The Pacific
Earth oven cooking was very common in the past and continues into the present - particularly for special occasions.
In the closely related and some part-Melanesian Polynesian languages the general term is "umu", from the Proto-Oceanic root *qumun: e.g.; Tongan ʻumu, Māori umu or hāngi, Hawaiian imu, Sāmoan umu, Cook Island Māori umu. In some non-Polynesian, part-Polynesian and Micronesian parts of the Pacific, languages are more diverse so each language has its own term - in Fiji it is a lovo and in Rotuman it is a koua. (In Papua New Guinea, "mumu" - borrowed from Polynesian, is used by Tok Pisin and English speakers, but each of the other hundreds of local languages has its own word.)
Despite the similarities, there are many differences in the details of preparation, their cultural significance and current usage.
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Famous quotes containing the word pacific:
“Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)