Kava is a non-alcoholic but definitely opiate drink prepared as an infusion of the pounded roots of a member of the pepper family (Piper methysticum, in Fijian yaqona, written phonetically = yanggona). It has a deep cultural significance for many societies, and in some it bears a profound spiritual dimension, and is associated with traditional religious observance. Some observers have focused so intently on this fact as to see it as exclusively benigh, overlooking the effects of over-use and abuse that are now increasingly apparent. Over the past half century its more casual social use has increased enormously, with access to it no longer restricted to the chiefly and priestly classes and its use no longer restricted to ritual and religious occasions. This is evident not only within Pacific islands, but in the Pacific diasporae in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and so on. Problems have also already become apparent in non-Pacific communities. For example, its introduction to Australian Aboriginal communities, in the forlorn hope that it would provide a counter to alcohol abuse, has tended to compound the problems rather than displace them. It has also in recent years been appropriated by Westerners as a not-yet-prohibited social narcotic, widely marketed on the internet and elsewhere under such names as "kavakava."

I have observed its effects on Fijians of my close acquaintance casually for over fifty years, and attentively for twenty. I observe that it is a sedative, appetite-suppressant and diuretic. In the course of a night around the kava bowl, many gallons of kava will be consumed by a relatively small number of participants, and such immoderate consumption, irrespective of whether it is ritual or purely social, reduces the drinkers' ability to talk, walk, or exert any reliable control or judgement whether intellectual, conversational, or spatial. In some (including myself), even moderate drinking can induce severe and persistent "hangover"-like headaches that are generally not relieved by aspirin or paracetamol, though stronger barbiturates or even migraine-suppressants are sometimes effective. I have known one Fijian to have such a headache, unabated, for a week. Long-term drinking can be demonstrated to induce, in some, a significant level of dependency, though whether this is emotional or physiological I am not qualified to assess. Physical attributes of heavy consumption over a long period are bloodshot eyes and blurred vision, and scaly dry skin in Fijian called kani, the same name used for the white residue that builds up in kava bowls.

Some much-needed research and analysis is under way, into the social, physiological and psychological aspects of kava consumption, as well as its traditional and religious aspects. There are therefore far more publications available on the topic than there were twenty years ago. The following short reviews discuss a very few of the resulting publications.

The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Spring 1993, 4(2):151-152

The Abandoned Narcotic: Kava and Cultural Instability in Melanesia, by Ron Brunton

Book Review by Patrick Glass

In 1914, Rivers attempted to account for the strange distribution of kava in the South West Pacific. He believed that kava had been abandoned in some areas in favour of another drug, betel nut, before European contact. The two drugs have an almost mutually exclusive distribution: where betel is chewed there is rarely kava drinking, where there is kava drinking there is rarely betel chewing. Why should this be? Rivers's explanation was diffusionist. The drugs were related to the migrations of different peoples: kava-people and betel-people. And very large distances separate kava-drinking regions.

Ron Brunton has re-opened the question of why and how kava drinking may have been taken up and abandoned in some societies in Melanesia. His book is a thorough piece of research conducted over seventeen years (1972-89). Brunton writes: 'The purpose of this book is to argue that independent discovery of kava is extremely unlikely, and that the problem of kava is but one aspect of the broader and more fundamental anthropological problem of cultural instability in stateless societies' (p.3). The author goes into great detail in examining the evidence: from the properties of different types of kava and their distribution, to the linguistic and archaeological evidence, and so on. Anyone who might have any scholarly bearing on the subject seems to have been approached personally.

The author sees the Island of Tanna in Vanuatu as a possible model for what happened elsewhere in Melanesia. Brunton introduces the idea of cultural 'packages' - different collective responses to radical social changes which took place there in postcontact times. He suggests that people took on new cultural forms like a set of new clothes which they later discarded. The model is suggestive in explaining why kava was taken up and later abandoned on Tanna. Rivers saw kava-people as bringing with them a variety of customs which differed from those of betel-peoples. Brunton stresses that kava is consumed in a largely ritualised manner. Therefore it requires stable institutions in order to be consumed at all. Once these go, so does kava. And kava can be seen as intrinsically linked to power and to the central institutions of a society. Betel, on the other hand, can be consumed at any time; it has a convenience which kava does not have. However, what is missing here is a thorough exploration of the merits of the two drugs for the people who use them.

