If the Polynesian method of preparing kava as a drink is distasteful to our ideas, the favourite drinking bowl of the old Tibetans is even more so. Friar Odoric (14th century), quoted by Yule, describes how the Tibetan youth “takes his father’s head and straightway cooks and eats it, and of the skull he makes a goblet from which he and all his family always drink devoutly to the memory of the deceased father.” This recalls Livy’s account of the Boii in Upper Italy, who made a drinking vessel of the head of the Roman consul Postumus. Among the Tibetans skulls are still used, but generally for libations only; for this purpose great care is exercised in the selection of the skull, and the “points” of a good skull are well understood by the Lamas.
(C. H. Rd.)
[1] The verb “to drink” is Common Teut.; cf. Ger. trinken, &c.
[4] For two illustrations see [Plate], Plate II.
DRIPSTONE, in architecture, a projecting moulding weathered on the upper surface and throated underneath so as to form a drip. The term is more correctly applied to a string course. When carried round an arch its more correct description would be a hood (q.v.). When employed inside a building it serves a decorative purpose only.