Manihiki Magic - Excalibur

Tobia & I, with Yann all eyes on Excalibur

 “I don’t even know how many blades we broke!” Says Tobia Tobia first born son of Papa Tobia Kaitara while we are sitting in front of his home overlooking Manihiki lagoon. His father lives by himself in one of the bird houses or shelter built by the New Zealand government after cyclone Martin hit the atoll in 1997. See our blog entry about the shelters for more details. Straight in front of us are the remains of Tobia’s family house. The roof is almost gone but the walls are still solid. The four fishing boats tell the story of how this beautiful place has once sheltered a family and was their base to support the many mouths that needed to be fed. Papa Tobia Senior and his kids mostly lived off fishing. Still to this day the younger generation comes to ask Papa Tobia Senior for advice on what fish will bite with the next moon. What’s the best way of catching it? Papa Tobia answers with the confident smile of a man who simply knows. What you once learned you’ll never forget.
But island life is tough and you can’t just rely on one source of income so Papa Tobia Senior also set out to make some money in the copra production before the pearl farming really took off in the mid 1980ies. Survival in the islands teaches you to think on your feed and always to recognize good opportunities, if you want to feed your family well.

In Manihiki, still to this day, most labour is manual so the coconuts needed to be handpicked and husked. This is a tough and time-consuming task in over 30˚C heat. According to holiday-weather.com Manihiki has an average temperature of 30˚C, the ‘coldest’ month being January with an average of 28˚C. These temperatures demanded for a sharp tool to keep physical effort to a bearable minimum. The locals call it ‘Ko’ which according to Tobia Junior literally translates into ‘stabbing’. I call it Manihiki‘s Excalibur!

Excalibur - Sharp & Shiny

 

The Ko is a traditional tool that most households in the islands have. Usually, it is an old stick of steel, sharpened at the top and used to husk all types of coconuts: the young drinking coconuts which are called ‘nimata’ in Manihiki and ‘nu’ in Rarotonga, as well as the brown coconuts used for delicious coconut cream or coconut oil (Mama Rua produces a beautifully pure oil which we’ll talk about in another post soon). In the touristic shows in Rarotonga, the locals sometimes use sharp Toa (iron wood) sticks to husk the coconut. The technique is the same and it looks super cool when a skilled local husks coconuts seemingly effortlessly. For the regular European, this is a proper work out and becomes a very entertaining task for the skilled observer. Once you have mastered the skill it becomes second nature. The learning process might just take a while!

The Tobias never settled for the easy way nor for the option that everybody else took. So, Papa Tobia Senior wanted to be more efficient than the rest in the village and thought of a better material to make a Ko out off. And with good relationships to family in New Zealand he managed to get some stainless steel to Manihiki. And so the forging of Excalibur of Tukao began.

Stainless steel is not cheap today and wasn’t at the time. The best thing about this material is that it is very heavy, a characteristic that makes it easy to plant the Ko into the ground. But this attribute also makes it way more difficult to ‘sharpen’ the actual Ko. Tobia Junior still laughs at the amount of hex saw blades they have wasted cutting the sharp end of the Ko. Using a stainless steel Ko does not leave dark, dirty marks on the freshly husked coconut. It simply cuts through the husk like a hot knife through butter. It is actually quite dangerous to operate and I had to really concentrate while using it!

The technique is relatively simple. The coconut is the prime example of the holy trinity. Once you manage to open it, it nourishes your body with the water and your soul with fragrance. A fresh nimata is the simplest pleasure! It has three openings, two eyes and a mouth. The eyes are easy to differentiate from the mouth as they are closer together, the mouth being further down. When looking at the coconut from the side you have to imagine three parts and right in the centre is the seed that you are after. You start husking from the navel which attaches the coconut to the bunch. The Ko penetrates the coconut husk about one third down from the crown. Push it all the way through so the husk comes apart at the crown. Use angle and pressure to peel off the first piece of husk. Repeat and rotate counter clockwise around the tip of the Ko until the husk is removed. Locals husk in four pieces for a drinking coconut and three pieces for a brown coconut. I sometimes manage to peel it in five and I am quite happy with that! 

 

Efforts rewarded! Now, time to enjoy

Nimata to drink - Yann, totally spoiled at not even 3!

The best thing about the nimata is that it is really sweet in Manihiki. Sorry my Raro friends but if you have never tasted a drinking coconut in Manihiki then you have never tasted a drinking coconut. That would explain the difference between Nu and Nimata. Liquid love from down South versus from up sunny North! We will write more about the amazing health benefits of drinking coconuts in another post.

 

Nimata to eat - Charlie learning about the good things

Back to Papa Tobia Senior and his Ko. In total, there are four stainless steel Kos so the analogy with Excalibur doesn’t really work. But still, it is a very special piece of local history. Three of them remain in Tukao, Manihiki. The fourth Ko belongs to his eldest son Tobia who is in Rarotonga. Tobia uses it almost daily for himself and to entertain the guests of his workplace, a resort in Muri. He loves to tell stories about his home, about Manihiki lagoon and fresh coconut water. All four Kos are unique due to their handmade production. They tell the story of a man who always finds his own special way.

 
After my return to Rarotonga I talked to one of my local friend who is from Manihiki. I showed him photos of the stainless Ko and he started laughing. I asked him what he found so amusing and he told me that as a young man him and his mates tried to steal this shiny Ko from Papa Tobia Senior but they got caught! To this day Papa Tobia is very protective of his priceless possession and he probably made the only set of stainless steel Kos in the Cook Islands, maybe even the South Pacific.

87 years apart, brought together by the tree of life, coconut

Good on ya’ papa and keep enjoying those nimata! Thanks for sharing and letting me use the magical Ko of Tukao !