﻿hum, n| KAVA DRINKING BY PAPUANS AND POLYNESIANS 91 



vinous beverages is a mere matter of the exposure of a fermentable 

 juice to the air, which contains ferment spores usually in profusion. 

 The use of such beverages is of great antiquity and their value for 

 giving a novel sensation and a mental stimulus must have been early 

 appreciated. 



A line of argument might be followed to prove that the human 

 mind has been spurred to greater intellectual activity since the advent 

 of alcoholic beverages, but according to Peschel, conclusions of this 

 sort are specious and have led Buckle astray into a whole series of 

 attractive errors. 



Some of the ruder tribes have no vinous drinks. The Patagonians 

 are said to have no fermented drink, hut they appreciate rum. They 

 have a cooling drink made of the juice of barberries mixed with 

 water, hut it is drunk in its natural state. < >n the other hand, the 

 Australians of New South Wales made mead, that was slightly in- 

 toxicating-, from the honey of the wild bee. 1 



The Australians of Victoria " used compound liquors perhaps after 

 a slight fermentation to some extent intoxicating — from various 

 flowers, from honey, from gums, and from a kind of manna. The 

 liquor was prepared in the large wooden bowls tarnuk [compare 

 Samoan tanoa] which were to be seen at every encampment. In the 

 flowers of a dwarf species of Banksia (B. ornata) there is a good 

 deal of honey ; and this was got out of the flowers by immersing them 

 in water. The water thus sweetened was greedily swallowed by 

 the natives. This drink was named beal by the natives of the west 

 of Victoria and was much esteemed. "- 



The fact that nearly all aboriginal tribes are addicted to stimulants 

 and narcotics in no less degree than are civilized races, is worthy of 

 careful consideration. The relation of drinks and drugs to cere- 

 monies and ordeals has already been studied by the late Captain 

 J. G. Bourke, U. S. A., with valuable results to science. 



The entire question of drinking is a very broad and interesting 

 study, extending in its range from the first use of water to the last 

 mighty aqueduct that brings a river to millions of lips, and including 

 likewise the thousand and one beverages as well as the appliances 

 for distributing and serving them. The subject has also its intel- 

 lectual surroundings in folklore and custom. 



The corruption of aborigines through intoxicants introduced by 

 traders is not as original as may seem at first sight, for nearly every 

 tribe alreadv had similar agents differing only in degree of strength. 



'T. A. Braim, Hist, of New South Wales, 1846. vol. u, p. 24S. 

 2 J. B. Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 201. 



