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construction of houses. One islet in each, atoll is usually set aside for the growing of timber. The supply of good kanava trees on Fakaofo is inadequate, and when new canoes are required there supplies of timber have to be drawn from Nukunono. The only exportable product grown is copra. The food of the people consists of coconut, fish, fowl, bananas, ta'amu, the fruit of the edible pandanus, and occasionally pork. Fish is plentiful and easily caught. Fowls, although plentiful, are used sparingly for food. A number of pigs are kept in each village, but not in sufficient numbers to provide meat even once a week ; they are reserved for special feast days. Very few bananas are grown owing to the absence of humus, although in planting them humus is provided as far as possible from leaves, coconut-husks, and ashes. Bananas are therefore a luxury in these islands. Taro will not grow on any of the atolls, but ta'amu a larger relation of the taro family, is grown, particularly in Atafu, and there are smaller quantities in each of the other two islands. Pulaka, a very coarse tuber similar to the Samoan wild bush taro, is cultivated on each atoll, and a variety of kumara is grown on one islet of Fakaofo. The edible pandanus fruits twice a year in May and November. The total amount of copra which can normally be produced for export has been estimated as amounting to something in the region of 300 tons per annum. This depends essentially, however, upon securing suitable and adequate shipping, and in the financial year ended 31st March, 1948, the copra exported was only approximately 120 tons, due to difficulties experienced in this connection. The recent project of building cement water-cisterns has resulted in less drinkingnuts being consumed, and consequently more copra becoming available for export. The present intention to hand over the purchase of copra and the trading to merchants in Apia will probably result in greater amounts of copra being exported in the future. 3. Historical It would appear from traditions that have been collected in the Tokelau Islands that the Group has been inhabited by two separate and distinct migrations of people at different times. A record exists of the original inhabitants who were seen by Quiros when he first visited the Group in 1606. They are reported to have been fair in colouring with golden hair, and they were stated by Quiros to have used large double canoes some 60 ft. long. These e'arlier people appear to have lived only on Atafu, Nukunono, and Swain's Island. Abandoned taro-pits, thought to have been in use by them, may be seen even at the present day around the shore of the land-locked lagoon on Swain's Island. Between the time of the discovery of Swain's Island by Quiros in 1606 and the next reported visit by Europeans in 1841 this population disappeared. Some survivors of the earlier group were apparently living for some time on Nukunono after others had been driven from their islands by a people who settled at Fakaofo. The new-comers conquered the entire Group over a long period of years and absorbed those remaining of the earlier people of Nukunono. Traditions suggest that the second people came from Samoa. The Tokelau language, although possessing local peculiarities, is a dialect of the Polynesian group, and has a number of similarities to Samoan. Much of the culture of the Tokelau Islands is also closely related to that of Samoa. It would seem that Swain's Island was the first atoll in the Tokelau Group to be seen by Europeans. Quiros, leading a Spanish Expedition across the Pacific in 1606, landed there in search of water, and for a time the atoll was known as Quiros' Island. A century and a half later, on 21st June, 1765, Commodore Byron, 8.N., discovered Atafu and named it Duke of York Island. The next visit to Atafu was on 6th June, 1791, by Captain Edwards in command of H.M.S. " Pandora," at that time engaged upon a search for the mutineers of the " Bounty." Three days later Edwards discovered Nukunono, which he named Duke of Clarence Island.

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