 Hawaiian Islands ´Awa Strainer (?), late 18th – early 19th century
shaped and decorated (stained) gourd
Purchase, 1932 (3577) Oral history tradition maintains that the kind of patterning on this object came from the
island of Ni´ihau. The shape is an unusual one among extant/surviving Hawaiian
decorated gourds. Made from a solid section of a large gourd that was cut down at
both ends, the shape is open on top and bottom with an open pass-through in the neck
or waist. A possible use could have been as a strainer for making the fermented drink
´awa, made from the mashed roots of the kava plant. The practice of making and
drinking ´awa declined dramatically in the early 19th century with the availability of
Western alcohol. |