Fiji
Joe Henrich
Emory University, Atlanta
FIJIANS are possibly the friendliest people in the world. They love to celebrate and are never short of an excuse to throw a feast. Sometimes an entire village of perhaps 200 people will get together. At other times it’s a single clan. There is always plenty of laughing, joking and teasing as they sit cross-legged around their long woven palm mats, eating boiled yams, taro, cassava and freshly caught fish. But something unexpected happens to these spirited, sociable people when they start to drink.
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A couple of years ago I began working on Yasawa Island in the north-west of the Fijian archipelago. To celebrate my arrival, the villagers of Teci organised a feast. We ate outdoors, women and children at one end of the mat, men at the other, seated according to rank. The huge bowls of steaming food and constant rejoinder to kani vakalevu (“eat heartily!”) inspired me, as it would any anthropologist, to show my gratitude and respect for local custom by stuffing myself. My hosts seemed impressed – my eating ability compared favourably with that of other foreigners they had met. But would I acquit myself so well when the drinking began?
“High tide or low tide?” asked a man with a broad Fijian smile, sitting in front of the large wooden drinking bowl. Everyone paused to hear my answer. “Sinai,” I said. High tide – a full cup. They laughed at my use of Fijian and my enthusiasm for kava. Across the South Pacific, this is the intoxicant of choice, a light brown fluid brewed from an indigenous narcotic root, mashed up and mixed with water. Kava tastes silty and slightly bitter, and it numbs your tongue and makes the back of your throat tingle.
The drinking session started out boisterously enough with a stream of pranks and sexually tinged jokes. I found I could keep pace with the most serious kava enthusiasts, helped by the fact that aficionados become more sensitive to the drink’s effects. And my insistence on a full cup every time did wonders for my reputation in this status-conscious society.
After several rounds and several hours, however, I noticed something interesting. While everyone around me was falling into a stupor, I was becoming increasingly wide awake and full of energy. The narcotic was obviously not having the usual effect on me. But as a professional, I managed to remain within the bounds of decorum, and so this particular kava party reached its climax in the usual way, with everyone – including me – sitting around in quiet contemplation.
Tanzania
Camilla Power
University of East London
BIG GAME hunting is unpredictable, so it is hard for hunter-gatherers to pinpoint special times of feasting. A basic rule of these societies, however, is that all food should be shared. So when the Hadza of north-eastern Tanzania catch game, they ritually divide it, ensuring that each fire in the camp receives some meat. But the Hadza also have another law reserving certain cuts of large game animals for initiated men only. They believe that any woman or child eating this epeme meat would fall ill.
As I am particularly interested in the role of women in Hadza culture, for me the most fascinating celebration is maitohko, the female initiation, which takes the form of a ritual sexual rebellion. Young Hadza maidens do not actually infringe the law and eat the forbidden meat, but they act out roles from Hadza myth – stories that tell of a time when women were in charge and had control of epeme meat.
Following their initiation into “women’s secrets”, the pubescent girls emerge from the bush splendidly decked out with beads on their heads, arms and breasts, their legs wound with black and white strings to make them look like zebras, and their skin oiled and shiny. They are armed and dangerous, carrying ceremonial carved sticks and thin, flexible branches for whipping. They chase the boys and young hunters all over the camp and into the surrounding bush. If they corner them they give them a good beating. The boys are not allowed to hit back: they can only parry blows and try to steal the sticks.
The whole thing lasts several days – fuelled by a feast, which ideally consists of meat, honey and the most delicious local berries, called ٲڲ’e. Girls run riot even before light, chasing the barefooted boys into the thorny bush and carrying on indefatigably all day. Even older women join in from time to time, though mainly they are happy to enjoy the sport from the shade, calling out the shrill encouragement, “Iriririri!”
The climax of festivities centres on a huge pot of food. In the myth, this held the epeme meat and was guarded by an older woman – a hunter of ambiguous sexuality – who controlled its distribution. When I saw the ritual, the pot contained only a type of porridge, but the antics surrounding it echoed the old story. An older woman tended the pot, while the girls, wielding their sticks, defended the food from attack by the boys. This ritual drama is riotous fun for the Hadza youth, but only older people really know about the myth behind it – a story reflecting the perpetual gender contest that lies at the heart of Hadza society.
Mongolia
Francisco Gil-White
University of Pennsylvania
KAZAKHS like to tease, but at first I didn’t know that. It was the second day of a two-day Kazakh toi – a celebration involving eating, wrestling, horse racing and praying – and I was finding it hard to get into the party spirit. I had already been subjected to a series of indignities, berated for not having developed the photos I’d taken just the day before, and laughed at for unknowingly breaching drinking etiquette. Now I was sitting on the floor of a big tent sharing lunch with a group of men who were making fun of me. These Kazakhs seemed to have no respect.
During the first course, which consisted of a large pot of meat, my companions challenged me to eat the brains from a boiled sheep’s head. I ate them. Next there was soup. Makhmed, who was sitting on my left, pointed to a big piece of fat in his bowl, very similar to the one in mine, and imperiously explained, “You have to finish it all. You may not leave anything.” There was general laughter and chuckles. I wasn’t sure what the joke was. Surely they didn’t think a man who had just eaten brains would find a lump of fat too disgusting to swallow? Whatever their game, this was too much, and my temper snapped. “Tell you what,” I said, turning to Makhmed. “I am going to learn from you. I will watch what you do, and that is exactly what I will do too.”
