The villagers had to be their own gardeners, fowlers, fishermen and carpenters.

They built their own houses and canoes, and made every tool and weapon.

All that they wore as well as what they used had to be made on the spot.

They did not trade, though an exchange of gifts regulated by strict etiquette amounted to a rude and limited kind of barter, under which inland tribes could supply themselves with dried sea-fish and sea-birds preserved in their melted fat, or northern tribes could acquire the precious greenstone found in the west of the South Island.
Without flocks and herds or domestic fowls, theirs was the constant toil of the cultivator.

Their taro and their kumara fields had to be dug, and dug thoroughly with wooden spades.