Food In the Pacific Islands: Taro, Yams, Breadfruit and Obesity | Sea Life, Islands and Oceania

Home | Category: People, Life (Customs, Family, Food) / People, Life (Customs, Family, Food)

FOOD IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

In the Pacific region, Polynesia and Melanesia common foods include taro, breadfruit, coconuts, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, fish and other seafood and pig meat. Spam is highly regarded and widely consumed in some parts of the Pacific. Fatty, high-sugar Western-style foods are a factor in the poor health and high obesity rates of islanders in the region.

Some people eat fruit bats. CITES has banned the traffic in fruit bats. In other places there is a long history of dog-eating. Among some ethnic groups, pigs are greatly prized and the number of pigs one has and can serve up in a feast is a measure of wealth. Many of these people treat their pigs with great affection even though they eat them. In some places women sleep with young piglets rather than their husbands.

On some the Pacific Islands, natives pickle their foods in holes in the ground lined with banana leaves, and use them as food reserves in case of storms. The pickles are so valuable that they’ve become part of the courting process, helping a man prove he’ll be able to provide for a woman. In Fiji, guys can’t get a girl without first showing her parents his pickle pits. [Source: Shannon Cothran, CNN.com, August 7, 2009]

The is evidence that bananas and taro were cultivated in the highlands of New Guinea at least 7,000 years ago. They also eat tropical fruits such as calamondin ( a small citrus fruit), star fruit (looks like Christmas tree star); soursop (shaped like a human heart with a tart, custard-banana flavor) and lychees (a furry, red ping-pong-ball-size fruit that with what one food critic called a "taut, membranous flesh which looks more like a sea creature than a fruit" and "slips from the shell like a hard boiled egg")

High Obesity Rates Among Pacific Islanders

The Pacific islands are home to nine of the top 10 countries globally with the highest obesity rates, according to the World Health Organization (WHO),. Rates of obesity range from 35 percent to 50 percent in the region and one in five children are estimated to be obese. The Cook Islands ranks at the top with just over 50 percent of its population classified as obese. [Source: Meera Senthilingam, CNN, May 1, 2015]

“Up to 95 percent of the adult population are overweight or obese in some” places, Temo Waqanivalu, program officer with the WHO’s Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases department said. A Fijian Native, he has worked on the issue for over a decade and seen the epidemic evolve first-hand in conjunction with the cultural acceptance of big bodies. “In Polynesia the perception of ‘big is beautiful’ does exist,” he told CNN “[But] big is beautiful, fat is not. That needs to get through.”

Pacific islanders tend to have a naturally big build but that doesn’t account for the obesity that is seen. Increasingly sedentary lifestyles and a diet have aided the rise in obesity. Obesity is measured through an individual’s body mass index (BMI) and a measurement above 30kg/m² is defined as clinically obese. The disease is a risk factor for conditions such as type II diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Diabetes rates have risen dramatically in the region, with almost half of the population diabetic in the Marshall Islands. Pacific Islanders genetically inclined to get diabetes. “This is a population with a genetic predisposition and when exposed to Western lifestyles results in high rates of diabetes,” says Jonathan Shaw, associate director of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Australia. This is “undoubtedly caused by high rates of obesity.”

Why Obesity Rates Are So High Among Pacific Islanders

The obesity problem in the Pacific Islands began when locals turned their backs on traditional food such fresh fish and vegetables and replacing them with highly processed foods and carbohydrate-rich foods such as white rice, flour, canned foods, processed meats and soft drinks often imported from other countries. In the past people did a lot of physical activity and work such catching fish, harvesting coconuts and doing plantation agriculture work. [Source: Meera Senthilingam, CNN, May 1, 2015]

The idea of leisure-time activity is relatively new and today people don’t have to worl as hard as they did on the past. Fishermen that once caught their own food now sell their catch to buy large quantities of processed and canned foods, including canned tuna. According to CNN: One of the root causes of the change is the price tag. The new food environment locals find themselves living in has accelerated the trend towards consuming processed food. “It’s significantly cheaper,” adds Waqanivalu. “It’s cheaper to buy a bottle of coke than a bottle of water.”

