Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — Eating Among the Kanakas. [ARTICLE]

Eating Among the Kanakas.

The manner of eating among the Kanakas is almost shocking to our ideas of usage and propriety. Around the citiea and villages, and where they can got it, they will eat meat and bread, but their staple food is poi and' raw fish. The poi is made of the taro root, which grows like a turnip with a calla-lily top, and in a muddy patch, and is pounded up fine and put into a large calabash to ferment. It lias a rootish taste, and is somewhat sour. The datives mix it with water, and then awbole family will squat around the calabashin the center of the room. Before eating they sometimes rinse ■ the fingers with water. The way I saw a woman do this one morning was by taking a mouthful of water out of a small calabash, then squirting it out of her mouth over her fingers; then she sat dswn, and, plunging her fingers into the poi, stirred it around and thrust into her mouth what clung to the fingers. And thus they each and all eat poi with the first two fingers, men, women and children sitting around and eating from the same calabash. In like manner they eat the raw fish with their fingers from the eame dish. They livo in this manna: all over the islands. Few of their huts are divided into apartments, and they generally sleep promtscuously. —00a Francueo CkronitU. A Boston man has just invented • stocking-darner.