Our Illustrations.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 3, 15 July 1908, Page 2

Our Illustrations.

SAMOAN GIRLS MAKING KAVA. Kava is prepared from the aromatic and pungent root of a tree belonging to the pepper family, and the dusky epicure thinks as highly of a good brew’ as a bon viveur does of the finest vintage that ever left France. “Soapy water” is the comment that invariably rises to the lips of the stranger who tastes this concoction for the first time, but even he gets to like it after a while. In the old days kava was prepared by the youngest and prettiest girls of the village, who ehewed the root, “the result” being mixed with water in a big wooden bowl, and then strained through cocoa-nut fibre. The brewing and subsequent drinking were attended by an interminable amount of etiquette and ceremonial, which has just about the antithises of the custom of the gentleman in the East End of Ixmdon. who picks up his “pot” and settles it with no more than a curt “Cheer, O!” to his pal. The native takes life easy, and nothing delights him more than a little ceremony and show—the more trivial the occasion the better—and he lavishes all his ingenuity on the drinking of his favourite beverage. Now adays you will see them grinding it up in a coffee mill, and mixing it in any old thing handy in place of the time worn bowls, which in the course of many brewings acquired a beautiful pink tint on the inside, resembling fine-enamel. This is the hall-mark of a bowl of value. The effect of kava is peculiar. You may be as clear in the head as an Arbitration Court Judge, but when you get up to take leave of your hospitable host, you discover to your dismay that you are undeniably intoxicated as to your nether limbs, and if you persist in leaving your moorings you describe parabolic curves, rhomboids, and scalene triangles, which would have puzzled Euclid to demonstrate, let alone prove. If the coeoa-nut cup has passed freely the best plan is to simply flit and think, and postpone all engagements requirng a peripatetic effort, ,