INDONESIAN ANNOTATIONS ON THE VOCABULARY. Pi 
The nature of the terms for kava in the New Hebrides and Fiji, and the 
practice of grating or pounding the roots in those islands in place of the chew- 
ing of Polynesia, suggests that the use of kava may have originated among 
the aborigines of Melanesia and have been taken from them by the Poly- 
nesians instead of the movement having been in the contrary direction, as 
is usually supposed. 
The use of kava is, however, so characteristic and widespread a feature of 
Polynesian culture, and it is so unlikely that it can have been adopted from 
the aboriginal Melanesians, that we seem driven either to assume its inde- 
pendent origin in Melanesia and Polynesia or to look elsewhere for the true 
explanation of its common presence in these two parts of Oceania. 
There are certain facts connected with the use of kava in Melanesia which 
point to an explanation in harmony with the scheme of immigrant influence 
in Melanesia which has been formulated in the last two chapters. A striking 
feature of the use of kava in Melanesia is its close connection with the Sukwe 
of the Banks Islands and with the Nanga of Fiji. It was in the most sacred 
division of the manga, called the nanga tambutambu or sacred compartment, 
that the kava bowl stood. 
Even in the southern New Hebrides, where, so far as we know, the secret 
organizations do not occur, the use of kava is definitely connected with the 
houses where the men eat and sleep. Further, a universal feature of Melane- 
sian procedure is the rigorous exclusion of women from all participation in 
its use, and this exclusion is probably to be associated with the institution 
of the men’s house and the secret organizations. ‘This at once suggests 
that the use of kava belongs to the immigrants to whom I have ascribed the 
origin of these organizations, and the force of this suggestion is greatly 
strengthened when we find that kava is closely connected with the ghosts 
of the dead, whose cult has also been ascribed to these immigrants. It is 
clear that, when offerings of kava are made with prayer, both offering and 
prayer are directed to the ghosts of the dead and not to the vw or spirits 
which have never been men. If kava thus belongs to the culture of the 
immigrants it is easy to understand why its use was at one time limited to 
the higher ranks of the Sukwe and why, even now in the Banks Islands, 
kava should only be made by one of Tavatsukwe or higher rank, while only 
those of this rank should drink in the gamal. I have suggested that this 
rank represents the dividing line between the original members and those 
who were introduced later; on this supposition the limitation to people of 
the Tavatsukwe rank and above becomes perfectly natural. 
Two striking differences between the Melanesian and Polynesian methods 
of using kava are its more definitely religious character in the former, and 
its more strict limitation to men; and it is noteworthy that in both of these 
respects the practice of Tikopia resembles that of Melanesia. In Tikopia 
kava is only used in religious ceremonial connected with a cult of dead ances- 
tors, from which women are excluded, so that to the parallels considered in 
the last chapter we have now to add this close resemblance between the 
practice of Tikopia and that of the secret organizations of Melanesia. It 
has been argued that Tikopia represents an early stage of Polynesian culture, 
and the resemblance between Tikopia and the secret organizations of Melan- 
esia in the mode of using kava thus strengthens the hypothesis that the 
ancestors of the Polynesians and the immigrants who founded the secret 
organizations were one and the same people. 
If now we turn to the distribution of the custom of chewing betel mixture, 
1. €., a mixture of areca nut, betel leaf, and lime, we find that the practice is 
limited to the northwestern part of the area with which I deal, but that this 
