine is thine.
Bury me under that bush, from which
shall grow a tree. When you gather
the fruit remember your father" TIC
the stubborn woman he said, "Remem
ber." She only said, 81 never did, ]
won't now, and | never shall" The
old man answered, ''You WILL" anC
died. In due time the old heathen'.
word was verified by new unknown
tree, cocoanut that became heavy
with fruit. The young man remem.
bered his father, but the woman per-
suaded him to gather and husk the
nuts.
l. When he saw the almost human nose
and eyes and mouth he said, "Fatherl"
but she said, Il was not afraid of him
in life, and amt now," and then dug
open the tender eye, put the cocoanut
to her mouth and was drinking when
spiritual arms grasped her neck and a
voice came from the nut, saying, "At
last you have kissed me-"
Is this new tradition of Adam and
Eve? 1t certainly is Gilbert tradition
never before made public, and has
some POINTS worth the attention of the
curious.
Seven years, oftener ten and more,
must elapse between planting and fruit.
In the Hawaiian Islands the adage,
''Who plants a cocoanut orchard will
never live to eat its fruit, had a super
stitious power that restrained men with
desire for long life from planting the
fatal tree. But in the Gilbert Islands
men have no such fear. The cocoanut
is their faithful father and mother. Its
long green leaves seldom less than
twelve feet, often twenty from heel to
point, when the midrib is divided and
the segments braided, make floor mats,
make bed mattresses, make blankets,
make windows, doors, etc. The same
tough midribs, with the palmlets at
tached make the largest shingles ex
TAM, and when stripped they make
fishing rods and fencing lumber, and
even flooring rods and jolsts, while the
narrow leaflets tied in a long, cigar
shaped torch, illuminate the nights
without stars, and the black water
where fishermen scoop up bazed flying
fish with wings eighteen inches from
tip to tip. The fiber of the husk prop
erly curved gives strong material for
twine, cord, and rope, be it hair fish
line, main sail halliard, a canoe how
ser or shark rope. The shell of the
olrao hot bar ( n
for any charcoal purpose. The milk is
Gods gift to thirsty land, where no
rains fall eight months out of twelve,
and the springs of water are all salt.
There are two milks to a cocoanut; one
the natural water, the other artificial,
produced by scraping fine the white
meat and Immediately subjecting its
snowy flakes to violent compression.
The lacteous fluid can hardly be told
from new milk, and answers a good
purpose in tea and coffee. Cocoanut
meat when young is soft like jelly,
tender as cream, and delicious as GUS
tard eaten with a silver spoon. When
hard it cuts, The boys know how, like
tough cheese The Gilbert Islanders
have no better bread, and With hand
full of fish and a big segment of old
coc oanut are perfectly happy. Cocoa
nut oil is produced by scraping the dry |
nut into sinal, shavings, exposing them
to the hot sun until the rancid oil be-
gins to stew out, and then subjecting
mass to hsavy pressure Co
coanut oil is worth about ten cents
gallon to the producer. One hundred
common nuts will make a gallon of CO.
coanut oil. When bought for money
800 or 400 ripe nuts go for a dollar to
the traders.
So far from having exhausted the
use of this wonderful tree, the most
TO the Gilbert Islanders
has not been mentioned-sap. With
out sap these Islanders would quickly
leave these coral atolls desolate. But
few own land or trees, and these favor
ed few own the nuts. The ancient law
that protects the property rights in eat
able cocoanuts permits the poorest
slave to cut sap on the rich mans land.
This sap flows from the bud which
stands on the tree like an unhusked ear
Of corn, swathed tightly and its small
end cut off. 1t is drank when fresh and
sweet, and will sustain life and strength
1naided. It is also drank when old
and fernented, and then cocoanut
,oddy is as vile and cursed drink as
,yer made a riot or committed drunk
IN murder. Only eighty murders were
attributed to this intoxicating cause on
even islands during the first six months !
If 1875. The trees are in blossom all
he year, so the sap flows, the toddy
ours, and the murders go on all the
rear round.
Cocoanut differ in shape, size and
lavor, as do apples, as do pears, as also
brought to the Hawaiian 7
Iuseum in Honolulu fourteen pairs of $
ocoanuts ranging from crabs to pound
weets. They follow two types. the q
wal and circular The smallest of the
wal is as large as a mans forefinger {
nd not larger; of the circular, no 7
anger than a doves egg From this
rnallest they ascend to those that are '
line inches in diameter. The tree
reducing small nuts reproduces itself, =
nd the mammoth nuts of Samoa and e