Many of the older men and women in Limol report that some native plants or older cultivars have disappeared, and new ones are coming in to replace them. For example, some of the yams and taro varieties described are no longer grown around Limol.
A harvest song and an arrangement ceremony in which yams were counted used to be an annual tradition in the village (Donae Kurupel, p.c., 8/17/16). In the counting ceremony two yams are placed on a stick (katmer /katmer/) and a circle of six yams is placed around the stick; the first circle is called the tarumba. Yams are counted with a base of six. Six yams are a putt and six groups of six yams is a purta. Everybody in the community’s yams were counted this way prior to putting the yams in the yamhouse. This arrangement and counting after harvest occurred when the women who are now old were young girls. It is unclear whether this tradition continues currently for when people contribute yams for religious retreats.
A harvest song and an arrangement ceremony in which yams were counted used to be an annual tradition in the village (Donae Kurupel, p.c., 8/17/16). In the counting ceremony two yams are placed on a stick (katmer /katmer/) and a circle of six yams is placed around the stick; the first circle is called the tarumba. Yams are counted with a base of six. Six yams are a putt and six groups of six yams is a purta. Everybody in the community’s yams were counted this way prior to putting the yams in the yamhouse. This arrangement and counting after harvest occurred when the women who are now old were young girls. It is unclear whether this tradition continues currently for when people contribute yams for religious retreats.
If someone from the yam clan leads the planting ceremony, there was a belief that there will be a good harvest. Another custom to produce a big yam crop is for a woman (or women) to climb a coconut tree while carrying a sago bundle and knock one green coconut to the ground. The women would then make a container and into it mix the coconut water from the green coconut, a tuber from a wild plant called gamu (possibly in the ginger family), some clay, and a banana stem and bring the mixture and one yam to the garden to plant (K. Dobola and M. Kolea, p.c.).
