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THE JOURNAL OF THE LIKLIK BUKAPPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
NETWORK
No. 28. FEBRUARY 1985
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LABU BUTU'SLIME
FACTORYWritten by Norman Q.uinn
While it is obvious that marine resourcesplay an important role
in the diet of coastalvillage people, it is less
generallyrecognized that these resources alsocontribute to the
economy and socialpatterns of the villagers non-food activities.The
technology of lime manufacture for theproduction of Kambungwhich is
used in thechewing of buaiis outlined in this article.The wdmen of
Labu Butu operate Lae'slargest lime "factory"!! Shells are
gatheredby small groups of women from betweenthe mangrove roots in
the estuary. The shellis extremely common and easily gatheredby
hand. lf the animal has died, the shell isoccupied by hermit crabs
and given anothername by the villagers, but it is still usef ul
inmaking lime.
After returning to the village in the lateafternoon the shells
are placed betweenlayers of sago palm branches that were a lsocut
in the estuarythat day and burned. Theashes are hand separated from
the whiteshells and the latter mixed with water,sifted through
mosquito netting, dried andpacked in various sized plastic bags for
salein the Lae market.A survey of the lime carried to market
wasperformed on 26 mornings at the mouth ofthe Markham River f rom
20 February to 27May 1982. Three hundred andfiftywomencarried about
12 kgs each, totaling over 4tonnes of lime.The value of lime
fishery is difficult todetermine owing to pricing variability.
The
"nw'/t'--'.!'u4'
fhe women have returned from the swamp with shetls and sago palm
branches
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Setting lime at Lae Market'weight contained in the smallest bag
whichsells for 1Ot varies greatly. Additionallyprices change with
the volumes sold. Thewomen recognize the necessity ofpresentation
in their product and henceseal each bag with a lot of air. The bag
isvigorously shaken before being positionedfor selling to insure
the illusion of plenty oflime. During the day the bags are
alsoperiodically shaken to sustain this illusion.A conservative
estimate of a price of K3 perkilogram would place the value of
anaverage load of lime per woman at K36. Ona typical Saturday
around 20women wouldcarry that amount of lime to market with atotal
market value of around K72O. That isworth around K37,500 per year
just basedon Saturdays' sales. lf a lower productivityis considered
for the other six days of theweek, it would not be unreasonable
toestimate the annual value of this limefactory at over K1O0,OO0.As
recently as 1973 the traditional use ofmarine resources was
undervalued byanthropologists and others who suggestedthat such
activities were undertaken for f unand not f rom necessity. I have
shown in thisarticle that a traditional technology existsfor the
manufactureof Kambungby womenwhich has resulted in a lucrative
industrythat is neither acknowledged by thegovernment's
statistician as industrialoutput or taxed by government
revenuecollectors. ln short, the creative ingenuity ofthe Labu Butu
people has developed avillage based manufacturing industry
thatmeets the critical approval of thousands ofsatisf ied users
without any outsideassistance, interference or regulation.
