(as I hope) to the present day. And here we have another point of resemblance between kava and ambrosia, for ambrosia was also used as an ointment. Homer describes how Hera "with ambrosia first from her desirable body cleansed all stains."[1] It does indeed look as if kava were after all but a substitute for soma, or both substitutes for the same original substance; for substitutes were known even in those days; the modern soma, for instance, is not the same as the ancient one, but a substitute. However that may be, whether the Vedic or the Fijian ritual have their roots in the same original ritual or not, we are, I think, justified by the analogy in concluding that the gods of the forefathers of the Greeks and of the Indo-Aryans incarnate in kings and priests, used to partake of a beverage called immortal, because it renewed their immortality. Hesiod and the poets were right in saying that the gods drank ambrosia, because they did.
I have not yet done, however, with this myth: I should like to trace a recent development of it. Mr. Walter Leaf in his note on Iliad 2. 19 argues that as ambrosia always means fragrant, in Homer, it may be derived from the Semitic amara, which means ambergris. It will seem strange to treat a scholar's gloss as a continuation of myth building; we are so accustomed to assume that the creation of myths involves mental processes that have nothing in common with the inferences of scholar. Personally I can see no psychological difference between Mr. Leaf's suggestion and an etymological myth such as the following from Fiji.
Etymological myths are very much in fashion now in Fiji, or were so ten years ago. They are multiplied indefinitely by the adherents of neo-paganism;[2] whether
- ↑ Il. 14. 170, (
Greek characters).
- ↑ Or "the tuka heresy," as Mr. Basil Thomson calls it (The Fijians, p. 140).
