Kava

“ They sat on mats around the iron-wood trough and chewed the grated root, which, after thorough mastication, they spat out into banana-leaf cups. This chewing of the Aram-root is the very being of kava as a beverage, for it is a ferment in the saliva that separates alkaloid and sugar and liberates the narcotic principle. Only the healthiest and loveliest of the girls are chosen to munch the root, that delectable and honored privilege being refused to those whose teeth are not perfect and upon whose cheeks the roses do not bloom. ”

“ Kava is at first stimulating, but the effect of an excess resembles that of opium, producing a drowsy drunkenness, lasting for two hours. The inebriate is usually peaceable, but sometimes is irritated by noises, which is attributed by natives to the use of kava grown in moist ground. The results of excess are skin disease, emaciation, and general decrepitude. The peculiar whiteness of the skin caused by kava drinking is said to be sought after in some islands as a sign that its possessor is wealthy enough to devote his time to its acquirement. ”

“ The kava plant grows in nearly every island of the South Pacific, and two or three generations ago the beverage from it was in universal use throughout those latitudes. Today it is only drunk by the Samoans and here and there in Fiji. Why it should have fallen into disuse elsewhere is not entirely clear, for except in endeavouring to discourage the preparation of the root by [265] the old method of chewing, neither officials nor missionaries have actively opposed kava drinking. ”

“ A spark from the pipe set it afire, and, heaped with more fiber and wood of the hibiscus, before long the stones blushed with the heat, and, growing redder yet, were ready for their service.
The priest of old had withdrawn to make a sauce of limes and sea-water, which he brought out within the half-hour from the penthouse in which we stored our simple goods. It was in a tanoa formerly used for kava, a trencher of the false ebony, black in life, but turned by the years of decoction of the mysterious narcotic to a marvelous green. It was like an ancient bronze in the open. ”

“ The first bowl of kava was handed to the priest—Box-of-Tricks—that venerable and wily man, who had been oiled up for the occasion. The drink was quaffed by him to the last drop, and the vessel was returned to the cup-bearer amidst a great clapping of hands. Now came the moment of chief interest in listening to the deliverance of the people’s “guide, philosopher, and friend.” ”

“ We had seen the drinking of kava sometimes at the other islands, but, by no means, so frequently as here, where it seems to be the only forenoon employment of the principal people. The kava is a species of pepper, which they cultivate for this purpose, and esteem it a valuable article, taking great care to defend the young plants from any injury; and it is commonly planted about their houses. It seldom grows to more than a man's height, though I have seen some plants almost double that. ”

“ Our people also demanded that the John Knox should bring them kava and tobacco. Kava is the plant, Piper Methysticum, from which they make a 291highly intoxicating drink. The girls and boys first chew it, and spit the juice into a basin; there it is mixed with water, and then strained through a fibrous cloth-like texture, which they get from the top of the cocoa-nut trees, where it surrounds the young nuts, and drops off with them when they are ripe. This they freely drink; it does not make them violent, but stupefies them and induces sleep like opium. ”

“ And kava was common as water. Feasts have there been ere now,
And many, but never a feast like that of the folk of Vaiau.
All day long they ate with the resolute greed of brutes,
And turned from the pigs to the fish, and again from the fish to the fruits,
360And emptied the vessels of sauce, and drank of the kava deep;
Till the young lay stupid as stones, and the strongest nodded to sleep.
Sleep that was mighty as death and blind as a moonless night
Tethered them hand and foot ”

“ Any one who drinks is supposed to do so fasting, in order, I believe, that the draught may have the more effect. One or two cups are enough to produce intoxication, but of course men will make beasts of themselves in the drinking of kava, as well as of any other strong drink. Here it is prepared from the green root, and grated up with a rough, round coral stone, then squeezed into cups made of the half of a cocoanut shell, strained and mixed with water, after which it is ready for imbibation. ”

“ Kava had been the drink ordained by the old gods before the white men came. Its making was now almost a lost art; I knew no white man who had ever drunk from the kava-bowl. So it was with some eagerness that I followed Kivi down the trail.
Broken Plate, a sturdy savage in English cloth cap and whale's-teeth earrings, stood waiting for us in the road below the House of the Golden Bed, and together the three of us went in search of the kava bush. ”

“ When this trough was quite full of a muddy liquid, he deftly clarified it by sweeping through it a net of cocoanut fiber. All the while he chanted in a deep resonant voice the ancient song of the ceremony.
“U haanoho ia te kai, a tapapa ia te kai!” he called with solemnity when the last rite was performed. “Come to supper; all is ready.”
“Menike,” he said to me, “You know that to drink kava you must be of empty stomach. After eating, kava will make you sick. If you do not eat as soon as you have drunk it, you will not enjoy it. ”

“ Henceforth is no more, only to sit in the night and silence, and see your friends devoured; for life is a deceit, and the bandage is taken from your eyes.”
Now when the singing was done, one of the daughters came with the bowl. Desire of that kava rose in the missionary’s bosom; he lusted for it like a swimmer for the land, or a bridegroom for his bride; and he reached out his hand, and took the bowl, and would have drunk. And then he remembered, and put it back.
“Drink!” sang the daughter of Miru. “There is no kava like the kava of the dead, and to drink of it once is the reward of living.” ”

