Journal of Edwin H. Bryan, Jr. while with the Whitney Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on the schooner France, February to October 1924
Page 589
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Transcription
It is called Wa ndravundravu and the basket is called kawa. The S. beach is lined with coconut palms and the usual beach trees. N. and E. of the village are extensive native gardens. Collected several butterflies, moths, crickets, etc. in this area. Up a trail which leads over the north ridge from the village to the north shore. The ridge is covered for the most part with grass and stunted scrub and weeds. There is also considerable Casuarina, Pandanus and a few coconut palms. The scrub includes ti, noni, rowa, the plant with yellow flowers and white floral leaves and several other stunted lowland trees and shrubs. Here and there are small garden paths. Grasshoppers large and small are abundant. Butterflies fairly nume- rrous - H. bolina, with both yellow and white spotted females; Vanessa, the black white spotted sp., brown sp., Monarch, and Lycaenidae. Mr. Beck caught a large orange and red brown centipede under a log and gave it to me in the field. Other insects scarce on the ridge, but of some variety in the low- lands. Collected a number of small brown shells on the dry leaves on an Inocarpus edulus tree, about 150 yards inland. Returned to village and got my fish basket. Watched the men of the village preparing a feast to celebrate a wedding shortly to take place. They were pealing manioc roots, cutting up pumpkin and putting it into cocoanut baskets and making up small parcels (of coconut leaves) of sweet potatoes. A hot fire was blazing in the lovo depression, where stones were heating.A bowl of grated coconut stood finished, ready to be cooked with sugar and made into lolo. While I was watching the cooking process the natives found two small walking sticks for me. The burning sticks were finally raked out of the lovo and the coconut- leaf baskets of food piled up over the hot stones, covered with breadfruit