Case material on the change from kava to betel elsewhere is needed. Brunton lays stress on the almost anarchistic nature of Tanna society in the post-contact period (1847-1910). The problem is: can we accept this Tanna as typical of Melanesian cultural instability in pre-contact times? The author is arguing from an atypical society at a non-relevant time (post-contact) to prove his case. And he is aware that there is a large amount of conjecture in his argument. For kava was largely abandoned elsewhere in unrecorded pre-contact times. Some of these difficulties are addressed by Brunton in the final chapter.

The author leaves himself open to criticism on points of style. He is overly zealous in his criticisms of some writers - notably of anyone who might have a substantially different view on key points relevant to his thesis (see, for instance, his treatment of Adams and Lindenbaum). He is also strangely off-hand with van Briessen, whose Master's Thesis - on the relationship between chiefly societies and kava drinking - might have been expected to have a direct bearing on Brunton's subject. Brunton mentions the thesis in a footnote on the last page of his book, and summarily dismisses it. In addition, it is uncertain what weight we are to give to unpublished papers in support of the author's theorising (Ernst 1987, Rieff 1980), or to evidence based on 'personal communication' with dates not provided - especially given that the research took 17 years to complete.

In summary, this is a stimulating book which re-opens an old anthropological problem. It has an excellent bibliography. The book reads like a whodunit, and certainly Brunton has done a lot of detective work in his attempts to come to grips with an anthropological problem with its roots in history. Because of his theoretical perspective as a social anthropologist - not a cultural historian - the author views transmission roots as a secondary problem (p.83). Yet, given the topic with which he is wrestling, there cannot be too sharp a divide between the two disciplines. I would like to see cultural historians and archaeologists respond to the challenge of his book.

MAN, June 1994 v29 n2 p488(2)

Kava: The Pacific Drug

Book Review by Ron Brunton

Full Text: COPYRIGHT Royal Anthropological Institute (UK) 1994

Kava is a narcotic drink made from the roots of the shrub Piper methysticum. At the time of European contact it was drunk in most of Polynesia, as well as in many Melanesian and some Micronesian communities. In recent years kava drinking has also spread to societies where it was unknown traditionally.

Scholars from many disciplines have long been interested in kava, and this well-illustrated book has been written by an agronomist, a botanist and an anthropologist. It has two related concerns. The first is to review the research on the botany, chemistry, anthropology and economics of kava and to clarify a number of outstanding matters. The authors argue convincingly that Piper methysticum is the domesticated form of the Piper wichmannii species, which grows wild throughout Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and northern Vanuatu; they discuss the psychoactive components of kava and their various physiological effects: they consider the variability of the chemical constituents of P. methysticum and P. wichmannii.

This material is valuable, although some anthropologists may need dictionaries of botany and chemistry at hand for some sections. The chapters of most direct interest to anthropologists cover such matters as cultivation techniques, folk classification of varieties, preparation methods, the role of kava in Pacific pharmacopoeias and in social political and gender relations, the mythical associations of kava and its religious significance, contemporary patterns of use, and kava's new role as a political icon in a number of Pacific countries. There are summary accounts of kava drinking in five different societies, encompassing both traditionalist and modern contexts. One chapter examines the growing importance of kava as a cash crop particularly in Vanuatu, where it has been promoted by the government as a national symbol and an alternative to alcohol. These chapters give a good, though relatively unexciting account of the range of variations in kava use.

