Land Tenure in the Cook Islands
Changes in production patterns
Changes in production patterns
The relative importance of particular crops and particular soil types changed in response to new techniques and the needs of the developing market. The introduction of the spade, the hoe and the plough made the production of field crops very much easier, and the axe and the horse facilitated clearing operations. There are clear indications of a shift in emphasis from swamp taro in favour of garden crops. Three factors seem to have been responsible: firstly, whereas the new implements facilitated an increase in output of garden crops per unit of labour, they had little or no effect on taro cultivation where the digging stick remained the most useful implement; secondly, while there was a keen demand for kumara and arrowroot for the providore trade, there was little demand for taro due to its poor keeping qualities; and thirdly, the introduction of cats led to a rapid decline in the number of land birds, and this was considered responsible for the increased depredations of the taro-eating caterpillar.
It may be assumed that the reduced amount of time necessary to produce a given quantity of food resulted in increased production to the extent of the available market. Ships calling for supplies seem always to have fulfilled their requirements, and at prices which compared favourably with those obtaining in Tahiti and Tonga. But the demand for fresh foods was decidedly limited and the people must soon have found the point beyond which additional production could not be marketed. While the providore trade at Rarotonga was considerable and fairly regular between 1835 and 1855, that at the smaller islands was erratic and unpredictable, and can hardly have been conducive to maximizing output.
page 176Until the mid-1850s the bulk of trade was in fresh foods which were sold to passing whalers and other vessels as ships stores.1 After that time, however, the relative importance of non-perishables increased. The first of these, cotton, was originally introduced by the mission as a house-hold crop for domestic use, but it soon became an article of trade for export. Coffee was also introduced, and its production expanded after the providore trade died away. From 1862 onwards regular shipments of perishable fruits, principally oranges, were exported to New Zealand.2 Like most others, this crop was first established in Rarotonga, whence it spread to the outer islands.3
These export crops took longer to grow, needed to be grown in larger quantities, and necessitated techniques of cultivation and processing with which the people were unfamiliar. There is no evidence of large-scale planting of oranges or coffee, in fact the great bulk of the trees were self-propagated.4 While cotton was widely planted in small plots it was only on Rarotonga after 1880 that any large plantations were established, and these by Europeans using immigrants from the outer islands as labour.
1 For details of the particular crops and livestock traded at the various islands, together with an indication of prices and quantities see Weekly Alta California 16.11.1850.
2 By 1865, ten to fifteen cargoes of oranges were being shipped to New Zealand from Rarotonga annually. - Krause to Governor 6.11.1865 TBC. The banana trade did not develop until the 1880s.
3 The introduction of oranges to the Cook Islands is credited to the ‘Bounty’ in 1789. - Maretu, MS 12. The first known cargo of fruit exported was shipped from Aitutaki in 1852 for California. - Lamont, Wild Life among the Pacific Islanders 99.
4 Moss to Governor 17.1.1891 NZPP A3 1891.
The attractions of cash cropping were never sufficient to induce the full utilization of the land and one of the least biased reporters noted that the proportion of arable land under active cultivation was ‘quite insignificant. Even the cultivations of the natives - their orange groves and coffee plantations, their banana and taro patches - are either part and parcel of the forest or are almost overshadowed by it’.1
This state of affairs may be partly explained by the drop in population, the limited market for fresh foods and the inadequacy of storage and shipping facilities for non-perishable crops. An even more important consideration, however, appears to have been that there was no marked change in the standards of subsistence consumption of the great majority of the people. With the possible exception of expenditure on imported cloth, most of the income received was spent on annual donations to the church, the acquisition of status goods, and ceremonial. The satisfaction of these needs was conducive to periodic spurts of production for particular occasions rather than to a steady continuous output to meet increased day-to-day costs. Market limitations were not the only deterrent to over-production, for the energetic were vulnerable not only to claims for atinga from above, but to obligations to share and to assist their kin. Nor was it considered proper for the lower social orders to outdo their superiors in standards of housing, ceremonial or other consumption.
1 Cheeseman, TLS 264.
The introduction of new livestock was not on a sufficiently large scale to engender special provisions in the tenure system, though it did result in increased difficulties in the control of wandering stock. Despite the erection of a considerable amount of fencing, there are indications that the ravages of wandering stock acted as a disincentive to production.1 Apart from new types of poultry, the main additions were cattle for beef, horses for transport and draught work, and goats for eating.2 None of these have multiplied greatly, and while only very few people ever kept cattle or goats, a high percentage of families owned a horse or two.
1 See, for example, instructions issued by the chiefs of Mangaia 19.11.1849 CIA; Chace and Turner to Wesleyan Missionary Society 26.3.1841 SSL.
2 Sheep were also introduced, but did not survive for long.
3 Te Puna Vai Rarotonga 2:22–3. There were three groups in each district, one for the men, one for the women and one for the Sunday School children. Each group worked as a unit, and planted its section of land collectively. The men's group was usually led by the high chief and the women's group by his wife.