Mangaia would be 'to come up,'
or, to translate their vernacular closely, 'to climb up.' In
their songs and myths are many references to 'the hosts of
_Uk_upolu,' undoubtedly the Upolu of Samoa" (W. W. Gill, _op.
cit._ p. 25). Compare _id._, _Myths and Songs from the South
Pacific_ (London, 1876), pp. 166 _sq._

[5] W. W. Gill, _Life in the Southern Isles_, pp. 13 _sq._;
_id._, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _Report of the Second Meeting
of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
held at Melbourne, 1890_, p. 324. As to the date of the
introduction of Christianity into the Hervey Islands, see John
Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea
Islands_, pp. 491 _sq._

In the larger islands the natives cultivated the soil diligently even
before their contact with Europeans. The missionary John Williams, who
discovered Rarotonga in 1823, found the island in a high state of
cultivation. Rows of superb chestnut trees (_inocarpus_), planted at
equal distances, stretched from the base of the mountains to the sea,
while the spaces between the rows, some half a mile wide, were divided
into taro patches, each about half an acre in extent, carefully banked
up and capable of being irrigated at pleasure. On the tops of the banks
grew fine bread-fruit trees placed at equal intervals, their stately
foliage presenting a pleasing contrast to the pea-green leaves of the
ordinary taro and the dark colour of the giant taro (_kape_) in the beds
and on the sloping banks beneath.[6] In Rarotonga bread-fruit and
plantains are the staple food; in Mangaia it is taro. On the atolls the
coco-nut palm flourishes, but no planting can be done, as the soil
consists of sand and gravel thrown up by the sea on the ever-growing
coral. The inhabitants of the atolls live contentedly on coco-nuts and
fish; they are expert fishermen, having little else to do. But fresh
fish are also eaten in large quantities on most of the islands.[7] In
some of the islands the planting was done by the women, but in others,
including Rarotonga, the taro was both planted and brought home by the
men. Women cooked the food in ovens of hot stones sunk in holes, and
they made cloth from the bark of the paper-mulberry, which they stripped
from the tree, steeped in water, and beat out with square mallets of
iron-wood. But garments were made also from the inner bark of the banyan
and bread-fruit tree