“A lot of physical activity was in the domain of work,” says Waqanivalu, referring to fisherman heading out to sea and others working their land on plantations. The tropical climate desired by sun seekers is less attractive to those needing to keep fit. “In tropical countries there is a desire to avoid physical work and even walk,” says Shaw. “We’re all driven to conserve energy.”

Some scientists believe that Pacific island populations have evolved to maintain their larger build – a concept known as the “Thrifty Gene” hypothesis. For this region of the world, the concept is based on the fact Pacific islanders once endured long journeys at sea and those who fared best stored enough energy in the form of fat to survive their journey. “We have the remnants of those people … and their metabolism as well,” says Waqanivalu. The increased risk of obesity among native Pacific islanders is shown on the islands of Fiji, where the population has a more mixed ethnicity. The country stands at the lower end of the region’s spectrum with 36.4 percent of the adult population classed as obese. Just more than half of the Fijian population are native iTaukei, with the remainder mostly of Indian origin, according to the CIA World Factbook. “That explains the lower rates,” says Waqanivalu.

Tackling the Pacific Islanders Obesity Problem

According to CNN: The WHO has made a series of recommendations to improve the situation and is implementing them through policy changes in the countries. “Type II diabetes is emerging in young children 10-11 years old,” says Waqanivalu, who has also heard reports of a child as young as seven years old being affected. “[It’s the] tip of the iceberg in children.” [Source: Meera Senthilingam, CNN, May 1, 2015]

But Waqanilu is confident his department is making some progress through recommendations such as increased taxation on soft drinks, improving trade in the region, controlled marketing of products targeting children through schools, and policies to promote healthier diets and exercise. “The whole food environment needs to be changed,” he says. This has been the ambition of the Healthy Islands Vision – initiated by the ministers of health for the Pacific island countries in 1995 – which aims to combat obesity and diabetes among its health priorities.

Health systems also need strengthening to better handle the consequences of obesity. “We have definitely made steps but need to make strides for this to be sorted in our time,” says Waqanivalu. The naturally higher BMI of the people in the region has, however, prompted calls to increase the cut-off for the level of BMI denoting obesity in the Pacific region from 30 to 32 kg/m². A lower cut-off has been suggested for Asian populations based on the same premise, as Asian countries – including Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia – make up the majority of the lowest 10 countries globally in terms of obesity..

Taro

Taro is widely eaten in the Pacific Ocean Islands. It is a starchy tuber that come from a huge-leafed plant that is cultivated in freshwater swamps. The leaves are so large they are sometimes used as umbrellas. Harvesters often immerse themselves waist deep in muck to collect it. After breaking off the bulbous rootstock, the top is replanted. Taro is popular in Africa as well as the Pacific.

World’s Top Producers of Taro (Cocoyam) (2020): 1) Nigeria: 3205317 tonnes; 2) Ethiopia: 2327972 tonnes; 3) China: 1886585 tonnes; 4) Cameroon: 1815246 tonnes; 5) Ghana: 1251998 tonnes; 6) Papua New Guinea: 281686 tonnes; 7) Burundi: 243251 tonnes; 8) Madagascar: 227304 tonnes; 9) Rwanda: 188042 tonnes; 10) Central African Republic: 133507 tonnes; 11) Japan: 133408 tonnes; 12) Laos: 125093 tonnes; 13) Egypt: 119425 tonnes; 14) Guinea: 117529 tonnes; 15) Philippines: 107422 tonnes; 16) Thailand: 99617 tonnes; 17) Côte d'Ivoire: 89163 tonnes; 18) Gabon: 86659 tonnes; 19) Democratic Republic of the Congo: 69512 tonnes; 20) Fiji: 53894 tonnes [Source: FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization (U.N.), fao.org]

Raw taro contains high levels of oxalic acid. The acid is removed by cooking. Prepared taro can be stored long periods of time. In the old days, when Pacific Islanders navigated by canoe throughout the Pacific they were able to survive off fish from the sea and paiai (prepared taro).

