And they go through the usual form of words, as
if the first cup was
actually
filled and presented to the god: thus,
before any cup is filled, the man by the side of the bowl says .
Byron
_ shavings of fibrous
bark. When the "kava is in the cup," quaighs made of the "unexpanded
leaf of the banana" are handed round to the guests, and the symposium
begins. Mariner (_ibid._, p. 205, note) records a striking feature of
the preliminary rites, a consecration or symbolic "grace before"
drinking. "When a god has no priest, as Tali-y-Toobo [the Supreme Deity
of the Tongans], no person ... presides at the head of his cava circle,
the place being left ... vacant, but which it is supposed the god
invisibly occupies....
And they go through the usual form of words, as
if the first cup was
actually
filled and presented to the god: thus,
before any cup is filled, the man by the side of the bowl says .
.. 'The
cava is in the cup:' the mataboole answers ... 'Give it to our god:' but
this is mere form, for there is no cup filled for the god." (See, too,
_The Making of Religion_, by A. Lang, 1900, p. 279.)]
[375] {601}[The gnatoo, which is a piece of tappa cloth, is worn in
different ways. "Twenty yards of fine cloth are required by a Tahitian
woman to make one dress, which is worn from the waist
downwards."--_Polynesia_, 1866, p. 45.]
[376] [_Licoo_ is the name given to the back of or unfrequented part of
any island.]
[fi]
_How beauteous are their skins, how softly all_
_The forms of Beauty wrap them like a pall_.
