ing
of sweet potatoes, taro and other things, and cleaning the gardens;
and in the afternoon they get food from the gardens and firewood from
the bush, all of which they bring home to the village; also they have
to clear off the undergrowth from newly cleared bush. The men's work is
mainly the yam and banana and sugar-cane planting, each in its season,
and the cutting down of big trees and making fences, if they happen to
be opening out new garden land. They also sometimes help the women with
their work. Or they may have hunting expeditions in the bush, or go
off in fishing parties to the river. In all matters the men of Mafulu,
though lazy, are not so lazy as those of Mekeo and the coast. In the
middle of the day the women cook the meal for everyone in the gardens,
this being done on the spot, and there they all eat it. At three, four,
or five o'clock all the people of the village have returned to it,
except perhaps when they are very busy taking advantage of good weather
for making new clearings or other special work. In the evening they
have another meal cooked in the village. At every meal in the village
the pigs have to be fed also, these sharing the food of the people
themselves, or feeding on raw potatoes. Unless there is dancing going
on, or they are tempted by a fine moonlight night to sit out talking,
the people all terminate their routine day by going to bed early.

As regards the daily social conduct of the people among themselves,
I was told that the members of a family generally live harmoniously
together (subject as regards husbands and wives to the matters which
will be mentioned later), that children are usually treated kindly
and affectionately by their parents, and that there is very little
quarrelling within a village; and what I saw when I was among the
Mafulu people certainly seemed to confirm all this.

There are various detailed matters of daily life which will appear
under their appropriate headings; but I will here deal with a few
of them.

Food.

The vegetable foods of the Mafulu people are sweet potato and other
plants of the same type, yam and other foods of the same type, taro and
other foods of that type, banana of different sorts, sugar-cane, a kind
of wild native bean, a cultivated reed-like plant with an asparagus
flavour (what it is I do not know), several plants of the pumpkin and
cucumber type, one of them being very small, like a gherkin, fruit from
two different specie