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[Page 412]

Manners & Customs of S. Sea Islands

with grass the whole is coverd with leaves & heavy stones laid upon them here it undergoes a second fermentation & becomes sourish in which condition it will keep as they told me many months Custom has I suppose made this agreable to their palates tho we dislikd it extreemly we seldom saw them make a meal without some it in some shape or other

As the whole making of this Mahai as they call it depends upon fermentation I suppose it does not always succeed it is done at least always by the old women who make a kind of superstitious mystery of it no one except the people employd by them is allowd to come even into that part of the house where it is I myself spoild a large heap of it only by inadvertenly touching some leaves that lay upon it as I walkd by the outside of the house where it was The old directress of it told me that from that from that circumstance it most certainly would fail & immediately pulld it down before my face who did less regret the mischeif I had done as it gave me an opportunity of seing, the preparation which perhaps I should not otherwise have been allowd to do

 

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