A fishing party will often stay and live for some days at the place where they are fishing, and eat the fish each day as they catch it; so that what they bring home for the village or community may only be the result of the last day’s sport.  But the women will sometimes come to the fishers, bring them food, and take some fish back to the village or community.  Each community has waters which it regards as being its own; but disputes as to this apparently do not arise.

A solitary individual sometimes goes off to catch fish with one of the hand nets above described or with his hands, and eats or keeps what he catches; but this is unusual.

Agriculture.

Agriculture is never communistic, being entirely an individual or family matter, men and households and families having their own gardens and plantations.  The trees and plants chiefly cultivated are those already mentioned as being used for food.

The clearing of the ground is done by men, and is begun about the end of June.  The trees and their branches are used for fencing, the fencing being also done by men.  The clearing away of the undergrowth is done by women, who pile it in small heaps, which are spread over the cleared space, being so close together that they almost touch one another.  When these have got quite dry, which may be in a few days, or not for some time, they burn them, and the ashes add fertility to the soil.  There is no general digging up of the ground, as distinguished from the digging of holes for individual plants.  The clearing of the trees is done with stone adzes, or in difficult cases by fire; but some of the people now have European axes, of which some have been acquired from white men, and some from plain and coast natives.  In clearing for planting yam and plants of the yam type they leave the upright stems of some of the trees and shrubby undergrowth for the yams, etc., to trail over.  Cultivation of some of the more usual plants is done as follows.

Sweet potatoes and vegetables of similar type are planted by the women in August and September.  They make little holes in the ground about 2 feet apart, and in them plant the potatoes, the roots used being the young sarmentose runners, which they cut off from the parent plants, the latter being merely cut down to the ground, and the old tubers being left in it.  These runners are left to grow, and in about three or four months the young potatoes are ready for eating, and afterwards there will be a continuous supply from the runners.  The digging up of the day-to-day supply of potatoes is done by the women, the work in this, and in all other digging, being done with small pointed sticks, roughly made and not preserved; though now they sometimes have European knives, these knives and axes being the two European implements which they use in agriculture, if they possess them.