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 653
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by American Museum of Natural History. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Small brown moth with wavy fuscous lines across wings about Casuarinas. Large grasshoppers common. Small Cicindelidae. Small fuscous bug and black wasp with red brown legs and swollen hind tarsae, in shrub with triangular winged capsules. Saw a few stunted tree ferns toward top. A very fair trail crosses the island from south to north; running up the ridge behind the school at Tumbou and branching near the top of the north high ridge, one branch running down the west side of a valley to Nasangalau, and the other traversing the ridge a short distance and descending to Vakano. The four central peaks are of about the same height, 680 to 720 feet. These are nearly in a straight line from N.W. to S.E., and the fourth is an elongated ridge to the eastward. The middle one of the three, Mt. Goodenough is a shade higher (720' according to the Pilot book) but Kendi Kendi has a knot of trees and coconut palms on its summit (690'), which makes it look higher. Climbed to the top of all but the eastern of these peaks. To the S. E. the slopes are covered with dense plume grass, those to the west have ferns etc. A good trail leads from the summit of Kendi Kendi to an area of gardens at its south foot. From here there is a well trod trail down the valley to Tumbou village. The upper slopes of Kendi Kendi, above the plume grass, are covered with lowland trees, scrub, and weeds, with a couple dozen coconut palms. Caught a few beetles in dead leaves near this summit. Water is piped down the valley to Tumbou. In the village found a group of 13 women dying (tapa) - samusamu. The strips of tapa were pasted together with a native starch made from mamico root. These strips were laid over a semi-cylindrical form covered with a fish net on which the raised designs, worked out in fiber (fern stems) and