Taro in Micronesia

Taro is the traditional staple of the inhabitants of Micronesia. In traditional Micronesia society, women were assigned the task of tending the taro plants, periodically weeding the gardens and picking the ripe leaves and roots.

When the plant is mature, the root is pulled from the mud and cleaned with a scraper and water. The root is normally boiled and eaten with fish. Most foreigners find this kind of taro dry, tasteless and generally unappealing. Sometimes taro is cut in pieces and cooked in coconut milk for a sweeter taste.

Taro leaves are sometimes shred and mixed with a coconut milk to make a sweet spinach-like soup. The leaves are also stuffed inside of pigs as a tenderizer for traditional Palauan pig roasts. The stem is sometimes prepared with coconut milk and sugar and served as a dessert.

Taro is popular in Hawaii. There it is ravaged by golden apple snails, creature introduced as a food source. They eats taro and prevents it from maturing. Cayuga ducks eat the snails and have been introduced to feed on them but their importation is discouraged because of fear they too may become an invasive species.

Paiai — Pounded, Kneaded Taro

Paiai (Pa’i’ai) is a starchy mass made from pounded and kneaded taro. It is easy to digest, high in potassium as well as fiber, allergy-freindly and is low on the glycemic index. The best taro is hand harvested at its peak, when it contains its highest starch content, in turn producing the best tasting pa’i’ai. Poi is another traditional food made from taro. The difference between paiai and poi is water content. Paiai is undiluted poi, while poi is diluted paiai.

To male paiai first you steami and clean the taro plant’s corms (rounded underground storage organ like a tuber, root or potato). Taro is pounded with the least amount of water on a wooden board, papa kuiai, using a stone pestle, pohaku kuiai. The starch molecules are crushed, forming a gummy mass of broke-da-mouth [Source: Guava Rose]

By crushing the starch molecules, the substance begins to ferment in a process not unlike the production of sauerkraut, kimchee, cheese, or daikon. All of these fermented foods rely on the beneficial bacteria lactobascillus. This beneficial bacterium, naturally found in our intestinal tract, has been linked with fighting cancer and staving off the onset of rot and the growth of harmful bacteria.

Taro Agriculture — 7,000 Years Ago

There is evidence that bananas and taro were cultivated as early as 7,000 years ago at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. The abstract of a 2003 article in Science reads: Multidisciplinary investigations at Kuk Swamp show that agriculture arose independently in New Guinea by at least 6950 to 6440 years ago. [Source: “Origins of Agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea” by T. P. Denham, S. G. Haberle, C. Lentfer, R. Fullagar, J. Field, M. Therin, N. Porch, and B. Winsborough, Science, July 11 2003, Vol 301, Issue 5630, pp. 189-193]

In the case of Kuk Swamp, there is evidence of formalized agriculture emerging by about 10,000 years ago, with evidence of cultivated plots, though which plant was cultivated remains unknown. Plant exploitation and some cultivation occurred on the wetland margin at 10,220 to 9910 years ago (phase 1), mounding cultivation began by 6950 to 6440 years ago (phase 2), and ditched cultivation began by 4350 to 3980 years ago (phase 3).

Clearance of lower montane rainforests began in the early Holocene, with modification to grassland at 6950 to 6440 years ago Taro (Colocasia esculenta) was utilized in the early Holocene, and bananas (Musa spp.) were intensively cultivated by at least 6950 to 6440 years ago Taro is found widely in tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Papua New Guinea, and northern Australia and in Maldives.

