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He dipped a shell in the trough, tossed a few drops over his shoulder to propitiate the god of the kava-drinking, and placed the shell in my hands. Ugh! The liquor tasted like earth and water, sweetish for a moment and then acrid and pungent. It was hard to get down, but all the men took theirs at a gulp, and when Kivi gave me another shellful, I followed their pattern. "Kai! Kai. Eat! Eat!"
A circle, as for an ordinary kava-drinking entertainment, was then formed; but the priest, as the representative of the god, took the highest place, while the chiefs sat outside the circle, as an expression of humility calculated to please the god. As soon as they are all seated the priest is considered as inspired, the god being supposed to exist within him from that moment.
The kava-drinking over, all stiffness and formality disappears for the time, and the visitors are surrounded by the villagers, eager to learn the latest news from Apia, and from the world abroad. The discussion of political matters always has a strong attraction for Samoans, who are anxious to learn the state of affairs in Europe, and their knowledge and shrewdness is surprising.
But for a full description of all the details of a kava-drinking, let me commend my readers to the best and most charming book ever written on South Sea life, "South Sea Bubbles," by the late Earl of Pembroke and Dr. Kingsley. Nowadays, however, many Samoan households, out of deference to European tastes, have the kava root grated instead of being chewed.
I rose gladly from the palm-shaded mat on which I had lain vainly hoping for a breath of coolness in the close heat of the day, and girded the red pareu more neatly about my loins. Often I had heard of the kava-drinking days before the missionaries had insisted on outlawing that drink beloved of the natives.
From this one might think that Asia had taught the Marquesans the art of making namu during their prehistoric pilgrimage to the islands, but the discoverers and early white residents in Polynesia saw no drunkenness save that of the kava-drinking.
I do not go to the ships. Then she tossed her hair back from her face and began to beat the kava again. "Now, this girl pleased me greatly, for there were no twists in her tongue; so, when the kava-drinking was finished I made her sit beside me, and the Nanomaga woman told her I would run away from the ship if she would be my wife.
The traders had added their power to the virtuous protests of the priests, for kava cost the islanders nothing, while rum, absinthe, and opium could be sold them for profit. 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.
One day they had tarried to raft redwood planks of California from the schooner in the bay to the site of Kivi's new house. So that night in gratitude he would make merry for them. There would be much to eat, and there would be kava in plenty. He prayed that I would join them in this feast, which would bring back the good days of the kava-drinking, which were now almost forgotten.
There is no ceremony about this kava-drinking as there is in conventional Samoa; fat-faced Sipi simply sits cross-legged upon the matted floor and pounds the green root with a rounded piece of jade upon a hollowed stone.
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