Ava, with which the natives were formerly wont to intoxicate themselves, is now giving way to the use of ardent spirits. I never saw it used, except as a medicine to prevent corpulency, and is said to be an effectual remedy. It causes a white scurf to strike out upon the skin, somewhat like the dry scurvy.
The spirit distilled from the tea-root now usurps its place, and I fear the consequences will be still more pernicious.
That plant grows wild in the upper part of the country, and varies from the size of a carrot to that of a man’s thigh. It is put into a pit, amongst heated stones, and covered with plantain and taro leaves; through these a small hole is made, and water poured in; after which the whole is closed up again, and allowed to remain twenty-four hours. When the root has undergone this process, the juice tastes as sweet as molasses. It is then taken out, bruised, and put into a canoe to ferment; and in five or six days is ready for distillation.
Their stills are formed out of iron pots, which they procure from American ships, and which they enlarge to any size, by fixing several tier of calabashes above them, with their bottoms sawed off, and the joints well luted. From the uppermost, a wooden tube connects with a copper cone, round the inside of which is a ring with a pipe to carry off the spirit. The cone is fixed into a hole in the bottom of a tub filled with water, which serves as a condenser.
By this simple apparatus a spirit is produced, called lumi, or rum, and which is by no means harsh or unpalatable. Both whites and natives are unfortunately too much addicted to it. Almost every one of the chiefs has his own still.
Smoking tobacco is another luxury of which the natives are very fond. The plant grows in abundance upon the islands, and they use it in a green state. In their tobacco pipes they display their usual taste and ingenuity. The tube is made of a hollow stem of a kind of vine, fixed to an iron bowl, which is inserted into hard wood. The stem is covered with rings of ivory and turtle-shell, placed alternately; the whole kept firmly together at the top by an ivory mouth-piece.
The women are subject to many restrictions from which the men are exempted. They are not allowed to attend the morai upon taboo days, nor at these times are they permitted to go out in a canoe. They are never permitted to eat with the men, except when at sea, and then not out of the same dish. Articles of delicacy, such as pork, turtle, shark, cocoa-nuts, bananas or plantains, are also forbidden. Dog’s flesh and fish were the only kinds of animal food lawful for them to eat; but since the introduction of sheep and goats, which are not tabooed, the ladies have less reason to complain.
Notwithstanding the rigour with which these ceremonies are generally observed, the women very seldom scruple to break them, when it can be done in secret; they often swim off to ships at night during the taboo; and I have known them eat of the forbidden delicacies of pork and shark’s flesh. What would be the consequence of a discovery I know not; but I once saw the queen transgressing in this respect, and was strictly enjoined to secrecy, as she said it was as much as her life was worth.
Their ideas of marriage are very loose; either party may quit the other when they tire or disagree. The lower classes in general, content themselves with one wife; but they are by no means confined to that number, and the chiefs have frequently several. Tamaahmaah had two, besides a very handsome girl, the daughter of a chief, educating for him. One elderly chief, Coweeooranee, had no fewer than fifteen. They are very jealous of any improper connexion between natives and their wives; but the case is widely different with respect to their visitors, where connexion of that kind is reckoned the surest proof of friendship, and they are always anxious to strengthen it by that tie.