Part 20 - Tikopia Island

The natives of the Reef Island chew betel and do not drink kava. But in the Santa Cruz group and in the Vanikolo Island, to the south-east, we find that, although betel-chewing is in vogue, kava is drunk on ceremonial occasions. The same conditions are found in Tikopia and Cherry Island.

East of this, kava-drinking exists alone and forms the chief feature of the whole of Polynesia. As to the different methods of making kava, and the significance this has on the movement of the cult, readers should study chapter xxvi of Rivers’ work.^[1] It follows, he argues, from the distribution of kava and betel that the kava-people settled in Southern Melanesia, Fiji and Polynesia, while the betel-people did not extend in their south-easterly movement beyond the Solomon and Santa Cruz islands.

As Tikopia is the most easterly point where betel-chewing occurs, we will conclude with a few details given by Rivers in Melanesian Society (vol. i, pp. 333, 322, 316, 314).

Tikopia is a tiny volcanic island situated in lat. 12° 17' S., and long. 168° 58' E. The inhabitants are very fond of betel, which enters largely into the more important of their ceremonies. Both the areca-nut (kaura) and the betel leaf (pita) must be very plentiful. The lime, called kapia, is kept in simple undecorated gourds, and the elderly chief of the Taumako, whom Rivers saw on his visit, prepared his betel mixture in a cylindrical vessel with a spatula, exactly in the same way as it is done by elderly men in the Solomon Islands.

It seemed quite clear to Rivers that the kava, which is used so extensively in ceremonial, was never drunk.

The Tikopians become possessed by the atua or ghosts of their ancestors, and when in such a state (recognized by a sort of ague, staring eyes and shouting) are asked questions by men of equal rank. A man who asks a question chews betel, and taking some of the chewed mass from his mouth he holds it out to the possessed man, saying, “Eat,” and it is eaten by the possessed man, who is then ready to answer his questioner.

Offerings of kava and food are made to the dead, and with the food some areca-nut, without either betel leaf or lime, is given. At the death of a chief all the relatives abstain from betel for about two months.^[2]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Melanesian Society, vol. ii, pp. 243-257.

[2]:

For further references to betel-chewing in Papua see Cayley-Webster, Through New Guinea and the Cannibal Countries, London, 1898, p. 27; George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, London, 1910, p. 407; Chignell, An Outpost in Papua, London, 1911, pp. 17, 124, 214, 238; and F. Coombe, Islands of Enchantment, London, 1911, pp. 137, 183, 184, 190, 203, 210, etc.