Sago palm

“ Less than a mile from Diumana to the right of the track is a beautiful group of palms. Sago, areca and cocoanut all tower above the surrounding vegetation. In the order given they might be taken to typify dignity, slender grace, and real utility. Looking at the sago palm one wonders how men can approach it near enough to cut it down, so formidable [98] are the thorns that cover its lower fronds. ”

“ Although belonging to the same genus, Sagus, it is evidently distinct in species from the sago palm of Fiji (Sagus vitiensis) , which, according to Mr. Home, grows on the low-lying swampy land, and attains a height of about 35 feet. [52] In the Solomon Islands, the height of full-grown sago palms varies between 60 and 70 feet; whilst the situations in which they are usually found, lie on the hill-slopes and in the drier districts of the islands. In the islands of Fauro and Treasury groves of sago palms occur both on the lower slopes and in the higher districts. ”

“ The sago palm (Metroxylon Sagus) is one of the smallest of its tribe, seldom reaching to more than 30 feet in height, and grows only in a region extending west to Celebes and Borneo, north to Mindanao, south to Timor, and east to Papua. ”

“ SAGO, a food-starch prepared from a deposit in the trunk of several palms, the principal source being the sago palm (Metroxylon Sagu) (see fig.) , a native of the East Indian Archipelago, the sago forests being especially extensive in the island of Ceram. The trees flourish only in low marshy situations, seldom attaining a height of 30 ft., with a thick-set trunk. ”

“ Two species of sago palm grow here, forming stout-stemmed trees, thirty or forty feet in height. They are readily distinguished by the one having smooth bases to the sheathing leaf-stalks, while the other has the leaf-sheaths set with stout black spines. The smooth variety is most abundant. The dried leaf-sheaths of this palm are utilised in the manufacture of neat baskets, being neatly sown together with strips of rattan, and fitted with lids. Rattans are much used in house building, the largest timbers being secured by their aid only. ”

“ The interior of the island is flat and marshy; and here the soil being deep and alluvial, it is well adapted for rice; and the wet patches beside the streams suit the sago palm well. In the patches of low jungle beside the roads three or four species of pitcher plants abound, rooting into the wet, sandy peat earth, and climbing up the shrubby undergrowth in the most luxuriant and graceful manner. These nepenthes stems are wonderfully tough, and are used as withes, and as a substitute for rattan cane in tying fence timbers together. More rarely they are used in basket-work. ”

“ The cocoa palm bears a bountiful crop of nuts, which in turn yield oil and a coarse kind of sugar. The sago palm yields the valuable pearl sago of commerce. The areca palm produces the betel-nut, which, together with a fresh pepper-leaf and a bit of moist lime, is in the mouth of nearly every East Indian native in lieu of tobacco. ”

“ It is remarkable, that no palm of the old world is found in America, except the cocoa-nut and the oil-palm of the coast of Guinea; and that there is but one species common to Asia and Africa. The palms of New Holland, also, are peculiar to that country; and I believe that she said, those of the Mauritius only occur in those islands. The cocoa, the date, and the sago palms, are the most widely distributed; but the true home of the palms is the torrid zone; for, of 110 well known species, only twelve are found outside the tropics. ”

“ Just as we were boarding, he spotted several trees twenty–five to thirty feet high, belonging to the palm species. As valuable as the actocarpus, these trees are justly ranked among the most useful produce in Malaysia.
They were sago palms, vegetation that grows without being cultivated; like mulberry trees, they reproduce by means of shoots and seeds.
Ned Land knew how to handle these trees. Taking his ax and wielding it with great vigor, he soon stretched out on the ground two or three sago palms, whose maturity was revealed by the white dust sprinkled over their palm fronds. ”

“ Near the Mission boat-house we saw a few natives engaged in extracting the sago from the trunk of the Rabia palm. The process, which is very primitive, consists in cutting into shreds the fibrous pith of the palm, cut into lengths of about six feet by means of a peculiar kind of adze, made of hard cane, attached to a handle at an angle of 45°, the light brown substance containing the farina being carried away by women to the edge of the creek, and there deposited in a primitive gutter made out of the butt end of an immense palm leaf. ”

