Word: kula
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Vacations may be pointless. The Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia once found themselves with an embarrassment of leisure. Their yams came up so abundantly that they had no need to work for their food. To occupy their excesses of spare time, the islanders devised the Kula, a ceremonial maritime exchange of economically worthless objects- red shell necklaces and white shell bracelets. The Kula, in formal circuit around the islands, was the vacation and vocation of the people. They became their own quaintness, their own tourist trap. It is possible, in the end, that they even took American Express...
...Wailea, on a clear day you can see, if not forever, a dazzling, dappled distance of meadow, mountain and sea. At the 2,000-to 3,000-ft. level, a host of small farms raise a cornucopia of vegetables, fruits and flowers, notably lychee, avocado, guava, the apple-sweet Kula onion and protea, the flower of a thousand exquisite shapes...