Of fruits there are bananas, bread-fruits, mangoes, ananas (pine-apples), papayas (carica papayi), pandanus fruit, cocoa-nuts, oranges, lemons, anonas (a kind of custard apple), guavas, &c. The chief sustenance of the natives consists of the following:--
I. The féi, or wild plantain (_Musa Féi_, or _Musa Rubra_), of which there are five varieties. It is first encountered at an elevation of from 600 to 800 feet above the sea, grows most luxuriantly between the zones of 1000 and 1500 feet, is of a very peculiar saffron-yellow colour, and is usually either roasted or boiled.
II. The haari, or cocoa-palm (_Cocos nucifera_), whose trunk, bark, leaves, and fruit are pressed into their service by the natives. The fruit, however, is the most important, as it is used as meat for man and beast, as well as a beverage, and to obtain oil from it. Mixed with fine sandal-wood shavings and other aromatic substances, the oily liquid pressed out from the cocoa-nut is used by the Tahiti women as a much-prized cosmetic (_monoï_), with which to lubricate their long beautiful black hair. Here, as among the other South Sea islands, the cocoa-palm begins to bear after the first seven or eight years only, after which, however, it becomes so abundant that the fruit of each tree is valued at five francs annually. It takes 20 to 25 cocoa-nuts to make a gallon of oil.[90]
III. The urú (also called _Maioré_), or bread-fruit tree (_Artocarpus incisa_), is, after the cocoa-palm, the most useful tree on the island. The fruit, baked in a canak (or native) oven, (_vide ante_, p. 162), between two heated stones, is the substitute for bread to the Tahitians. At the period of the war, or in consequence of a short crop, the natives, like the New Zealanders and the aborigines of the Caroline Archipelago, buried the fruit of the urú in the earth, and ate it in the putrefied state. The bread-tree is productive thrice in the year. The first crop, the best and largest, ripens in March, the second in July, the third, Manavahói, at the end of November. The fruit varies from eight to twelve pounds in weight.
IV. The fara, or _pandanus_, the fruit of which is treated in the same manner as that of the urú, while the leaves serve as a thatch for the bamboo-cane huts of the aborigines. Of the red seeds of the _pandanus odoratissimus_, the ornament-loving Tahitian women prepare exceedingly fine coronals and necklaces. The leaves of another species, called irí by the natives, are used for enveloping tobacco, and making cigarettes, as also in the manufacture of house mats, and mats on which to sleep.