“ How very singular, Mamma, to see a whole nation of human creatures depending on one single species of palm-tree for their existence!
We had much conversation about the various species of palms which we saw; and particularly the real sago-tree, which grows in the East, and which exceeds all other plants in the quantity of nutriment it affords to mankind. My uncle told me that a single tree, in its fifteenth year, sometimes yields six hundred pounds weight of sago or meal ”

“ Sago is the produce of a palm, which in the East yields the food of thousands; it is the pithy centre of the stem, requiring scarcely any preparation to fit it for food, and a single tree sometimes yields 600lb. weight. Those which furnish the so-called cane for chair bottoms are a species of calamus; they hang on trees by long hooked spines, and are sometimes 600ft. ”

“ Notable among the useful forms are the date palm with its pulpy fruit, the cocoa-nut palm with its huge seeds *ull of edible endosperm, the sago palm whose pith yields the starchy sago and the ivory palm whose hard endosperm is the vegetable ivory. Palm honey, palm-wine and palm-oil are also well-known products. The leaves and stems of many of the species are used for making hats, baskets, fans About 60 species of hardy palms are grown in California. Of our few native palms the most common is the palmetto. Palms vary in height from three to 100 feet. ”

“ In parts of New Guinea and the Western Solomons the sago palm is of great importance; coconut palms grow on the shores of most islands, and bananas, yams, bread-fruit, taro and sweet potatoes supply abundant food. As for dress, the men occasionally wear none, but usually have belts or bands, of bark-cloth, plaits, or strings, and the women almost everywhere have petticoats of finely shredded leaves. The skin is decorated with scars in various patterns, and tattooing is occasionally seen, the former being naturally characteristic of the darker skinned people, and the latter of the lighter. ”

“ Wallace, one fair-sized sago palm will supply one man with food for a year, so it will be seen that the amount of labour required to feed a community in a district where sago is plentiful is not very overwhelming. ”

“ The human effigies “look after” sago in the same way as the bull-roarers “look after” yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas. According to some notes made by Ray, the orara is shown to the initiates during the north-west [106] monsoon, at the time when the sago is planted; but the madubu is swung and shown to the initiates when yams are planted in the south-east monsoon.
When food is scarce or of bad quality, if, for instance, a sago palm is split and found to be “no good,” the natives make moguru and put “medicine along moguru for kaikai” that is, perform moguru magic for food. ”

“ In the botanical garden, as elsewhere in the island, are to be found all varieties of the palm—the royal palm, than which there is no more ornamental tree, the cocoanut palm, with its myriad uses, the sugar palm, the sago palm, the oil palm, the betel-nut palm, which furnishes the Malay a substitute for chewing tobacco, the nipa palm, so helpful in building, the fan palm, etc., etc.
Nature has been prodigal in her gifts to the people of the tropics, and besides giving plant life in confusing abundance, her generosity is shown in a number of trees, each of which can be put to many uses. ”

“ The arms they carry are the bow, arrows, and tangi, a species of light battle-axe that inflicts a serious wound. The women are not addicted to drink, but the males are universally attached to liquor, especially during the hot weather, when the sago palm (solopo: Caryota urens) is in full flow. They often run up sheds in the jungle, near especially good trees, and drink for days together. ”

“ In a low state of civilization the palm, or a palm-like grass, supplies all that man requires; of the former of which, the Mauritia flexuosa, or sago-palm of the Oronooko, and still more the cocos nucifera, or cocoa-nut palm; and of the latter, the bamboo (bambusa arundinacea, and other species) are proofs. The bamboo suffices for all the needs of the humbler Chinese; even their paper, as well as their abodes, are made of it ”

“ When the house is built over the water, it is commonly connected with the shore by a bridge; but in some places no such bridge exists, and at high water the inmates can only communicate with the shore by means of their canoes. The staple food of the people is sago, which they extract from the sago-palm ”

