The bringing in and storing of the _ine_ and _malage_ fruits commence
at an early stage. The _ine_ fruits are collected when quite ripe;
they split the large fruit heads up into two or more parts, put these
into baskets roughly made of cane (at least half a fruit head in
each basket), and place these baskets in the _avale_ or ceiling of
the _emone_, where the fruits get dried and smoked by the heat and
smoke of the fire constantly burning beneath. If, as is sometimes
the case, the _emone_ has no _avale_ one is constructed specially
for the purpose. The fruits are left there until required; in fact,
if taken away from the smoke, they would go bad. Sometimes, instead of
putting portions of the fruit heads into baskets, they take out from
them the almond-shaped seeds, which are the portions to be eaten,
string these together, each seed being tied round and not pierced,
and hang them to the roof of the _emone_ above the _avale_. The fruits
of the _malage_ are gathered and put into holes or side streams by a
river, and there left for from seven to ten months, until the pulp,
which is very poisonous, is all rotted away, a terrible smell being
emitted during the process; they then take the pips or seeds, the
insides of which, after the surrounding shells have been cracked,
are the edible parts, and place these in baskets made out of the
almost amplexicaul bases of the leaves of a species of palm tree,
and so store them also on the _avale_ of the _emone_. [67]

Large preparations of a structural and repairing nature are also
required in the village where the feast is to be held. The _emone_,
the true chiefs _emone_, of the village is repaired or pulled down
and entirely rebuilt; or, if that village does not possess such an
_emone_, one is erected in it. In point of fact the usual practice is,
I was informed, to build a new _emone_, the occasion of an intended
feast being the usually recognised time for the doing of this. [68]