CH. xm USEFUL PLANTS IN MINAHASSA 329 



to by nearly every traveller in the East Indies ; and 

 many of its uses must be familiar to everyone. It has 

 ■with great justice been said that * the bamboo is one 

 of the most wonderful and most beautiful productions 

 of the tropics, and one of Nature's most valuable gifts to 

 uncivihsed man ' (83). 



Next to the bamboo the most useful plant hi Celebes 

 is the sagoweer palm {Arenga sacchatiferiun). It extends all 

 over the archipelago, from Sumatra in the west to Cochin 

 China and the Philippines in the east. In Minahassa it is 

 very common in the valleys and forests. Its sap provides 

 the famous sagoweer wine, the drink of the gods in 

 the heavenly village Kasendukan — a clear, sweet, and 

 pleasant beverage when fresh, but bitter and intoxicating 

 when it has been allowed to ferment. The sap is procured 

 in the following way : — When the palm is four or five years 

 old, spicate inflorescences appear among the young leaves. 

 A Httle while afterwards a soft pad of vegetable tissue 

 filled with sap is formed in the neighbourhood of the older 

 inflorescences. This pad is called the majang. It is 

 probably a young bud, which if allowed to develop further 

 would form another inflorescence. "\Mien the blossoms fall 

 from the tree, it is known that the majang is ready to be 

 operated upon, and the native who finds the tree leans a 

 bamboo, with the internodal septa knocked out, against it 

 as a sign of ownership. The majang is first struck several 

 times with a fiat wooden club, and forcibly manipulated 

 with the hand, so as to give the sap free passage in the 

 pulpy mass. The tree is then left for three or four days 

 to allow the sap to accumulate. A piece of the majang is 

 next cut off, and if the native sees that it is ready, the sap 

 is allowed to drip into a long bamboo suspended to it. 

 This part of the work is called makehet. 



The original discovery of this process of wine-making 



