Part 14 - The Pelew Islands

Accounts of the custom in the Pelew Islands seem very few and far between. I notice, however, several references in Keate’s work, derived from the journals of Captain Henry Wilson^[1]:

“The Beetle-nut they had in abundance, and made great use of it, though only when green; contrary to the practice of the people of India who never use it but when dry.”

The plate facing p. 332 shows a betel-basket, without which

“no man stirred abroad—the common order of people had a short piece of bamboo, in which they carried the powdered chinam, to strew over the beetle-nut before they put it in their mouths. The Unpacks, or great people, had their chinam in a long slender bamboo nicely polished, and inlaid with pieces of shells at each end; and these were often not inelegantly fancied.”

As in so many other betel-chewing areas, the Pelew islanders place betel on the grave of the deceased, often by the side of coco-nuts, both of which will be wanted in the future life.