The mabi-beer and its variants in the CaribbeanArticle 5 of 16 Mabi and unfermented sweet potato beverages

Mabi and usages in Amerindian cultures

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The mabi is not the ordinary beer for festivities and collective drinking parties. The cassava beer plays this role. The sweet potato beer occurs in particular contexts, either as a ceremonial beverage in communication with the spirits, or as a beverage reserved for certain rituals, or as a medicinal beverage whose effectiveness still depends on good spiritual communication.

"They also make potato wine, but not as abundantly as this one [cassava beer]." (Anonyme de Carpentras, 1618-1620, ed. Moreau 2002, 160).

The sweet potato beer serves as an offering to invoke the protective spirits. It allows to communicate with them, accompanied by the petun that one smokes, a cigar of tobacco leaves rolled in a fine dried bark.

 

The mabi-beer and its variants in the CaribbeanArticle 5 of 16 Mabi and unfermented sweet potato beverages