egyptian beer and brandy.—mexican pulque.—plant-worship.—union with the godhead by alcohol.—soma.—the cow-religion.—caxiri.—murwa beer.—bacchic rites.—spiritual exaltation by wine.
one of the strongest desires of human nature is the passion for some kind or another of alcoholic stimulants. intoxicating liquors are made by savages in primeval forests, and travellers in all parts of the world have found the natives conversant with the art of preparing some sort of stimulating liquor in the shape of beer, wine, or spirit. the ancient egyptians had their beer and brandy, the mexicans their aloe beer or pulque. probably the art of preparing fermented drinks was in each nation discovered by accident. berries soaked in water, set aside and forgotten, saccharine roots steeped in water and juices preserved for future use, have probably taught primitive man everywhere to manufacture stimulating beverages. the influence of alcoholic drinks on the development of the human mind must have been very great. if primitive man has learned so much from his dreams, what has he not learned from the exaltation produced by medicinal plants and alcoholic infusions? if the savage conceives the leaves of a tree waving in the breeze to be influenced by a spirit, it is certain that a medicinal plant or a fermented liquor would be believed to be possessed by a beneficent or evil principle or being. a poison would be possessed by a demon, a healing plant by a good spirit, a stimulating liquor by a god. plant-worship would on these principles be found amongst the earliest religious practices of mankind, and so we find it, although not to the extent we might have expected.
some savage peoples worship plants and make offerings to the spirits which dwell in certain trees. it would seem that it is not the plant or tree itself which is thus venerated, but the ghost which makes it its dwelling. in classic times “the ivy was sacred to osiris and bacchus, the pine to neptune, herb mercury to hermes, black hellebore to melampus, centaury to chiron, the laurel to aloeus, the hyacinth to ajax, the squill to epimenes,” etc.100
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herbert spencer thinks that plant-worship arose from the connection between plants and the intoxication which they produce. it is very remarkable that almost all peoples of whom we have any knowledge produce from the maceration of various vegetable substances some kind of intoxicating liquor, beer, wine, or spirit. as the excitement produced by fainting, fever, hysteria, or insanity is ascribed amongst savages and half-civilized peoples to a possessing spirit, so also is any exaltation of the mind, by whatever means produced, attributed to a similar cause. supernatural beings they consider may be swallowed in food or drink, especially the latter.101
vambery speaks of opium-eaters who intoxicated themselves with the drug; that they might be nearer the beings they loved so well. the mandingoes think that intoxication brings them into relation with the godhead. a papuan islander hearing about the christian god said, “then this god is certainly in your arrack, for i never feel happier than when i have drunk plenty of it.”102
any one who reads the sacred books of the east for the first time, especially the vedic hymns, will be puzzled to say whether the soma, which is referred to so often, is a deity or something to drink. if we turn up the word in the index volume of the encyclop?dia britannica, we are astonished to find such an entry as this: “soma, a drink, in brahminical ritual, iv. 205; as a deity, iv. 205; vii. 249.” the soma, speaking scientifically, is an intoxicating liquor prepared from the juice of a kind of milk-weed, asclepias acida, sometimes called the moon-plant. in the rig-veda and the zend avesta (where it is called haoma) it appears as a mighty god endowed with the most wonderful exhilarating properties. herbert spencer, in the chapter of the sociology entitled “plant-worship,” gives some of the expressions used in the rig-veda concerning this fermented soma-juice.
“this [soma] when drunk, stimulates my speech [or hymn]; this called forth the ardent thought.” (r.v. vi. 47, 3.)
“the ruddy soma, generating hymns, with the powers of a poet.” (r.v. ix. 25, 5.)
“we have drunk the soma, we have become immortal, we have entered into light, we have known the gods,” etc. (r.v. viii. 48, 3.)
“the former [priests] having strewed the sacred grass, offered up a hymn to thee, o soma, for great strength and food.” (r.v. lx. 110, 7.)
“for through thee, o pure soma, our wise forefathers of old performed their sacred rites.” (r.v. ix. 96, 11.)
