
Vessel (Bedamuni: ofoto). A shallow vessel for the drinking of adini (Piper domesticum, the same as Polynesian kava). The bowl is made from fasera palm leaf sheet and split rattan. The adini may be drunk at special parties or during curing ceremonies.
This example was made by Totaba.
A shallow vessel for the drinking of adini (Piper domesticum, the same as Polynesian kava). The adini may be drunk at special parties or during curing ceremonies. In the latter, after the cause of the sickness has been established during a night-time séance, a spirit-medium determines the best way of curing the affliction. In some cases foreign bodies have to be removed from the sick person by lobo légéére (literally ‘the laying of the hand’). The medium shows a shallow basin like this one filled with adini drink to the sick person. The adini is drunk and stones, which were supposedly in the sick person’s body, are spat out on a palm leaf and given to the newly-cured invalid.