“ SAGO is a granulated preparation from the pith of a species of palm-tree (Cycas circinalis) which grows in India and Africa. This tree attains the height of thirty or forty feet; has a straight and somewhat slender stem, and winged leaves at the summit, each seven or eight feet long, with the leaflets long and narrow.
The preparation of sago, under different forms, constitutes a principal source of employment to the inhabitants of many parts of the coast of Malabar, as well as those of several of the islands of the East Indies. ”

“ The most valuable timber tree is the iron-wood. Rice, maize, cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane and a variety of fruits are grown; and some tobacco is exported to Europe; but by far the most important production is the sago palm, which grows abundantly in the swampy districts, especially of Eastern Ceram, and furnishes a vast supply of food, not only to Ceram itself, but to other islands to the east. ”

“ Crawfurd says there are four varieties of this palm; the cultivated, the wild, one distinguished by long spines on the branches, and a fourth destitute of these spines, and called by the natives female sago. This and the cultivated species afford the best farina; the spiny variety, which has a slender trunk, and the wild tree, yield but an inferior quality of sago. The farinaceous matter afforded by each plant is very considerable, 500 lbs. being a frequent quantity, while 300 lbs. may be taken as the common average produce of each tree. ”

“ Another Palm—the Sagus, or, Cycus revolute,—which grows naturally in Japan and the East Indian Islands, being also cultivated in English hot-houses, yields by its gummy pith our highly nutritious sago. This when cooked is one of the best and most sustaining foods for children and infirm old persons. The Indians reserve their finest sago for the aged and afflicted. A fecula is washed from the abundant pith, which is chemically a starch, very demulcent, and more digestible than that of rice. It never ferments in the stomach, and is very suitable for hectic persons. ”

“ The water of the lake was as smooth as glass, and over it sported thousands of the most brilliant-tinted dragon-flies, while birds of the brightest hues flitted in and out among the trees. In some spots were to be seen padi fields, looking beautifully green, and extensive bamboo groves, above which appeared the towering palm and plantain. There were also the cocoa-nut, the betel, the sago, and the gno or gomati: these are the four most useful palms to the natives. The pith of the sago furnishes food ”

“ A mature tree produces a large vertical spike of flowers and then dies. When they wish to collect sago, the natives cut down a full-grown palm and clear it of its leaves and leaf-sheaths. A wide strip of the bark is then cut off from the side of the tree which lies uppermost and the sago is exposed. The bark of the tree is really nothing more than a shell about an inch in thickness, enclosing the pith or sago, which is a brownish pulpy substance separated by fibrous strands. ”

“ The land here is swampy; back from the river and in the gulleys close to the hills the sago palm appears very plentiful, and there are also plenty of natives hereabouts. The level of the river is also rising very rapidly; it has quite become a case of getting upstairs to ascend the rapids at all. I should estimate a rise of 30 feet in the water-level in half a mile in some places.
The current was so strong that we had to use a number of devices to ascend, and the snags outlying from the banks made it very dangerous ”

“ It is the greatest tin producing country in the world. Sago is grown in quantities and shipped to every port; it is the pith of the tree trunk. Here the gum of the rubber tree is gathered and dried in chunks, placed in gunny bags and sent to all quarters of the globe in the crude state. The rattan, which is elaborately woven by the [Pg 44] natives into chairs and other useful pieces of furniture, is light in weight and capable of great endurance. The tree grows like a palm to a great height, throwing above ground long tendrils extending a half mile. ”

“ From trunk to trunk swung creepers thick as a ship's hawser, trailing in long festoons or interlacing and writhing around each other like great snakes.
But, as we climbed, the forest fell behind us. The trees stood farther apart, grew fewer and smaller. The undergrowth became denser. Tall brakes of the drooping plumes of the bamboo, thick-growing thorny bushes, plantain trees with their broad leaves and hanging bunches of bananas, the straight slender stems of sago palms with trailing clusters of nut-like fruit springing up from tangled vegetation. ”