Taro is highly polymorphic, making taxonomy and distinction between wild and cultivated types difficult. It is believed that they were domesticated independently multiple times, with authors giving possible locations as New Guinea, Mainland Southeast Asia, and northeastern India, based largely on the assumed native range of the wild plants. Archaeological traces of taro exploitation have been recovered from numerous sites, though whether these were cultivated or wild types can not be ascertained. They include the Niah Caves of Borneo around 10,000 years ago, Ille Cave of Palawan, dated to at least 11,000 year ago; Kuk Swamp of New Guinea, dated to between 8250 BC and 7960 BC; and Kilu Cave in the Solomon Islands dated to around 28,000 to 20,000 years ago. Swamp sago agriculture is also thought to have originated in New Guinea [Source: Wikipedia]

Coconuts in the Pacific

Coconuts are the seed (or nut or fruit) of the coconut palm, or “Cocos nucifera” . They have many uses: the meat is eaten raw, cooked or dried; the oil is made into soap or cooking oil; the sap from the tree is fermented into a strong alcoholic drink; the husk of the shell can be twisted into rope or twine; and various parts of the tree can be used for constructing houses. They also provide materials baskets, fuel, medicines, dye, yeast, fertilizer, corks, cups, bowls, musical instruments, decorations, jewelry and even clothing for millions of people in coastal areas and islands in tropical areas all over the world. The word coconut is derived from the Portuguese word “coco” , which means grimace because it resembles a grimacing face.[Source: Andrew Forbes, Donald Wilson and Rainier Krack, Crescent Press Agency]

According to a South Pacific proverb: "He who plants a coconut tree plants food and drink, vessels and clothing, a habitation for himself and a heritage for his children." Coconuts are an important food and cash crop in the Pacific and the Indian ocean regions.

Coconut palms are found naturally in tropical coastal areas all around the globe. Because they are so widely distributed as a result of coconuts floating on the world's oceans it is not clear where they originated from. Coconuts may grow where the fall or be carried away and give birth to new trees thousands of miles from where they originated from. Coconuts from the West Indies are sometimes found washed up in 3,000 miles away in England or are spotted in the middle of the sea by passengers in ocean liners

The dried meat of the coconut (copra) was highly valued as a source of oil for cooking, soaps, cosmetics, and other products in worldwide demand, and millions of coconut palms were planted and managed throughout the Pacific. Missionaries saw copra as a limitless source of cash, and commercial firms obtained rights to countless hectares of coastal and island land. For example, from 1884 to 1899, the Neu Guinea Kompagnie turned most of the coastline of northeastern New Guinea into plantations for copra, as well as tobacco and other crops, and, beginning in 1905, the firm of Lever Brothers established Lever's Pacific Plantations, Ltd., in much of Fiji and the Solomon Islands. Copra continues to be the major commercial export of many islanders.

Sweet Potatoes and Yams

Yams and sweet potatoes are important food sources in the developing world, especially in Oceania, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, parts of South America and West Africa. Both are root crops but from different families that in turn are different from the family that includes regular potatoes. The scientific name of the sweet potato is “Ipomoea batatas” . The yam is one of several species of “Dioscorea” .

Sweet potatoes come from creeping perennial vines that are members of the morning glory family. Technically they are true roots not underground stems (tubers) as is the case with white potatoes and yams. A single sweet potato planted in the spring produces a large vine with a large number of tubers growing from its roots. Sweet potato plants are obtained by planting slips — not seeds — in indoor or outdoor beds and transplanting these a month or so later.

Yams are tubers. Over 500 species of yam have been identified world wide. Wild yams can be found in a lot of places. They are often clinging vines that grow on trees. In temperate climates they are perennials whose leaves die off in the winter and who store their energy in their tuber or rhizome and use that to fuel growth the following spring.