All eyes were on Makhmed: the tables were turned and he was now on the spot. “Hah! Very well,” he said. “But you have to do everything I do!” And he slurped back his soup, shovelling the big piece of fat into his mouth as he did so. Theatrically, I copied him. Then Makhmed made a big show of asking for a refill, communicating to everybody that he would drink soup until I cried uncle. So that’s the big challenge, I thought incredulously. We are going to sip broth like real men.
I asked for a second bowl and emptied it shortly after he had emptied his. “Now we will see,” he said dramatically, and motioned for a third. I called for the same and drank it, but Makhmed was slowing down and we finished simultaneously. The third bowl had apparently been too much for this large, macho Kazakh. “All right, that’s it!” he groaned. We were done already! I could hardly believe it.
By now, around 40 diners from other groups around the tent had congregated to watch, and they obviously wanted more. So, despite the fact that I had refused another bowl (because I was Makhmed’s student), the server refilled mine. I turned to Makhmed, whom I was now beginning to pity, but just a little, and delivered the coup de grâce by asking for his permission to drink. Defeated, he granted it. I downed the fourth bowl to laughter and applause. After that everybody became my friend. And, even now, nobody enjoys retelling this story more than Makhmed.
Papua new guinea
David Tracer
University of Colorado
COMPETITION is usually a selfish instinct. But in many parts of Papua New Guinea it takes quite a different form. Here, individuals and entire villages vie to see who can give the most lavish gifts and throw the most sumptuous feasts. Through their generosity people compete to show how sincere they are in their desire to form lasting bonds and alliances. And to the victors go not the spoils, but status, prestige and, crucially, the promise of aid in future times of need.
For the Au people, with whom I have worked for nearly 20 years, marriage feasts are among the most overt instances of conspicuous giving. The village into which a woman is to marry pays a “bride price” for her, usually in instalments over several months to a year. During this time she alternates between living with her own family and with that of her future husband.
Once payment is complete, or nearly so, she moves to his village, accompanied by a mountain of gifts – not for the newlyweds or for the bride’s in-laws, but for everyone in the village where she will now live. The gifts help cement bonds between villages. But if they are judged too paltry they can have the opposite effect, leading to antagonism and warfare. No wonder great care is taken to give as much as possible.
In the spring of 1989, as the villagers of Witupin prepared to send a young woman called Aupa off to her new husband’s village, Witneik, the call went out for gifts for the “sending ceremony” and feast. Before long, a pile had begun to build up in the centre of the village. There were lengths of bamboo filled with starch harvested from sago palms, bunches of betel nut, sweet potatoes, taro roots, coconuts and bundles of leaves to be used as plates. A village pig – a symbol of status and so not something to be expended on a whim – was shot and put near the heap. The villagers surveyed the gift. No, it still wasn’t quite enough. A collection was taken and the proceeds used to buy a 20-kilogram bale of rice and a carton of tinned mackerel from the nearby mission station.
The 20-minute trek from Witupin to Witneik seemed like a bizarre combination of wedding and funeral procession. Aupa led the way, followed by the rest of us – our faces smeared with white mud, a symbol of mourning for Aupa who was soon to be taken from her natal village. We cried tears of mingled joy and sorrow. On reaching Witneik we turned to leave, according to tradition. But the villagers of Witneik were so overjoyed at the size of our gift they invited us all to stay and feast with them. We gorged ourselves well into the night until our bellies were full and tight. I have shared many meals with the Au, but to this day I cannot forget the sweet taste of tropical foods cooked in coconut cream that we ate at Aupa’s wedding feast.
Bolivia
Michael Gurven, University of California, Santa Barbara
AN ALCOHOLIC beverage called shocdye, made from fermented cassava, is the vital ingredient in any Tsimane festivity. For these villagers, living in Amazonian Bolivia, all parties begin with shocdye and end, often abruptly, when the last drop is drunk.
The three-day festivities in the village of Vacatumsi began with crowds forming around the houses with the largest vats of shocdye. In Tsimane culture, there is no tradition of communal eating, but shocdye is always shared with everybody present. The thick, bubbly brew is served up in hollowed gourds. Although it is alcoholic, it is also heavy and filling and can quickly make your stomach bloat and feel like lead. Many people, myself included, consumed little else during those three days.
Tsimane are very social people but a little reserved in their daily lives – except when fuelled with shocdye. And so along with the laughs, stories, jokes and revelry, comes the build-up and release of social tension. That first night was no exception. A fight broke out between a husband and wife over a suspected infidelity; one woman berated her mother-in-law; and another wept over the recent death of her husband. And there were the usual group discussions of problems past and current.
By late evening, inhibitions had completely faded, and encouraged by my eager prodding, people began to sing – not the religious songs imported by missionaries over the past 20 years, but the old songs that many people claim to have forgotten. These are always sung solo and without instrumentation, with all ears attentive. Many describe interactions with commonly hunted animals such as tapirs, collared peccaries and howler monkeys. However, the most moving and melancholy songs are more personal.
Lorenzo’s song told of how he had searched the Tsimane villages up and down the river to find a wife. Romelia sang about her father dying and about leaving her home village to marry far away. I tried to match the sentiment and intensity with some Hank Williams Sr and Woody Guthrie, but only my rendition of La Bamba got repeat requests.
That night I made just three house visits – crowds would block each attempt to depart. At the last house Emilio had a battery-powered radio cassette player, so we danced to the same tape of obnoxious cumbia music played over and over again until exhaustion set in.
Later, as I lay sleepily, I recalled the words of a local man called Maximino. No matter how many missionaries come, he said, they will never limit Tsimane parties or quench our thirst for shocdye. I hoped he was right, because parties are not just an excuse for overindulgence and boisterous fun. They also help to unify communities by re-committing their members to each other through intense, shared experiences.
