KNOWING THE DUSUN LOTUD OF TUARAN- MONIANG:
FEW traditions in South-East Asia have the antiquity and universal acceptance of betel chewing. The custom is over 2,000 years old and has survived from ancient times into the twentieth century. Its use cuts across class, sex, or age: ‘The habitual and universal solace of both sexes is the areca nut and betel…which is rarely absent from the mouth of man or woman,’ wrote the Honourable George N. Curzon, a nineteenth-century observer. Its devotees include farmers, priests, and kings, men, women, and children. The homeliness of the name belies its importance.
Three ingredients—an areca-nut, a leaf of the betel-pepper, and lime—are essential for betel chewing; others may be added depending on availability and preference. The leaf is first daubed with lime paste and topped with thin slices of the nut, then it is folded or rolled into a bite-size quid. The interaction of the ingredients during chewing produces a red-coloured saliva. ‘If a person speaks to you while he is chewing his “quid” of betel, his mouth looks as if it were full of blood,’ reflected Isabella L. Bird, an intrepid woman traveller of the nineteenth century. Most of the betel juice is spat out. The tell-tale residue looks like splotches of dried blood. Indeed, the resemblance is so close that some early European visitors thought many Asians had tuberculosis. The splotches of betel spittle are spaced consistently enough for use as measurements of time and distance in rural areas. A short time is ‘about a betel chew’ and the distance between two villages, for example, may be ‘about three chews’.
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