Trobriand Islanders and Yams

The Trobriand Islands are small group of coral islands about 200 kilometers 125 miles north of the eastern tip of New Guinea. Trobriand Islander society is divided into a hierarchy of matrilineal clans and sub clans that different privileges. garden plots were inherited along matrilineal lines. The famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski described them in "The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia," a book about the Trobriand Islands, which he said were "keen on fighting" and often fought "systematic and relentless wars." In the past, power was held by big men who inherited their position and could only be deposed only through war. Some chiefs had a dozen wives and wealth was accumulated through gifts of yams from his brothers-in-law to his wives. These yams were in turn used great feasts (conferring his position as great provider") and pay the salaries of canoe builders, artisans, magicians and servants

Much of life on the Trobriand islands revolves around yams. The Yam house sits in the center of the village and it is where most big social gatherings take place. Prize yams, some of them measuring 1.2 meters (four feet) long, hang inside these houses.

The Trobrianders are generally very good natured but arguments break out who has the longest yam or the most beautiful yam house. The most dangerous conflict is the traditional yam competition where the members of one matrilineage line up their largest and longest yams to be measured against the yams brought together by the members of a rival matrilineage. In one incident a man was killed in an argument over yam quality. These days fights sometimes erupt over yams, but the presence of government officials usually keeps these incidents from getting out of hand.

Yams are exchanged among men during every important ceremonial occasions. They are then stored until they rot. Yams rot after three or four months which means they value doesn’t last very long. According to Sawa Kurotani at Redlands University: “A storehouse full of rotted yams is “the public display of a Trobriander man’s ability to develop an extensive social network and harness ever large amounts of critical resources (yams). Gift exchange is not so much about the objects that changes hands, but more about the person who participates in the ongoing exchange , sometimes as a giver and other times as a receiver...The gift is not a mere object; it takes on the ‘spirit’ of the giver, who is communicated to the receiver and the community who witness the gift exchange. In other words the gift is an embodiment of self in a social relationship.

Yam Customs in the Trobriand Islands

Trobrianders are superb yam farmers. Using slash-and-burn methods, the produce large yam harvests once a year. Women and men work together to clear land. Men tend to plant the yams, stake up the vines, build garden fences and do the harvesting. Women produce other garden foods, although occasionally they make their own yam gardens.

The major commitment that follows each marriage is the annual yam harvest produced by the woman's father and eventually by her brother in the woman's name. These yams obligate her husband to obtain many bundles of banana leaves for her when she participates in a mortuary distribution. In regard to inheritance, a villager's personal property, including magic spells, are given to those who have helped him or her by making yam gardens and assisting with other food.

During harvest matrilineal lines were acknowledged by the representation of yams from brothers to sisters

For the Trobrianders teenage sex is encouraged. 14 year old boys have their own huts where they can entertain their girlfriends. During their annual Yam festival marriage is suspended for many. Paul Theroux reports. During this festival teens run around with coconut oil and bee pollen smeared on their bodies When does a boy know when is time to become a man and get an apartment? Theroux asked 18-year-old Madulo Monubweri, who replied s, "When you go to the garden by yourself, when you can do all the gardening work, then it is time."

Yam houses stand prominently around a central clearing, dwarfing the individual dwellings built behind this plaza. Chiefs may decorate their houses and their yam houses with ancestral designs and hang cowrie shells indicating differences in ranking. It is bad news if a man accidently happens upon a group of women harvesting yams. Usually outnumbered, he is chased, and caught by the women who slap him around and ridicule his masculinity. His clothes are then forced off him and his sent back to the village naked and thoroughly humiliated.

Breadfruit

Breadfruit is a large, globular, green, pimpled fruit that grows on 40-to 60-foot-high trees in tropical regions. It is one of the main sources of food for people in the islands of the north and south Pacific. Different species of breadfruit bear fruit at different times of the year, providing an almost constant supply of food.

There are 40 species of breadfruit. They require hot temperatures, a lot of rain and good drainage. The trees have large green leaves and often don't have any limbs for a considerable distance from their base. The fruit of often larger than American footballs, reaching lengths of up to a foot widths up to six inches. As it ripens it turns from green to brown and finally, when ripe, to yellow.

