- end_line
- 9532
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.153Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9472
- text
- with filberts, are used as a taper; the larger nuts, thinned and
polished, furnish him with a beautiful goblet: the smaller ones, with
bowls for his pipes; the dry husks kindle his fires; their fibres are
twisted into fishing-lines and cords for his canoes; he heals his
wounds with a balsam compounded from the juice of the nut; and with the
oil extracted from its meat embalms the bodies of the dead.
The noble trunk itself is far from being valueless. Sawn into posts, it
upholds the islander’s dwelling; converted into charcoal, it cooks his
food; and supported on blocks of stone, rails in his lands. He impels
his canoe through the water with a paddle of the wood, and goes to
battle with clubs and spears of the same hard material.
In pagan Tahiti a cocoa-nut branch was the symbol of regal authority.
Laid upon the sacrifice in the temple, it made the offering sacred; and
with it the priests chastised and put to flight the evil spirits which
assailed them. The supreme majesty of Oro, the great god of their
mythology, was declared in the cocoa-nut log from which his image was
rudely carved. Upon one of the Tonga Islands, there stands a living
tree revered itself as a deity. Even upon the Sandwich Islands, the
cocoa-palm retains all its ancient reputation; the people there having
thought of adopting it as the national emblem.
The cocoa-nut is planted as follows: Selecting a suitable place, you
drop into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. In a few days, a
thin, lance-like shoot forces itself through a minute hole in the
shell, pierces the husk, and soon unfolds three pale-green leaves in
the air; while originating, in the same soft white sponge which now
completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots, pushing away the
stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction, penetrate the
shell, and strike vertically into the ground. A day or two more, and
the shell and husk, which, in the last and germinating stage of the
nut, are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression,
spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth, the hardy
young plant thrives apace; and needing no culture, pruning, or
attention of any sort, rapidly advances to maturity. In four or five
years it bears; in twice as many more, it begins to lift its head among
the groves, where, waxing strong, it flourishes for near a century.
Thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of these nuts
into the ground may be said to confer a greater and more certain
benefit upon himself and posterity than many a life’s toil in less
genial climes.
The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as it lives it
bears, and without intermission. Two hundred nuts, besides innumerable
white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one time; and though a
whole year is required to bring any one of them to the germinating
point, no two, perhaps, are at one time in precisely the same stage of
growth.
The tree delights in a maritime situation. In its greatest perfection,
it is perhaps found right on the seashore, where its roots are actually
washed. But such instances are only met with upon islands where the
swell of the sea is prevented from breaking on the beach by an
encircling reef. No saline flavour is perceptible in the nut produced
in such a place. Although it bears in any soil, whether upland or
bottom, it does not flourish vigorously inland; and I have frequently
observed that, when met with far up the valley, its tall stem inclines
seaward, as if pining after a more genial region.
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