“soma—do thou enter into us,” etc.
dr. muir calls soma48 “the indian dionysus.”
in peru tobacco “has been called the sacred herb.”
markham says, “the peruvians still look upon coca with feelings of superstitious veneration.” in the time of the incas it was sacrificed to the sun. in north mexico, bancroft says that some of the natives “have a great veneration for the hidden virtues of poisonous plants, and believe that if they crush or destroy one, some harm will happen to them.” “and at the present time,” says mr. spencer, “in the philippine islands, the ignatius bean, which contains strychnia and is used as a medicine, is worn as an amulet and held capable of miracles.” the babylonians seem to have held the palm-tree as sacred, doubtless because fermented palm-juice makes an intoxicating drink.
the palal, the supreme pontiff of the cow-religion of the toda people of the neilgherries, is initiated with incantations, and the smearing of his body with the juice of a sacred shrub called the tude.103
he also drinks some of the extract mixed with water. he is purified by soaking himself with the juice of this plant, and in a week has become a god; he is the supreme being of the todas. this transmutation is suggestive of the sacred soma.104
the aborigines of the amazon make an intoxicating drink from wild fruits, which they use at their dances and festivals.105 the people on the rio negro use a liquor called “xirac” for the same purpose. the brazilian indians have their “caxiri,” which is the same thing; it is a beer made from mandiocca cakes. this mandiocca is chewed by the old women, spat into a pan, and soaked in water till it ferments. the marghi people of north africa have an intoxicating liquor called “komil,” made of guinea-corn, which barth said tastes like bad beer, and is very confusing to the brain.106
the apaches make an intoxicating liquor from cactus juice, or with boiled and fermented corn. their drunkenness is a preparation for religious acts.107
the kolarians of bengal believe that the flowers of the maowah tree (bassia latifolia) will cure almost every kind of sickness. “not a cot,” says reclus,108 “but distils a heady liquor from the petals; not a khond man who does not get royally drunk.”
the people of the nepal himalayas make a beer from half-fermented millet, which they call murwa; it is weak, but very refreshing. hooker says the millet-seed is moistened, and ferments for two days; it is then put into a vessel of wicker-work, lined with india-rubber gum to make49 it water tight; and boiling water is poured in it with a ladle of gourd, from a cauldron that stands all day over the fire. the fluid, when fresh, tasted like negus.109
the fermented juice of the cocoa-nut palm makes an intoxicating toddy, of which some birds in the forests round bombay are as fond as are the natives themselves.110
the natives of tahiti made an intoxicating drink by chewing the fresh root of the “ava,” a plant of the pepper tribe (piper methysticum), long before europeans taught them to ferment the fruits of the country about the year 1796. the chewed root was rinsed in water, and by fermentation a drowsy form of intoxicating liquor was produced of which the natives were extremely fond. they now prefer gin and brandy. the effects of ava or kava intoxication are said to be somewhat similar to those of opium. the nukahivans drink kava as a remedy for phthisis; it would seem to be of real value in bronchitis, as a chemical examination of the root shows it to contain an oleo-resin probably somewhat akin to balsam of peru or tolu. it is an ally of the matico, and in its nature and operation closely resembles cubeb and copaiba, which are used to produce a constriction of the capillary vessels.
cascarilla bark and other barks of the various species of croton, of the bahama and west india islands, have valuable stimulant properties universally recognised in modern medicine. they are used in the treatment of dyspepsia and as a mild tonic.
the carib races were fully conversant with the valuable properties of these drugs; the native priests or doctors used the dried plants for fumigations and in religious ceremonies; and curiously enough at the present day cascarilla bark is one of the ingredients of incense. an infusion of the leaves was used internally in carib medicine, and the dried bark was mixed with tobacco and smoked, as is often done in civilized lands.
anacreontic poetry and bacchic rites were merely intellectual developments of sentiments which the savage feels and expresses in a coarse animal way, just as the alderman’s sense of gratification and perfect contentment after a civic banquet is not altogether different in kind from that felt by a replete quadruped.
alcoholic intoxication must have produced in primitive man visions far surpassing those of his pleasantest dreams, and his brain must have been filled with images, sometimes pleasant, sometimes horrible, of a more pronounced character than those which visited him in sleep. at such times would come some of the visitants from the world of imagination to the mind of primitive man which have had the most50 important influence on his intellectual development. the drinking customs of our working classes of the present day are in a great degree prompted by the longing which man in every condition has to escape for a while from the squalid, material surroundings of daily life into the ideal world of intellectual pleasures, however low these may often be. “a national love for strong drink,” says a competent authority,111 “is a characteristic of the nobler and more energetic populations of the world; it accompanies public and private enterprise, constancy of purpose, liberality of thought, and aptitude for war.” tea, haschish, hops, alcohol, and tobacco stimulate in small doses and narcotise in larger; there have been cases known of tea intoxication.112
the desire of escaping from self into an ideal world, a world of novelty and pleasures unimaginable, had much to do with the festivals in greece in honour of dionysus; it was in some places considered a crime to remain sober at the dionysia; to be intoxicated on such occasions was to show one’s gratitude for the gift of wine.