Breadfruit is high in carbohydrates, thiamin, niacin and vitamin C. In tropical regions where grain doesn't grow it is an important source of starch and carbohydrates. It is prepared a number of ways: roasted on in hot coals, sliced and dried in the sun, made into a drink, made into flour, made into porridge. It is usually baked or mashed and served like mashed potatoes. Sometimes, it buried in the ground to ferment before its baked.

Breadfruit trees also provide cloth from the inner bark, wood for canoes, homes and furniture,. The sticky, milky sap is used in making glue.

Breadfruit Legend

Many years ago a god named Ku came to Hawaii and married a mortal woman. Together they had a large family, but Ku never told her he was a god. One year, a terrible famine came to the islands, and Ku's family became weak with hunger. When Ku could no longer bear his family's suffering, he confided to his wife: "If I go on a long journey, I can get food for our children and everyone on the island, but I will never be able to return." [Source: Nyree J.C. Zerega, Natural History magazine, December 2003, January 2004]

At first his wife would not hear of such a thing, but after watching her children slowly starve, she finally relented. The couple walked together into their garden, where Ku kissed his wife good-bye and disappeared into the earth. In her grief Ku's wife waited at the spot where he had disappeared, watering it for several days with her tears. Soon a sprout pushed up from the spot and rapidly grew into a tree. Within just a few days Ku's body had transformed into a large tree trunk, his arms into branches, his blood into a white latex flowing through the tree, and his head into a fruit that provided Ku's family with the food he had promised.

The tree, and the food, was the breadfruit. This legend is just one of many that are told to account for the origins of breadfruit (Artocarpiis altilis). It is little wonder that the plant is the stuff of legend, for it has been cultivated as a staple starch crop in the Pacific islands for thousands of years.

Mysterious Origin of Breadfruit

Biologists still can’t work out breadfruit’s origins. According to Natural History magazine: The puzzle begins with the fact that many breadfruit trees are seedless and sterile. Sometime in the past, cultivators must have transformed a fertile plant into one that needs human intervention to reproduce itself But what was the ancestral tree? Breadfruit is scattered across thousands of islands in the Pacific, but no close wild relatives grow throughout much of this range. Thus there is no prime local candidate for botanists to name as breadfruit's ancestor. And if the transformation did not occur throughout the Pacific, it probably occurred in just one place, and the sterile trees must have been spread by human means. [Source: Nyree J.C. Zerega, Natural History magazine, December 2003, January 2004]

But where did these people come from? Seafaring people reached Australia and New Guinea at least 40,000 years ago and, relaunching from those lands, settled the Solomon Islands by 30,000 years ago. But the broader peopling of Oceania — the middle and southern Pacific islands — did not get underway until about 4,000 years ago.

Prehistoric seafarers casting off from their home islands to settle elsewhere would have been sure to take along breadfruit trees, which provide an abundance of fruit. The first breadfruit trees, like their unknown progenitor, may have been capable of reproducing by means of seeds. At some point, however, the voyagers must have begun to transport and transplant root cuttings, which can be nicked with a sharp blade to produce shoots. In who transported it. Unfortunately, reconstructing the plant's botanical history has long proved difficult. During the millennia breadfruit has been cultivated, the trees changed with time and place.

Mutations occurred, and cultivators on various islands selected for trees that grew best under local particularly conditions or whose fruits were particularly appealing in size, taste, and texture. My hope was that DNA evidence obtained through the new tools of molecular biology would finally resolve the puzzle of the species' origins.

