Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/368

60 unchangeable. The Satapatha Brahmana (ii. 2. 2), says: "There are two kinds of gods: the gods, of course, are gods; then they who are the Brahmans they are the human gods." Even inanimate objects can become divine when used in ceremonial. The soma beverage itself was looked upon as a god; what more natural than that those who partook of his substance should partake also of his divinity.

The Kava ceremonial of the South Seas may help us to understand the point of view of the Vedic Aryans. Kava was prepared in much the same fashion as soma, and, in Fiji at least, its preparation was accompanied by hymns. That may not be enough to prove a common origin for both rituals, but it is enough to suggest one, to encourage us to assume one. Anyhow, whether they are related or not, the analogy of one may help us to understand the other. In Fiji at the present day kava is drunk freely, like wine amongst us; but it was not always so; it is asserted that of old only the chiefs drank of it. Now the chiefs, as I have shown elsewhere, were divine. Therefore it may be said that the gods drank kava. Furthermore, kava is the central point of the installation of the chief, so much so that a new chief not yet installed was said "not yet to have drunk"; until he had drunk he did not assume the title, which sometimes was the same as the god's. Hence we may infer that by drinking kava a chief became a god. This inference is confirmed by the use of kava in the spiritualistic cult that has recently arisen. Four of us took part in the initiation once: the kava was prepared and prayed over, then we drank, and then we became possessed by spirits of that kind known as "water-sprites"; after this ritual the medium said I must have a shrine for my own familiar spirit, Lindinaasease by name, who had thus entered me; so he anointed a stick of mine with kava, so that it became the abode of the spirit, who dwells there