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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 176

Until 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.

The ownership of the introduced crops was dealt with according to existing indigenous concepts of ownership of plants by the planter, and there is no evidence of any new

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.

page 177 tenure forms being adopted by the islanders as a result of these introductions, or as a result of the new cash value of some of the indigenous products.

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.

Thus, while the developing market was responsible for in increase in per capita output of agricultural produce,

1 Cheeseman, TLS 264.

page 178 it did not lead to the commercial exploitation of all the land available, nor to maximum productivity from such land as was used. The extent to which the additional time that the new tools made available was put into increased output connot be determined, but much of it was taken up in church activities, some in the erection of coral lime houses, and some in a great increase of travelling parties which paid visits from one island to another, often remaining for months at a time.

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.

In the matter of work organization, one minor change occurred in production for religious purposes, as in some instances land was cleared, planted and harvested by the whole tribe in order to raise church funds.3 So far as is

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.

page 179 known, agriculture was never undertaken on a tribal basis in the pre-contact era. The new pattern does not, however, seem to have become a widespread practice, and it had ceased by the end of the century. The fact that the chiefs organized the collection of produce for the church probably caused little change, for they had previously had similar powers to organize the accumulation of produce for tribal religious activities.