Hypotheses on Breadfruit Origin

Nyree J.C. Zerega wrote in Natural History magazine: Scholars have put forward at least two testable hypotheses about the origins of breadfruit. The first was advanced in 1940, when Eduardo Quisumbing, a Filipino botanist, suggested breadfruit may be "derived, by selection, from some species perhaps even approximating the 'camansi.' " He was referring to the breadnut, A. camansi, native to New Guinea and possibly the Philippines and the Moluccas. It produces edible, chestnutlike seeds. A second, much more complex hypothesis was proposed in 1960 by Francis Raymond Fosberg, an accomplished American botanist of the Pacific flora. [Source: Nyree J.C. Zerega, Natural History magazine, December 2003, January 2004]

Fosberg implicated two other species in addition to the breadnut. One is the Philippine endemic commonly known as antipolo (A. blaiuoi), which is used primarily for lumber. The other, often called dugdug (A. mariannensis), is endemic to certain uplifted limestone islands in Micronesia, namely Palau and the Marianas. The islanders consume both its seeds and the surrounding flesh. Fosberg suggested that antipolo first hybridized with breadnut, giving rise to sterile breadfruit. But he also noted that Micronesian breadfruit has its own unique characteristics. For example, some specimens have leaves like those of the dugdug but seedless fruit like that of breadfruit; others have deeply cut leaves like the breadfruit's, but those leaves have brownish and reddish hairs on the leaf veins, like the dugdug's. To account for those features, Fosberg suggested that in Micronesia the sterile breadfruit trees had somehow hybridized with dugdug.

To begin my own study into the origins of breadfruit, I wanted to test both these hypotheses about its wild progenitors. That led immediately to my first question: Are breadnut, dugdug, and antipolo the species most closely related to breadfruit, and if not, what is? Second, is there evidence that any of those species contributed to breadfruit's gene pool? I determined the DNA sequences for two regions of the genome in nearly forty species in the breadfruit genus,

When I examined the DNA from all the trees, I found many genetic fingerprints that were common to breadfruit, breadnut, and dugdug. That confirmed just how closely related the three species are. But I was also able to identify' some dugdug fingerprints absent in all breadnut trees, and some breadnut fingerprints absent in all dugdug trees. Looking at the distribution revealed an intriguing pattern. Both breadnut and dugdug fingerprints were present in virtually all Micronesian breadfruit cultivars. But most of the breadfruit cultivars in Melanesia and Polynesia included only the fingerprints of breadnut, not of dugdug.

To some extent, then, both Quisumbing and Fosberg were correct. Overwhelmingly, in Melanesia and Polynesia, breadfruit cultivars were derived through selection from breadnut, just as Quisumbing surmised. But Fosberg was right to think there was something different about the Micronesian breadfruit trees. In A4icronesia, breadnut or breadnut-derived breadfruit appears to have hybridized with dugdug, probably not in a single event but in a process known as introgression, in which a series of interspecies crosses are followed by repeated backcrosses. The result was a unique diversity of cultivars.

How do these findings tie in with the migrations of people across the Pacific? Here's a possible ward from New Guinea, they likely carried along whatever they needed of the wild breadnut, so that they could establish breadnut as a crop. But breadnut seeds remain viable for just a few weeks; seafarers who anticipated a long ocean voyage, such as the ones that led colonizers to regions east of the Solomon Islands, would have known to bring along root cuttings. (In fact, the Lapita vegetatively propagated several of their important crops, including yams and taro.) By propagating and spreading their breadnut trees via cuttings, generation upon generation of islanders transformed it into the breadfruit, a species that did not reliably produce viable or edible seeds but that could be consumed as a starch crop. Human settlement of Micronesia was not so straightforward as it was in Melanesia and Polynesia, and several migration routes may have been established. One route scholars have suggested began in the eastern Solomon Islands or in the islands to their southeast, and followed a northward course to the Caroline Islands. Lapita or other people taking that route could have introduced the breadnut derived breadfruit into Micronesia. Migrations and trade routes within Micronesia could then have brought the introduced breadfruit into the range of the native dugdug, where the two species could have cross-pollinated.

The earliest breadnut derived breadfruit occurs in Melanesia, where breadfruit cultivars that produce seeds are still commonly found. I speculate that such fertile plants may be what hybridized with dugdug. Nothing like them persists in Micronesia, however, though the hybrid breadfruit trees themselves sometimes do produce seeds. The ancestral cultivars may have disappeared from the region because of a difference in environmental conditions or because people who lived there — perhaps owing to the availability of the edible dugdug seeds — preferentially selected seedless cultivars.

