[77] Miklouho-Maclay in Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 352.
Crawfurd makes some interesting remarks on the introduction of tobacco into the Malay Archipelago, whence, as I have shown above, the plant has been evidently introduced into the Western Pacific. The Java annals affirm that tobacco was introduced in 1601; and, as supporting this statement, Crawfurd observes that the plant is not mentioned by European travellers in this region before the beginning of the 17th century. (Malay Grammar and Dictionary, vol. I., p. 191.)
The practice of chewing the betel-nut is prevalent through the group, and is accompanied by the usual accessories, the lime and the betel-pepper (_Piper Betel_). In St. Christoval and the neighbouring small islands, the lime is carried in bamboo boxes, which are decorated with patterns scratched on their surface. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, gourds are employed for this purpose, the stoppers of which are ingeniously made of narrow bands of the leaf of the sago palm wound round and round in the form of a disc and bound together at the margin by fine strips of the vascular tissue of the “sinimi” fern (_Gleichenia_ sp.). Plain wooden sticks, like a Chinese chop-stick, are used for conveying the lime to the mouth; but frequently the stick is dispensed with, when the fingers are used or the betel-nut is dipped into the lime.
The Piper Betel, which is known in Bougainville Straits as the “kolu,” is grown in the plantations, where it is trailed around the stems of bananas and the trunks of trees. In these straits, as on the Maclay Coast of New Guinea,[78] the female spike, or so-called fruit, is more usually chewed with the betel-nut. Around St. Christoval the leaves are generally preferred.
[78] Miklouho-Maclay: Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 350.
The betel palm, the “olega” of the natives, which is apparently identical with, or closely allied to, _Areca catechu_, the common betel-nut tree, is grown in clumps and groves in the vicinity of villages. The fruits of other species of _Areca_, which grow wild, are occasionally used as substitutes for the ordinary betel-nut; in Bougainville Straits the fruits of the “niga-solu,” “niga-torulo,” and “poamau” are thus employed, those of the “poamau” being appropriated by the women.