After this particular match two “copper Maoris” were opened. A “copper Maori,” or earth-oven, is a large shallow hole in the ground, in which stones are placed and a fire lighted—this makes the stones red hot. “Native food” of various kinds—yams, sweet potatoes, taro, etc.—is wrapped in banana leaves and placed on the hot stones. Small pigs are put in whole. The food is then covered over with leaves, and sometimes mats and earth are heaped over all. In an hour or two the food is cooked to perfection. It is the best method of cooking food, as the juices and flavours are retained.

The name “copper Maori,” or kŏpa Mauri, as it is here pronounced, is now common all over the Pacific, though this method of cooking has everywhere in the West Pacific its local name, and therefore is an indigenous and not introduced custom. In Torres Straits the earth-oven is called ame or amai, but the introduced word alone is used when speaking to foreigners. The word kopa is the Maori name for the ordinary earth-oven, or more correctly for the hole in the ground. The similarity of sound between kopa and “copper” has led to the current belief that as the whalers in New Zealand used large coppers for boiling down the blubber, the native method of cooking came to be called “copper Maori,” that is, the Maori copper.

By this time a mat was spread apart from the others, to which we were invited along with the two Mamooses, Ari and Pasi. We had pork, yams, pumpkins and bananas, and green coconuts to drink. Most of the men sat on each side of a long row of mats, the food being placed down the middle. They ate from the packets with their fingers, and munched chunks of roast pork with evident gusto. They gave us plates and knives and forks, but I preferred a banana leaf, native fashion, to a plate. The women and children had their food apart in various family groups.

After all was over the women placed their baskets in two rows, and the hosts filled each with an equal amount of raw native food. The party then broke up.