BEVERAGES
Honey solution—Pandanus cider—Human blood.
Although, naturally, the principal and practically only drink of
the various tribes is water, there are one or two special beverages
deserving of notice. In central Australia, the Aluridja, Arunndta, and
Wongapitcha collect many handfuls of Eremophila flowers, commonly called
honeysuckle by the local white settlers, in their bark food-carriers, on
to which they pour a quantity of water. The flowers are stirred around
for a while with a stick and then skimmed off with a piece of bark or
by hand. The drink is ready for consumption immediately after; it has
a slightly sweetish taste, and is relished by young and old. Another
source of nectar is the beautiful red flower of _Brachysema Chambersii_,
which grows in abundance in the sandhills both north and south of the
MacDonnell Ranges and is known by the Arunndta as “_aumba_.”
On the north coast of Australia, the wild-bee honey is upon occasions
dissolved in water and drunk. This is nearly always done when the comb,
obtained in the first place, is mixed with sand and grit, or when the
honey is absorbed in the fibres of the collecting implement described
above (page 146).
The Roper River tribes pick the large fruits of the corkscrew palm or
pandanus, which are not unlike pineapples in appearance, but very hard
and stringy, and, after bashing them between heavy stones, they keep
them immersed in water for some time before they drink the solution.
The water absorbs the sweetly stringent juice and produces a refreshing
toddy. It being necessary to keep the fruit in water for some time to
extract as much of the palatable ingredient as possible (it may be, for
that matter, that the natives leave the solution behind in a cooleman,
while they go on a hunting tour, returning for it in the course of some
days’ time), opportunity is given for the solution to start fermenting;
a mild pandanus-cider is the result. It actually happens that upon great
festive occasions, when large quantities of this beverage have been
made some time beforehand, the natives imbibe more than ordinarily, and
thereby bring themselves into a condition of indubitable merriment. The
Katherine and Victoria River tribes make a similar beverage, but do not
store it for any length of time. This is the only instance I am aware
of where Australian natives, intentionally or unintentionally, make an
intoxicating drink.
When men are on a long-distance stage, as, for instance, during a
drought, when water is scarce and the sun is relentlessly fierce, they
are occasionally obliged to resort to the old tribal custom of drinking
each other’s blood to escape perishing of thirst. They open a vein in the
arm and collect the blood in a cooleman, or they allow one or more of
their companions to drink straight from the wound. In certain cases of
sickness blood is also given to the patient to drink.