As the making of this mahie depends, like brewing, upon fermentation, so, like brewing, it sometimes fails, without their being able to ascertain the cause; it is very natural, therefore, that the making it should be connected with superstitious notions and ceremonies. It generally falls to the lot of the old women, who will suffer no creature to touch any thing belonging to it, but those whom they employ as assistants, nor even to go into that part of the house where the operation is carrying on. Mr. Banks happened to spoil a large quantity of it only by inadvertently touching a leaf which lay upon it. The old woman, who then presided over these mysteries, told him, that the process would fail; and immediately uncovered the hole in a fit of vexation and despair. Mr. Banks regretted the mischief he had done, but was somewhat consoled by the opportunity which it gave him of examining the preparation, which perhaps, but for such an accident, would never have offered.
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 our people 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.
Table they have none; but their apparatus for eating is set out with great neatness, though the articles are too simple and too few to allow any thing for show; and they commonly eat alone; but when a stranger happens to visit them, he sometimes makes a second in their mess. Of the meal of one of their principal people I shall give a particular description.
He sits down under the shade of the next tree, or on the shady side of his house, and a large quantity of leaves, either of the bread-fruit or banana, are neatly spread before him upon the ground as a table-cloth; a basket is then set by him that contains his provision, which, if fish or flesh, is ready dressed, and wrapped up in leaves, and two cocoa-nut shells, one full of salt water, and the other of fresh: his attendants, which are not few, seat themselves round him, and when all is ready, he begins by washing his hands and his mouth thoroughly with the fresh water, and this he repeats almost continually throughout the whole meal; he then takes part of his provision out of the basket, which generally consists of a small fish or two, two or three bread-fruits, fourteen or fifteen ripe bananas, or six or seven apples; he first takes half a bread-fruit, peels off the rind, and takes out the core with his nails; of this he puts as much into his mouth as it can hold, and while he chews it, takes the fish out of the leaves, and breaks one of them into the salt water, placing the other, and what remains of the bread-fruit, upon the leaves that have been spread before him. When this is done, he takes up a small piece of the fish that has been broken into the salt water, with all the fingers of one hand, and sucks it into his mouth, so as to get with it as much of the salt water as possible: in the same manner he takes the rest by different morsels, and between each, at least very frequently, takes a small sup of the salt water, either out of the cocoa-nut shell, or the palm of his hand: in the mean time one of his attendants has prepared a young cocoa-nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his teeth, an operation which to an European appears very surprising; but it depends so much upon slight, that many of us were able to do it before we left the island, and some that could scarcely crack a filbert: the master, when he chooses to drink, takes the cocoa-nut thus prepared, and boring a hole through the shell with his finger, or breaking it with a stone, he sucks out the liquor. When he has eaten his bread-fruit and fish, he begins with his plantains, one of which makes but a mouthful, though it be as big as a black-pudding; if, instead of plantains, he has apples, he never tastes them till they have been pared; to do this a shell is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty, and tossed to him by an attendant: he immediately begins to cut or scrape off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the fruit is wasted. If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he must have some succedaneum for a knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is tossed to him, of which he makes the necessary implement by splitting it transversely with his nail. While all this has been doing, some of his attendants have been employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone pestle upon a block of wood; by being beaten in this manner, and sprinkled from time to time with water, it is reduced to the consistence of a soft paste, and is then put into a vessel somewhat like a butcher’s tray, and either made up alone, or mixed with banana or mahie, according to the taste of the master, by pouring water upon it by degrees and squeezing it often through the hand: under this operation it acquires the consistence of a thick custard, and a large cocoa-nut shell full of it being set before him, he sips it as we should do a jelly if we had no spoon to take it from the glass: the meal is then finished by again washing his hands and his mouth. After which the cocoa-nut shells are cleaned, and every thing that is left is replaced in the basket.
The quantity of food which these people eat at a meal is prodigious: I have seen one man devour two or three fishes as big as a perch; three bread-fruits, each bigger than two fists; fourteen or fifteen plantains or bananas, each of them six or seven inches long, and four or five round; and near a quart of the pounded bread-fruit, which is as substantial as the thickest unbaked custard. This is so extraordinary that I scarcely expect to be believed; and I would not have related it upon my own single testimony; but Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and most of the other gentlemen, have had ocular demonstration of its truth, and know that I mention them upon the occasion.
It is very wonderful that these people, who are remarkably fond of society, and particularly that of their women, should exclude its pleasures from the table, where among all other nations, whether civil or savage, they have been principally enjoyed. How a meal, which every where else brings families and friends together, came to separate them here, we often enquired, but could never learn. They eat alone, they said, because it was right; but why it was right to eat alone they never attempted to tell us: such, however, was the force of habit, that they expressed the strongest dislike, and even disgust, at our eating in society, especially with our women, and of the same victuals. At first, we thought this strange singularity arose from some superstitious opinion; but they constantly affirmed the contrary. We observed also some caprices in the custom, for which we could as little account as for the custom itself. We could never prevail with any of the women to partake of the victuals at our table when we were dining in company; yet they would go, five or six together, into the servants’ apartments, and there eat very heartily of whatever they could find, of which I have before given a particular instance; nor were they in the least disconcerted if we came in while they were doing it. When any of us have been alone with a woman, she has sometimes eaten in our company; but then she has expressed the greatest unwillingness that it should be known, and always extorted the strongest promises of secrecy.
Among themselves, even two brothers and two sisters have each their separate baskets, with provision and the apparatus of their meal. When they first visited us at our tents, each brought his basket with him; and when we sat down to table, they would go out, sit down upon the ground, at two or three yards’ distance from each other, and turning their faces different ways, take their repast without interchanging a single word.
The women not only abstain from eating with the men, and of the same victuals, but even have their victuals separately prepared by boys kept for that purpose, who deposit it in a separate shed, and attend them with it at their meals.
But though they would not eat with us or with each other, they have often asked us to eat with them, when we have visited those with whom we were particularly acquainted at their houses; and we have often upon such occasions eaten out of the same basket, and drunk out of the same cup. The elder women, however, always appeared to be offended at this liberty; and if we happened to touch their victuals, or even the basket that contained it, would throw it away.