craftgrrl | Curing Bamboo For Cups?

I have some dried out poles of bamboo from a plant I have that I wanted to make cups out of (an idea I first saw at a ren faire.) But I'm having trouble locating info on whether or not I need to seal the bamboo with anything. I have heard that in Asia, people used to use stalks to carry water in, but I don't know if it was cured in any way first. The bamboo cup we bought doesn't appear to be cured, but it may be a different type. This site talks about making cups, but it seems to be more of an over view. Curing is not mentioned. This site mentions cracking when making flutes, which I guess is somewhat like making a cup, but doesn't mention curing. And this site says that: "Bamboo shoots are usually cooked before eating as some may contain cyanogens. This is not a problem with most temperate bamboos, and most can be eaten without cooking if they are not too bitter. The only Phyllostachys known to have potentially toxic concentrations of cyanogens is Ph. heterocycla pubescens..."

This worries me a little. I'm not 100% sure the type of bamboo we have. Our bamboo was given to us by a friend, who is more knowledgeable on bamboo, but also wasn't sure of the type (he says many time you can't tell until bamboo flowers, and when it flowers, it usually dies.) The Phyllostachys bamboo looks like this and what I have looks like this and this.

Maybe I should just stick to making wind chimes? :)