st.helier wrote on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:31:43 +1200:


> "James Silverton" <
>>
>> It would be hard to believe the Maori were teetotalers but I have no
>> idea what alcoholic beverages they favored. Can you
>> enlighten me? Didn't some Polynesians have the disgusting
>> sounding method of chewing on starches, spitting it out and
>> letting the mess ferment?

> Historical sources are unequivocal that Polynesians, like most
> of the Indians of America north of Mexico, were without
> alcoholic beverages.

Poor deprived people! I wonder if the delight in warfare of the Maori,
Hawaians and North American Indians was a substitute? However, the
Aztecs who might have had alcohol, were fierce enough. It must have been
a pretty miserable society when, if you were not a high Aztec
aristocrat, you were not even allowed cocoa!


> While liquor was first brought to Polynesians by European
> voyagers in the middle and late eighteenth century, in all
> areas of Polynesia ***except New Zealand*** kava drinking was the only
> "mode of intoxication"

> NOTE: Of course, Kava is non-alcoholic - it is sedating and is
> primarily consumed to relax without disrupting mental clarity - and
> from personal experience, numbs the tongue.


--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not