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The Galip nut, Canarium indicum, grows wild throughout the P.N.G. Islands, New Britain, New Ireland, and Bougainville. They are found along the north coast of the mainland from Madang to Bogia, also along coastal parts of the Sepik area, Wewak etc. The latter, I think, were planted by plantation labourers who had been working on the plantations in the islands and who brought them back from Rabaul, Kavieng and Keita areas, and then planted them near their villages.

The Galip grows into a mighty big tree. One tree I saw on the south coast of New Britain would have taken three men holding hands outstretched to go around its bole. The tree also achieves great heights - up to 150 ft. The timber of the Galip has a beautiful grain, not unlike walnut, much finer. Trees start bearing from 4 to 5 years old onwards.

The native people harvest and collect the nuts when the outer pith surrounding the shell turns from olive-green to dark purple-black. Once the very thin outer skin is that colour, the pith, when ripe, is bright yellow. The people will climb what trees they can and cut the branches bearing large clusters of the nuts to harvest them. Otherwise one has to wait till the nuts fall from the trees.

The nuts are collected and put into large bags or baskets made from coconut fronds, and then put in to a pool of water along the creeks or rivers for the outer pith to rot off. This only takes a few days. The nuts are then dried in the sun, put back into bags or baskets or wrapped up in leaves and hung in the houses. The smoke of cooking fires then cures them - and nuts will last years this way.

Many are eaten fresh. They have a milky, nutty, macadamia-type flavour, quite nice (eat too many and you may get the trots!). The nut is best when it is put in the oven or fried in butter with sprinkled salt. When the dried nuts are eaten they tend to be a bit oily, but still very nice - very much like the macadamia nut.

When the nuts are ripening on the big trees in the forest, the birds have a great time. The pigeons swallow them whole, then when the outer pith is digested from the nut, the nut is passed out. This is how the nuts are spread throughout the rainforests etc. The hornbill also likes to swallow them for food. The white cocky likes to eat the pith off the nut, and the muruk, or cassowary, will also feed on them from the ground. I have collected a 4-bushell bag of nuts off the ground a couple of days after having cleared what was already on the ground when the tree was found! These nuts are very heavy croppers.

Whilst living in the Markham Valley, I planted young seedling trees I got from the Botanical Gardens in Lae and one tree had its first two bunches of nuts in the 4th year. It was the year that I left P.N.G., and the manager who took over from me advised me that the same tree was so laden with nuts the next year that branches broke off because of the weight of the nuts!

We have planted many trees here at Kuradui Estates near Innisfail. Some are part of a windbreak, others at odd ends of rows of other fruit trees. All have grown well. They look very good. I hope that some will be bearing next year. These trees start flowering early in the year and nuts start ripening from July/August onwards. I feel that the galip would be quite a popular nut if put on the market.

Like the macadamias, galip nuts are hard to crack. The secret is to stand them top end down (in a hole, for example, in a hole drilled in a small board) and hit the bottom end sharply. The nut then breaks easily and the kernel comes out whole. Smashing the galip from one side only smashes it into small pieces and ruins the nut for normal eating.

There are quite a few different types of galips. They vary in size from one kernel or nut which is standard, to two units in one nut and a very large nut found in Bougainville and Solomons which has three units, though sometimes the third compartment has no actual nut in it.

I have seen some of these large nuts whilst on a recruiting trip near Lumi in the mountains behind Wewak, East Sepik. I have also bought them in the Madang market. However, I feel that they come from trees planted in that area by people who have worked in Bougainville.

It is strange that no galip nut trees are found in the New Guinea mainland rainforests (only human-planted ones!). I would have thought that pigeons, having fed in New Britain could easily have flown across to the mainland and passed seed nuts out! Maybe they don't fly far with a gut full of nuts! I tasted a pele nut and it tastes the same as the galip, and I am sure that the Debai would be much the same.

DATE: July 1991

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