SCOUT JAMBOREE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 61, 14 March 1939, Page 4

SCOUT JAMBOREE

FOR THE CENTENNIAL

COLOURFUL FIJIANS

Among the contingents of Boy Scouts which will be present at the New Zealand Centennial Jamboree will be one from Fiji, and, according to Mr. A. H. Marlow, assistant commissioner in Suva, it will form a very colourful group at the camp, which will be situated at Heretaunga. The Fijian contingent, which will comprise 50 boys under Mr. C. H. Ahrens, district commissioner in Rewa, will erect their own thatched houses, will demonstrate their traditional dances and the famous kava ceremony, and will entertain their guests with yams, taro, and Indian chupatty cakes. They will Turing with them much of their own food. The ceremonial drinking of the kava beverage will be of interest to New Zealanders. Kava is the root of the yangona plant, Piper methysticum, ground and steeped in water. The ancient method of making kava by chewing it and spitting it into, a bowl has been suppressed. The modern method is to pound it with a wooden pestle and mortar. The kava bowl is cut from a single piece of wood, usually with exquisite craftsmanship, and the whole ceremony is surrounded with a gerat deal of prescribed ritual and tradition. The kava, which if at all is only very mildly stimulating, has a slightly bitter'antiseptic taste. A thin yellow opaque liquid, it is drunk from a coconut cup.