The feast, though only to be solemnised in one village, is organised
and given by the whole community of villages. There is no (now)
known matter or event with reference to which it is held. It is
decided upon and arranged and prepared for long beforehand, say a
year or two, and feasts will only be held in one village at intervals
of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. The decision to hold a feast is
arrived at by the chiefs of the clans of the community which proposes
to give it. The village at which the feast is to be held will not
necessarily be the largest one of the community, or one in which is
a then existing chiefs _emone_. The guests to be invited to it will
be the people of some other (only one other) community, and at the
outset it will be ascertained more or less informally whether or not
they will be willing to accept the invitation.

When the feast has been resolved upon, the preparations for it
begin immediately, that is a year or two before the date on which it
is to be held. Large quantities will be required of yam, taro and
sugar-cane, and of a special form of banana (not ripening on the
trees, and requiring to be cooked); also of the large fruit of the
_ine_, a giant species of Pandanus (see Plate 80--the figure seated
on the ground near to the base of the tree gives an idea of the size
of the latter and of the fruit head which is hanging from it), which
is cultivated in the bush, and the fruit heads of which are oval or
nearly round, and have a transverse diameter of about 18 inches; and
of another fruit, called by the natives _malage_, which grows wild,
chiefly by streams, and is also cultivated, and the fruit of which
was described to me as being rather like an apple, almost round,
green in colour, and 4 or 5 inches in diameter. [66] And above all
things will be wanted an enormous number of village pigs (not wild