SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FROM SAMOA. 99 



in it. For, one day, he and a brother were sent to prepare an oven of 

 food for their father ; the boys made up the oven and then went off to 

 enjoy themselves in surf-swimming. They stayed so long at this, that, 

 when they came to open the oven, the food was seen to be spoiled. Then 

 Tangaloa, in anger, seized a red-hot yam and threw it at Le-Fanonga j it 

 struck his body and marked it over with reddish spots, and so he became 

 the Samoan owl ! — which also has red spots. 



And now a few words as to the kava plant itself, its region and mode 

 of growth. The name has various forms in Polynesia — kava, yava, 'ava, 

 kawa, but the Fijians say yangona. By botanists it is called Piper methy- 

 sticum — ' the intoxicating pepper ' — natural order Pijperacece. It grows as 

 a shrub, at the most six feet high, and the stem about an inch in diameter ; 

 the leaves are acuminate and heart-shaped, and are either green or more 

 or less tinged with purple ; it has small and axillary spikes of flowers. 

 The extreme base of the stem, and the rhizomes or creeping stems, are 

 the parts from which the beverage is prepared ; these are used when fresh, 

 but they are also dried and stored, and yet retain their properties. The 

 plant is propagated by offshoots for cultivation. The drink has an ex- 

 hilarating and then a narcotic effect on most of the natives who use it. 

 They take it at the evening meal ; for a time they sing and show them- 

 selves happy under its influence ; they then fall asleep, and sleep, it may 

 be, for twelve hours. When they awake, their faithful spouses have pre- 

 pared some warm food for them, taro or the like ; this sends them to sleep 

 again, and thus the effects of the debauch wear off. To use it habitually 

 to excess causes a white scurf to gather on the skin, and I am told, that 

 it is sad to see the emaciated form and scabby skin of habitual and heavy 

 Jcava drinkers. In the Hervey Group, it was only the chiefs, priests and 

 tlie old wise-men, that drink of it. The use of it is now forbidden both 

 there and in Tahiti and the Society Group. To a stranger, the taste of 

 this fermented liquor is odious, resembling the flavour of soap-suds, 

 mixed with magnesia and rhubarb. 



In heathen times, in the Hervey Group, no response from the gods 

 could be obtained unless the officiating priest had first been presented 

 with a bowl of kava. Then he fell into a frenzy, and the oracle was an- 

 nounced in a most unearthly voice. With the kava, cooked taro and fish 

 were given to the priest ; without them, the necessary state of frenzy 

 would not appear. 



In the Under-world too, the kava is known, but there, according to 

 Rarotongan belief, it is the exclusive property of Miru, an inexpressibly 

 ugly hag, who cooks the ghosts in her horrid oven and eats them. To 



