Forty Years On The Pacific/Kava and Toddy
Favorite Forms Of "Tipple"
[edit]AS the liquor question is now exercising the minds of most communities, I will refer to drinks popular among Pacific islanders, especially the Samoans, Fijians and Tongans. It is called "kava" in Samoa, or "yagoma" in Fiji.
The old method of production, introduced from Tonga and Samoa, was most repugnant, but the Pacific natives, as well as other and more civilized races, will do strange things for drink. A party of natives would take the root of the kava shrub, Macropiper Methysticum, chew it for a time, and expectorate the juice into a bowl. They would then fill the bowl with water, squeeze out the chewed root under water with their hands, then strain it, leaving a milky greenish-looking fluid. Thereafter a few genial souls would gather around the bowl, and drink the mixture out of cocoanut shells.
When drunk to excess, kava causes intoxication, but it has the merit of not making its devotees quarrelsome in their cups. The action of kava is peculiar, inasmuch as drunkenness from this cause does not affect the brain, but paralyzes the muscles of the legs and arms so that a man lies helplessly on the ground, perfectly aware of all that is going on. Its effects are more akin to those of opium than alcohol. The natives are usually quite susceptible to it, but even four large cocoanut bowls of it causes only a slight weakness of the knees in a European.
Most Europeans have a feeling of nausea after a cupful. Kava is said to affect the eyesight. It affords the cheapest spree I ever heard of; for, by taking a big drink of water on an empty stomach, on the following morning, the native achieves a relapse into drunkenness.
Kava is now produced by the cleaner method of pounding the root with stones in a mortar. I have heard of cures resulting from it, in cases of Bright's disease and kidney trouble. Old natives claim that early whaling ships from Cape Cod round the Horn, bound for Behring Seas, having on board sailors suffering from certain diseases, would land them at one of the Samoan Islands, and call for them on their return; often finding that simple diet and free drinking of kava, had effected a cure.
Another favorite "tipple" among the natives is that known as "Toddy" in the Line Islands. A cut is made in the stalk of the cocoanut flower, and a wisp of cocoanut fiber is tied around it, and bent down so that the milk that comes out will drop into a cup. This drink is described as a delicious beverage if drunk immediately, but if allowed to stand for fortyeight hours, fermentation sets in, and any one who drinks it then is driven almost crazy.
What are known as "bush beer" orgies are very common in the Cook Islands, of which Raratonga is the principal. An excess of bush beer simply makes the consumer drowsy and seldom brings out the ugly side of his nature. Little harm results. The islanders sit round the beer-tub for hours, quaffing the beverage and singing. It is simply the juice of oranges, more or less fermented; is easily made, and pleasant to the taste, except when adulterated with tobacco juice. It can be made from a few dozen oranges at any time. Like the "keg party" of the no-license areas in New Zealand, the "bush beer" parties are not unpopular among the young men. The authorities in the Cook Islands are endeavoring to put down this form of dissipation, but they are finding it difficult, the imposition of heavy fines not proving a deterrent. An even more ardent drink is distilled from the root of the "Ti" or "Ki" plant, Duaceona. Several of the Bounty mutineers drank themselves to death in Pitcairn Islands in this manner.
All the natives are great smokers. Tobacco is, of course,' a modern innovation, known only since shortly before the arrival of the missionaries. It is in such high favor that children as well as adults indulge in it freely. The native method of smoking is decidedly social. A small cigarette, formed by folding leaf tobacco in a strip of dead banana leaf is lit and passed round so that the same cigarette is often conveyed to half a dozen mouths. Somehow or another a pipe looks out of place in a native's mouth, and I do not remember ever having seen a native on the Polynesian Islands smoking one; but in New Guinea they employ their wives to fill a section of bamboo with concentrated smoke, the bamboo being then passed over to their lord and master, who sucks out the concentrated fumes.
A drink called "arrack" is popular among the Australian blacks on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. They say that it "makes black fellow mad." The drink was introduced many years ago by the Malays, who supplied it in exchange for pearl shell and tortoise shell. Among the blacks there are many murders, most of which can be attributed to drink. These blacks are a depraved race. Among their food is alligator meat, which a white man's stomach will not retain.
On one voyage passengers on the Mariposa had an amusing experience at Apia. They partook too freely of kava, with the result that they could not board the ship which was anchored in the harbor. The gangway being useless, it was found necessary to haul the tipplers aboard in baskets, much to the amusement of the other passengers.
Kava was the popular drink of the Hawaiians many years ago, until the American, with his world-famed concoctions and brews, lured the islanders from the crude native drink.