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Such is their food, to which salt-water is the universal sauce, no meal being eaten without it: those who live near the sea have it fetched as it is wanted; those who live at some distance keep it in large bamboos, which are set up in their houses, for use. Salt-water, however, is not their only sauce; they make another of the kernels of cocoa-nuts, which being fermented till they dissolve into a paste somewhat resembling butter, are beaten up with salt-water. The flavour of this is very strong, and was, when we first tasted it, exceedingly nauseous; a little use, however, reconciled some of us to it so much, that they preferred it to our own sauces, especially with fish. The natives seemed to consider it as a dainty, and do not use it at their common meals; possibly, because they think it ill management to use cocoa-nuts so lavishly, or perhaps, when we were at the island, they were scarcely ripe enough for the purpose.
For drink, they have in general nothing but water, or the juice of the cocoa-nut; the art of producing liquors that intoxicate, by fermentation, being happily unknown among them; neither have they any narcotic which they chew, as the natives of some other countries do opium, beetle-root, and tobacco. Some of them drank freely of our liquors, and in a few instances became very drunk; but the persons to whom this happened were so far from desiring to repeat the debauch, that they would never touch any of our liquors afterwards. We were however informed, that they became drunk by drinking a juice that is expressed from the leaves of a plant which they call Ava Ava. This plant was not in season when we were there, so that we saw no instances of its effects; and as they considered drunkenness as a disgrace, they probably would have concealed from us any instances which might have happened during our stay. This vice is almost peculiar to the Chiefs, and considerable persons, who vie with each other in drinking the greatest number of draughts, each draught being about a pint. They keep this intoxicating juice with great care from their women.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 199 - 200, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/201.html