A day's work started at dawn as people slowly woke up in the shelter of their houses.

Before the night's chill had worn off, fires were stirred up and sweet potatoes or taro roots were roasted. Occasionally people reheated greens that had been steamed the night before and stored in short bamboo tubes to be enjoyed for an early breakfast or taken out to gardens and forest for snacks later in the day. Children often slept in the houses of their friends - their age mates or an older man or woman with whom they were temporarily living. They might be offered food, or they might run home to their mother's house to get the portion of food she had prepared for them. Once the cooking was done, the old banana leaves that had been used as containers were thrown outside and then swept out of the yard with all the other trash.		043-57: Ke, Bossboy Gul's first wife, uses her yinge to sweep her yard.
043-67: Gandim spends the first part of the morning in a sunny grove outside of Gunts Yard working on a bilum.		.     Gul's three wives had, between them, eight children ranging in age from about two to eighteen years old. Gandim, his third wife, had two daughters and a son. Her younger daughter, Koram, was still a toddler, just at the age when she was becoming too old to be carried to distant gardens. She stayed with her mother as long as possible in the morning, hoping to put off the moment when she would be left with other members of the family.
The path up to the gardens above Tenegump lead up a steep path that passed close to the huge old growth trees marking the sacred groves of each lineage. Ke's youngest son, Mat'a, had to scurry to keep up with his mother who was walking quickly, carrying nothing more than an empty bilum, a small ax and her yinge.		044-16: The path from Gunts up to Ganegai.

Above the area of old growth forest, the slope opened out into a broad area covered with garden plots at all stages of cultivation.

Ke paused in the shade of the overgrowth beside an old garden, abandoned since all the crops had been harvested. The saplings that will grow up to re-forest the area were already well on their way. As I caught my breath from the hike up ed her yinge. I was not quick enough in focussing the camera, so the picture was snapped at the very moment she finished and, in one flowing gesture, let the ax drop to the ground.		044-21: Ke sharpens her yinge.
044-23: Mat'a has caught up with his mother and they cross into the garden area.		The high-altitude garden area above Gunts was divided into individual plots for a number of different women. When the area had been cleared for gardening, the men constructed a stout fence to protect all the plots from both the freely ranging domestic pigs and any wild pigs that might wander nearby. A wild mango tree had been used as a major corner support for the fence and as one of the stiles allowing easy access to the gardeners.

Ke and Gandim went right to work among the sweet potatoes vines covering the ground below the sugarcane and manioc plants.

At this stage, the sweet potatoes were ready to harvest, but the sugarcane was still young. Here and there the manioc plants provided a bit of shade. All the plots had a fine view of Gembiama, to the west across the Righan River ravine.