Atiu Island - The Tumunu, Cook Islands

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ORIGINALLY tumunu was Atiu's version of the Pacific-wide habit of kava drinking. After the Europeans arrived it became an illegal beer brewing and drinking school which grew out of the prohibitions placed on alcohol last century by the missionaries. To outwit the zealots the men of Atiu would disappear into the bush and brew beer made mainly from oranges.
Nowadays they use hops, malt, yeast and sugar. There are about eight tumunu currently in Atiu. We were taken to Sam and the Boys which was run in a tiny bush hut with coconut thatched roof (kiekau). Before entering, our necks were garlanded with two leaves with stems knotted together. We sat on the verandah on upended coconut logs in a circle with the barman in the centre. Ranged in a semi-circle was, first, Sam himself, a dour thin man who smiled only with difficulty. Then came the Brewmaster, a strikingly handsome man who sat before a white plastic drum and occasionally stirred its contents with a stick. Next, the Atiuan Earthquake, a wrestler who played the tea-chest bass, and two other lugubrious characters.
The barman, who wore a headcloth in approved Los Angeles streetgang style, pulled back the lid of his plastic drum, dipped in a cup made from the pointed end of a coconut shell, and offered it to each person in turn. Everyone was expected to drink the first cup straight down and hand it back to the barman. After that, those who did not wish to drink held up a hand with palm outwards each time the cup passed. The brew was warm and flat and tasted faintly like a fortified wine, a rough port, although it was clearly a beer. However, it was quite strong, probably about 10 per cent alcohol. After a couple of circuits during which the boys sang some songs to their own accompaniment on ukelele, guitar and string bass, the barman tapped the pointed end of the cup on the lid of his keg.
This was the signal for silence while a short prayer was intoned – one wonders what the missionaries would have thought of that little touch – and the guests were then expected to introduce themselves and give a brief autobiography. When one has had a sufficiency of the brew and wishes to leave it is customary, indeed expected, that visitors will leave a small donation (usually about $3) to assist with the costs of making the next brew. The tumunu also has a practical function. Much of the community's day-to-day operations are discussed there and, under the influence of alcohol, paths are smoothed and ways made straight because normally inarticulate citizens are emboldened to speak.

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