Ethnobotany class observes Pohnpeian sakau ceremony

The SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany class wrapped up the term with a visit to the home of Senator Dakker Daniel, Nahnmadau, soumas en kousapw Pehleng, Kitti, Pohnpei, to observe the formal sakau ceremony nohpwei.


A driveway across the road is framed by oahr, Premna serratifolia/Premna obtusifolia small leaf variant.

Oahr


Bus arrival at 3:43 P.M. suggests that while time lines would be tight, the class could venture further into Kitti. My own travel time was about six minutes.


 The sakau, Piper methysticum, arrives in the nahs.


A large and old plant is brought in.


The branches are ceremonially cut.


The root stock is separated.


Sunet, Helen, Twain, and Rogan.


Gathered family and friends.


Kerat, Sonja, Sandra. Stewart and Jason at the back, Angela far left behind Kerat.


Chance videos, Sweena, Cherlylina, and Rebeseen watch.


A legal consultant invited by Nahnmadau, Ravelyn, Chance, Sweena, Rebseen.


Kerat, Angela, Stewart, Jason, Sonja.


I am moved to the front platform to perform translation duties for Soumaka. My translations skills are limited, extremely limited, and mostly I suspect I mistranslated and missed key points.

Sokamah coordinated by Soumaka on a singing stone

After the nohpwei and my translation of remarks made to the class by Soumaka, Nahnmadau conferred on me Lahp en Pahdak, Pehleng, a title in kousapw. I felt deeply honored and thoroughly unworthy of respect being shown. 


Wie koanoat/wie sak.


Our hose provided a wonderful spread of food and refreshments, with a full dinner being served to all guests later in the evening.


Sonja, Angela, Rebseen, Twain, Cherlylinda, Sage


The after session, family and friends both gathered around the evening stone to share story, talk, and catch up on the day.








Reloading the stone: the evening carried on long after I left.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra...
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, o...
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha...
Read more