The Palal, the supreme pontiff of the cow-religion of the Toda people of the Neilgherries, is initiated with incantations, and the smearing of his body with the juice of a sacred shrub called the tude.[103]
He also drinks some of the extract mixed with water. He is purified by soaking himself with the juice of this plant, and in a week has become a god; he is the supreme being of the Todas. This transmutation is suggestive of the sacred soma.[104]
The aborigines of the Amazon make an intoxicating drink from wild fruits, which they use at their dances and festivals.[105] The people on the Rio Negro use a liquor called “xirac” for the same purpose. The Brazilian Indians have their “caxiri,” which is the same thing; it is a beer made from mandiocca cakes. This mandiocca is chewed by the old women, spat into a pan, and soaked in water till it ferments. The Marghi people of North Africa have an intoxicating liquor called “Komil,” made of Guinea-corn, which Barth said tastes like bad beer, and is very confusing to the brain.[106]
The Apaches make an intoxicating liquor from cactus juice, or with boiled and fermented corn. Their drunkenness is a preparation for religious acts.[107]
The Kolarians of Bengal believe that the flowers of the maowah tree (Bassia latifolia) will cure almost every kind of sickness. “Not a cot,” says Reclus,[108] “but distils a heady liquor from the petals; not a Khond man who does not get royally drunk.”
The people of the Nepal Himalayas make a beer from half-fermented millet, which they call Murwa; it is weak, but very refreshing. Hooker says the millet-seed is moistened, and ferments for two days; it is then put into a vessel of wicker-work, lined with india-rubber gum to make it water tight; and boiling water is poured in it with a ladle of gourd, from a cauldron that stands all day over the fire. The fluid, when fresh, tasted like negus.[109]
The fermented juice of the cocoa-nut palm makes an intoxicating toddy, of which some birds in the forests round Bombay are as fond as are the natives themselves.[110]
The natives of Tahiti made an intoxicating drink by chewing the fresh root of the “ava,” a plant of the pepper tribe (Piper methysticum), long before Europeans taught them to ferment the fruits of the country about the year 1796. The chewed root was rinsed in water, and by fermentation a drowsy form of intoxicating liquor was produced of which the natives were extremely fond. They now prefer gin and brandy. The effects of ava or kava intoxication are said to be somewhat similar to those of opium. The Nukahivans drink kava as a remedy for phthisis; it would seem to be of real value in bronchitis, as a chemical examination of the root shows it to contain an oleo-resin probably somewhat akin to balsam of Peru or tolu. It is an ally of the matico, and in its nature and operation closely resembles cubeb and copaiba, which are used to produce a constriction of the capillary vessels.
Cascarilla bark and other barks of the various species of croton, of the Bahama and West India Islands, have valuable stimulant properties universally recognised in modern medicine. They are used in the treatment of dyspepsia and as a mild tonic.
The Carib races were fully conversant with the valuable properties of these drugs; the native priests or doctors used the dried plants for fumigations and in religious ceremonies; and curiously enough at the present day cascarilla bark is one of the ingredients of incense. An infusion of the leaves was used internally in Carib medicine, and the dried bark was mixed with tobacco and smoked, as is often done in civilized lands.