CHAPTER XIV

CUSTOMS AND AMUSEMENTS

Cooking. —In ancient times, as now, the Hawaiianspracticed the well-known Polynesian method of steamingtheir food in the umu or under-gronnd oven with heatedstones. The labor of cooking and of pounding the poi ona large wooden tray with a stone pestle was performedentirely by the men. Fire was produced by friction, byrapidly rubbing a pointed stick (the ctulima ) in a groovemade in another stick (the aunaki) until the heap offine powder collected at the end of the groove took fire.The wood of the olomea or hau tree was generally pre-ferred for this purpose.

Salt was manufactured from sea-water, and also col-lected from the salt lake of Aliapaakai and elsewhere.It was much used in salting fish and pork, and season-ing their food, which does not seem to have been prac-ticed by other Polynesians .

Awa Drinking. —Neither fermented nor distilled liquorswere used by the Hawaiians, but in common with allthe Pacific islanders they drank an infusion of theroots of the awa plant, elsewhere called kara. It wasfirst chewed, after which the masticated morsels wereplaced in a wooden bowl, and water poured upon them.The infusion was strained through a mesh of ehuawa(cyperus) fibers, and was then ready for drinking. Its