Title: How Breadfruit Came to Kosrae

Edited by: Persteve E. Esau

As told by: Gline George

 

 

About many, many years ago in Kosrae, even before the missionaries came into this island, there lived a couple named Kol and Nikol in Utwe village. This couple was very poor and didn't have a good house.

One day, Kol told his wife, Nikol, that he needed some wild taros and yams, so he went to the mountain to look for it. While he was away, a strong wind came and blew Nikol and the house far to the west to an unknown island. There were lots of breadfruit trees there. Nikol gathered many kinds of breadfruit roots, wrapped them in a mat, and sent them in a canoe during the night. There were nine people in the canoe. When they arrived in Utwe Harbor during the night it was raining so hard that they couldn’t find the Utwe River Nikol had sent them to, so they simply threw the roots in the water and sailed back. When Nikol returned, she found the roots, still wrapped up in the mat and distributed them to other people to plant. However, only one survived and bore fruit. All the kinds of breadfruit came from this one tree. From this tree the seedlings were spread all around the island of Kosrae.

Nowadays, there are lots of breadfruit trees around the island of Kosrae. We can see different kinds of breadfruit that could be grown in our fertile soil. But even though if there are lots of breadfruit here, this story tells us that it was first came in Kosrae by a woman named Nikol. Through many years after this story, some other breadfruit roots were came in Kosrae by foreigners.