“ After I had spoken with the lady Solepa I returned to where the man from Nanomaga and his wife were awaiting me. They pressed me to eat and drink, and by and by sent for a young girl to make kava. Tāpā! that kava of Ponapé! It is not made there as it is in Samoa—where the young men and women chew the dried root and mix it in a wooden tanoa (bowl) ; there the green root is crushed up in a hollowed stone and but little water is added, so that it is strong, very strong, and one is soon made drunk. ”

“ It is then strained through a fine piece of hybiscus fibre till all the particles of root have been removed, when there remains only a turbid yellow fluid, tasting like ginger and soap-suds, which is gently stimulating, like weak sal-volatile, and has the advantage of rarely resulting in intoxication, which, in any case, is a very different affair from that produced by drinking spirits. A man must drink a good deal of this nasty kava before he can get drunk ”

“ As a people the Hawaiians are very courteous and respectful, rarely failing to greet the passing stranger with a pleasant smile and a softly articulated "oloha," equivalent to "my love to you." The drinking of kava, the native spirituous liquor, is no doubt conducive to the immoderate accumulation of flesh, or at least to a bloated condition of the body; but as a rule the natives are not intemperate drinkers, except perhaps on Saturdays, when, as we have already intimated, the town is half mad with all sorts of excesses. ”

“ It was an invitation, and one that no Lialian could possibly have refused, for the drink brewed from the kava root, and the ceremonies connected with the brewing, tasting, and giving round, are almost a religion in those islands, and many a man, in the old wild days, has died for the insult of putting aside the proffered cup. ”

“ This drink is used in all the islands of the Pacific. In the out-of-the-way Samoas a person making kava has the right to ask any girl who is passing, no matter who she may be, to come in and chew his root for him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These agents do not have a value equal to that of local treatment, as the quoted statement implies.
The claims made for Gonosan might with equal force be made for oil of santal alone. Kava kava, the other constituent, belongs to the pepper family; it had a temporary vogue some two or three decades ago, but has failed to maintain a place. It has never been recognized officially. There is no scientific evidence that it has any value either alone or as an adjuvant to sandal oil. ”

“ So kava-drinking had been suppressed, and after decades of knowing more powerful stimulants and narcotics, the natives had lost their taste for the gentler beverage of their forefathers.
The French law prohibited selling, exchanging, or giving to any Marquesan any alcoholic beverage. But the law was a dead letter, for only with rum and wine could work be urged upon the Marquesans, and I failed to reprove them even in my mind for their love of drink. One who has not seen a dying race cannot conceive of the prostration of spirit in which these people are perishing. ”

“ The chief gave them to understand that they must join them at the marum, or place of public meeting.
This meeting was held under a banyan tree in a large clear space. All the men assembled here at sundown for their evening meal.
A bowl of kava was prepared by chewing the root and ejecting the contents of the mouth into a bowl, which was filled up with water, then mixed and strained. In addition to the kava, there were raw yams served, and cooked food consisting of figs and fowls. The women had their meal apart from the men. ”

“ Then, all of a sudden, he was out of the bar and walking with Smart among palm trees. Then he was in the native village which lies at the back of the town, and they were drinking kava at the house of old Nadub, the kava seller, who was once a cannibal and boasted of the fact—kava after hopscotches!—and Smart was seated with his arm round the waist of Maiala, Nadub’s daughter, and they were both smoking the same cigar alternately and laughing. Nadub was laughing, the whole world was laughing. ”

“ It provokes abundant secretion of saliva and in a few seconds occasions a sensation of burning on the tongue. The root contains about fifty percent of starch, a little pale-yellow essential oil, two percent of an acrid resin, and one percent of the neutral crystalline principle methysticin, called kavahin. To the latter principle we must attribute the toxic qualities of the kava preparation. The resin and the kavahin are insoluble in water, but are soluble in saliva and the gastric juices. ”

“ The natives of the Malayan Archipelago ferment and drink the sap of the flower stems of the cocoanut. The Tartar tribes make an intoxicating drink from mare's milk, called koomis. In South America the natives drink a vile compound, called cana, distilled from sugar cane; and in the Sandwich Islands, the shrub kava supplies the intoxicant kava-kava, drunk by all the inhabitants, from king to slave, and mother to child. In the heart of Africa, cannibal tribes make legyce of a cereal, and indulge in wild orgies over their barbaric cup. ”

“ Our places were all arranged with much care; the native ladies of the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests, please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with our family, the rest between S. and the native ladies. After the feast was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate affair, and I thought had like to have made Simelé very angry ”

“ Having passed over the nearest mountains we entered a delightful vale, where we perceived a multitude of persons at a feast of living bulls, whose flesh they cut away with great knives, making a table of the creature's carcase, serenaded by the bellowing of the unfortunate animal. Nothing seemed requisite to add to the barbarity of this feast but kava, made as described in Cook's voyages, and at the conclusion of the feast we perceived them brewing this liquor, which they drank with the utmost avidity. ”

“ Many peoples have something peculiar in the way of beverages, such as the chewed Polynesian kava, or the South American maté sucked through a tube. Especially fermented liquors have great variety, such as the kumiss from mares’ milk in Tartary, the pombe or millet-beer of Africa, and the kvass or rye-beer of Russia. The rudest pottery made by hand, not thrown on the wheel, is less and less often met with, but ornamentation traceable to its being moulded on baskets is to be seen; and calabashes, joints of bamboo, and close-plaited baskets are used for water-vessels, and even to boil in. ”

“ Its spread has been furthered by the peculiar habits of the people, particularly in eating, and their close association in their houses, and is contributed to by the exhaustion caused by the use of the intoxicant kava. ”