ABSTRACT
Rapitok receives casual mention in Parkinson’s classic account of the region. Its contact with Europeans has been peripheral and it is referred to by coastal Tolai as a gunan na pui, a bush parish. Its inland position protected it from land alienation by Europeans and it is probably one of the most fortunate parishes as regards the availability of land. This chapter shows the first European traders, intent on exporting copra, found the coastal Tolai eager to sell their coconuts either for new weapons, trade goods, or shell money. The returns from the sale of coconuts, which they could easily spare, were in the first instance regarded as windfall profits. In 1960 Rapitok villager elders owned capital assets worth only 21 per cent of those accumulated by migrant elders, while villager middle-farmers had capital assets of the value of 83 per cent of those owned by migrant middle-farmers.