Finally, the route from Melanesia into Micronesia might well have been a two-way street. As the Lapita people voyaged east covered dugdug fingerprints in a small number of cultivars I sampled from the Solomon Islands and farther east, in Efate, the Fiji Islands, Samoa, and the Society Islands. The evidence suggests that hybrid breadfruit cultivars, developed in Micronesia, could later have joined the breadnut derived breadfruit m Melanesia and Polynesia.

Cannibalism Versus Dog Eating

When first encountered by the Europeans, some of the ethnic groups of New Guinea, northern Australia, New Zealand and Melanesia practiced some form of warfare cannibalism. By contrast the people of Polynesia didn’t practice cannibalism but ate dogs.

The Marquesans practiced warfare cannibalism. In the early 20th century chief still wore cloaks make of human hair and surrounded themselves with beautiful naked women.

In Tahiti and other Pacific island, dogs have traditionally been allowed to run loose in the countryside and eat refuge and garbage. They were collected and slaughtered.. In some places dogs were kept in special houses or houses with fences and sacred trees. Some dogs were forced fed special vegetable diets to make their meat taste better.

The dogs were killed by strangulation with bare hands, with a stick of by pressing the head against the chest. The carcasses was disemboweled, singed to remove the hair and cooked in earth ovens and basted with blood collected on a coconut shell.

In some cases only members of the elite were allowed to eat dog. Dogs were also valued for their skin, fur, teeth and bones. Tahitian warriors trimmed their breastplates with white dog hair and made combs and fishhooks out of dog teeth and jawbones. Dogs were th main source of animal meat on islands without sufficient land for pigs..

Insects as a Food in the Pacific Region

Professor Gene R. De Foliart wrote: “Failla Tedaldi (1882) 135) cites an earlier source that the Kanaks of New Caledonia collect roots, "worms" and grubs of beetles as part of their diet. Bernatzik (1936) describes a great variety of animal foods, including insects, that are consumed by the natives of Owa Raha, one of the Solomon Islands. Among the beetle grubs, those of Oryctes rhinoceros Linn. are particularly attractive. Adult beetles, cicadas, praying mantis and butterflies are among the animals that are not eaten. Before consumption, fish and insects are roasted on an open fire. The main vegetable foods are yam and taro. [Source: “Human Use of Insects as a Food Resource”,Professor Gene R. De Foliart (1925-2013), Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002]

Oliver (1989) reported infrequent and opportunistic collection of edible berries and insects by the Siuai, a horticultural people of Bougainville, while engaged in other pursuits. They were eaten only as snacks or as occasional relishes with regular meals.

Noting that many Hawaiian traditions about insects have been lost, Howarth and Mull (1992) mention: One that did survive involves the existence of a large cricket-like animal, called the 'hini pa'awela, in the Ka' District of the Big Island; it was a favorite food among the Hawaiians there until the late 1800s. A few of these animals roasted on a skewer provided a full meal. No specimens of the 'hini pa'awela survived, and we can only speculate that it may have been a giant weta-like Banza katydid or a Thaumatogryllus cricket. According to Handy and Handy (1972) pre-European Hawaiians ate many kinds of birds, but apparently only one kind of insect, a grasshopper.

Long-horned beetles larva are eaten in some places. Simmonds (1885) states that the larvae of Mallodon costatus are eaten by the natives of New Caledonia. Williams (1944) mentions a longicorn beetle which inhabits decaying trees in New Caledonia; the larva and pupa are considered a delicacy.

Image Sources:

Text Sources:“Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 2: Oceania,” edited by Terence E. Hays, 1991, Wikipedia, Natural History magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Tourism Offices, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, The Guardian, National Geographic, Associated Press, AFP, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last Updated July 2023