A chat with Kosraen culturalist Tadao Waguk

During a ninety-minute meeting with Tadao Waguk of Kosrae I learned the following ethnobotanical information.

• A flower placed above the ear and facing rearwards used to mean "follow me" among young lovers.  Tadao indicated that this custom is of the past and is no longer practiced. Kosraen men rarely, if ever, place flowers above their ears nowadays.
• Ixora casei is so brilliant in the forest that a stand of I. casei can produce an other worldly effect.  The bright red of the floral heads stands out against the dark green of the forest.  The plant is useful to mark boundaries due to its long life. The plant is hard to cut, and the branches are very strong but flexible.  I. casei is also used in cemetaries.  Because of its use in marking tombs and its other worldly effect in the forest, when a hunter hunting dove saw a dove over an I. casei bush, the hunter was likely to become afraid and not shoot the bird, thinking to himself, "Tomb!  Tomb!"  This too Tadao thinks is probably not now the case.
• When Tadao was young he recalls seeing men walk from Tafunsak to Lelu and back.  On the way they would eat Morinda citrifolia fruits.  Tadao says they liked the peppery flavor.  There is also something inside the fruit that make the same pleasant popping sound as head lice.  Women here used to pick head lice and then pop them with their teeth, some women still do this.  The sensation of the lice popping is apparently conceived of as pleasant. Tadao thinks the M. citrifolia fruit made the men very strong [the men would have been carrying bananas and other crops to the main markets in Lelu]. Tadao tried the fruit himself but it was too much like a really strong fura (fermented breadfruit)
• [An aside: The young fruits of M. citrifolia - as young as when still flowering - are eaten by Kosraens as a treatment for diabetes.]
• Tadao has been bringing plants down from the mountains and asking the old people to help him identify them and describe their use.  He has encountered some plants where elders says it has a name but they do not know it.
• Kosrae has two types of seka (Piper methysticum).  The togusrai type is stronger, possibly less common, reserved for the togusrai.  People were afraid of the strength of the togusrai seka.  Another variety, presumably weaker, was more broadly consumed.   Recently a Vanuatu variety was introduced into Tafunsak.  Many farmers are planting seka on the West end of Kosrae.  There is a circulating story that a buyer will come in two years to buy seka.
• He indicated that in the old Kosraen plant system, like Pohnpei's ferns, there were male and female plants.  My own experience on Pohnpei is that two ferns from different genera can be considered the same fern on Pohnpei, but one is said to be the male form and the other is the female form.  I was unable to learn more about the "gender" of Kosraen plants, it seems a lot that information may be lost.
• M. citrifolia flowers can cure ear infections.  No details on preparation.

Tadao says Madison Nena was more interested in things like the ethnobotany project when he was a SPREP conservation officer.  That program apparently ended.  Tadao views Madison as probably uninterested and not a likely useful information conduit.

I floated Eric Waguk's name, but he is with forestry (Kosrae government) and there are likely to be political complications.  Plus, my guess is that Eric's internet connection is paid for by the government and restricted as to its use.

Tadao owns and operates his own tour guide business.  He picks up work locally through Kosrae Village Resort and other contacts.  His is a no tech operation.

In Tofol I was showing Dr. Joseph Muthukulam, an East Indian teaching at the Kosrae campus, Asplenium nidus.  I called in a young Kosraen, Alik Phillip, and asked him the local name of the plant.  He did not know, but said that for sure his friend knew.  The friend was brought in and said it had a name but he did not know the name.   Then an American, me, taught two Kosraens a word they had lost.  I have yet to meet a single young person who can identify this most common of ferns, let alone the less prominent plants of the forest.

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