Hiri

de Robert John Skelly, Bruno David

"In the late 1800s ... each year the Motu women manufactured tens of thousands of clay pots to be loaded onto the ships that men built then sailed with their cargos westward some 400 kilometres ... the pots ... were exchanged for hundreds of tons of sago flour. While in those villages, the men dismantled their ships and built them anew ... because trees of sufficient size to make large sailing ships did not grow in the lands of their home villages. Both the Motu of the Port Moresby region and sago producers of the Gulf of Papua to the west knew of these ventures as 'hiri'. The origin of the 'hiri' has long remained a mystery ..."