The mahie, which has been mentioned as a succedaneum for ripe bread-fruit, before the season for gathering a fresh crop comes on, is thus made:
The fruit is gathered just before it is perfectly ripe, and being laid in heaps, is closely covered with leaves; in this state it undergoes a fermentation, and becomes disagreeably sweet: The core is then taken out entire, which is done by gently pulling the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is thrown into a hole which is dug for that purpose, generally in the houses, and neatly lined in the bottom and sides with grass; the whole is then covered with leaves, and heavy stones laid upon them: In this state it undergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for many months: It is taken out of the hole as it is wanted for use, and being made into balls, it is wrapped up in leaves and baked; after it is dressed, it will keep five or six-weeks. It is eaten both cold and hot, and the natives seldom make a meal without it, though to us the taste was as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive generally is the first time it is eaten.
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.[9]
[Footnote 9: "This paste," we are told in the missionary account, "makes a most nutritious and sweet pudding, and all the children of the family and their relations feast on it eagerly. During this festive season they seldom quit the house, and continue wrapped up in cloth: And it is surprising to see them in a month become so fair and fat, that they can scarcely breathe. The children afterwards grow amazingly. The baked bread-fruit in this state very much in taste resembles gingerbread." This delicate and wholesome provision, it is said, is not confined to the chiefs and wealthier people, as all who will be at the pains to provide an oven, may readily be supplied with bread-fruit from their neighbours. Such is the generosity of these interesting people, that all of a man's own rank are at all times ready to contribute largely to his support, on his making known his need. In how many respects are these islanders worthy of being held up as examples for us!--E.]
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.[10]
[Footnote 10: Turnbull speaks of intoxication being quite common and excessive at the feasts of the Otaheitans. And the reader will often hear of the intemperate use and had effects of the ava or yava. The love of this liquor, or its effects rather, must indeed be strong, to reconcile them to the disgusting manner in which it is prepared. "Several women," says the missionary account, "have each a portion given them to chew of the stem and root (of the yava shrub) together, which, when masticated, they spit into a bowl into which some of the leaves of the plant are finely broken; they add water, or cocoa-nut liquor: The whole is then well stirred, and begins quickly to ferment; when it is strained or wrung out in the moo gross, or cocoa-nut fibres, and drank in cups of folded leaves. It is highly intoxicating, and seems for a while to deprive them of the use of their limbs: They lie down and sleep till the effects are passed, and during the time have their limbs chafed with their women's hands. A gill of the yava is a sufficient dose for a man. When they drink it, they always eat something afterwards; and frequently fall asleep with the provisions in their mouths: When drank after a hearty meal, it produces but little effect." The writer forgets his authority, but he remembers to have read of a practice somewhat more economical, though not more delicate, than what is adopted at Otaheite. The people are all passionately fond of the intoxicating beverage prepared from mushrooms; as the common sort cannot procure it at first hand, owing to its price, they are in the habit of attending at the houses of the grandees, where entertainments are going on, provided with vessels for the purpose of collecting the urine of the favoured few who have drunk of it, which they eagerly swallow. The peculiar smell and flavour, it seems, are preserved notwithstanding this percolation, and are considered amply remunerative of the pains and importunity used to obtain it. Such things are strikingly expressive of that worse than brutish perversity which actuates man, when once his lusts have acquired the dominion. It is lamentable to think, that after that conquest over his reason and interest, his degradation in sensuality is in proportion to his ingenuity of invention; and that no dignity of situation, or splendour of office, or brilliancy of talent, can possibly redeem him from the contempt and detestation of those whose good opinion it ought to be his ambition to covet.--E.]
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, is 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 breadfruits, 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 sleight, that many or us were able to do it before we left the island, and some that could scarcely crack a filbert: The master, when he chuses 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.