The authors' second concern is to argue that data from botany, genetics and chemistry indicate that Piper methysticum was first domesticated in northern Vanuatu. On the evidence available, their case seems strong. (They also use mythological data, although this is poorly handled and far less convincing.) However, in their desire to establish a northern Vanuatu origin they are not as rigorous or consistent as they should be. For instance, most of the time they write as though P. rnethysticum was domesticated in a single area (e.g. pp. 51, 81). Yet, one of their criticisms of the abandonment thesis I proposed in The abandoned narcotic (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) to explain the patchy distribution of kava drinking seems to be that my argument depends on a single place of origin. Although their reasoning is not very clear, they do state 'we believe it is unlikely that all Pacific domesticates originated from a single locale', giving breadfruit as an example (p. 54; see also p. 23 where they suggest that northern Vanuatu may simply be 'the most important centre' of domestication).

However, if the possibility of domestication in other parts of the Pacific is conceded, then it might also have to be conceded that the botanical and chemical diversity on which much of northern Vanuatu's apparently strong claims are based may be an artefact of the sample of data presently available, and/or sociocultural factors that have made kava a particularly important substance there (cf. p. 103).

The authors seem keen to differentiate their argument from mine. Yet our positions are not as far apart as they suggest. They state that I am 'certainly correct to suggest that kava consumption was abandoned in some areas', but claim that my argument depends on a mass abandonment in all the islands from the Bismarck Archipelago to Santa Cruz. This is incorrect, for I did not suggest that kava was ever drunk throughout the whole of island Melanesia. And although I favoured the Bismarck Archipelago, I specifically acknowledged the possibility of a northern Vanuatu origin, and developed my argument accordingly.

There are some puzzling inconsistencies in their work. For instance, in a couple of places the authors suggest that kava was introduced into Papua New Guinea relatively recently (pp. 32, 53), while elsewhere they state that kava was transmitted to PNG 'early in the domestication process', before it was transmitted to Polynesia. They use the apparent absence of relict plants to argue that kava was not cultivated in the Solomons, but elsewhere suggest that kava plants were grown there in the early part of this century, after Solomon Islanders imported them from Fiji. They also ignore early accounts of kava use in both southern New Guinea and the Solomons, such as those of D'Albertis or Eckardt, which were published in the early 1880s.

Nevertheless, despite shortcomings such as these, the book will still be an important reference for scholars with an interest in any of the societies who have used kava, as well as those with a more general interest in psychoactive substances.

RON BRUNTON University of Melbourne

Other references:

Alexander, Kerryn. 1985. Kava in the North: A study of kava in Arnhem Land aboriginal communities. Darwin: ANU North Australia Research Unit

Alexander, Kerryn, C Watson & J Fleming. 1987. Kava in the North: A research report on current patterns of kava in Arnhem Land aboriginal communities. Darwin

Brunton, Ron. 1990. The abandoned narcotic: kava and cultural instability in Melanesia. (Cambridge Studies in Social and
Cultural Anthropology, 69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Cawte, John. 1986. 'Parameters of kava used as a challenge to alcohol.' Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 20(1): 70-6

Cawte, John. 1988. 'Macabre effects of a "cult" for kava.' The Medical Journal of Australia 148(June 6): 545-6

Clough, Alan, Chris Burns & Ngarrawu Mununggurr. 2000. 'Kava in Arnhem Land: A review of consumption and its social correlates.' Drug and Alcohol Review 19(3): 319-28

d'Abbs, Peter. 1993. A review of kava control measures in the Northern Territory. Casuarina, NT: Menzies School of Health Research

Lester, Rupert H. ("Jim"). 1941. 'Kava drinking in Vitilevu, Fiji.' Oceania 12: 97-121, 226-54

Lipp, Thorolf. 1999. Kava: the drink of the gods (videotape). 90 min. Video (PAL)(ips@usp.ac.fj). University of the South Pacific (Institute of Pacific Studies)

Mathews, John D. et al. 1988. 'Effects of heavy usage of kava on physical health: summary of a pilot study in an Aboriginal community.' The Medical Journal Of Australia 148:548-555. [June 6, 1988] 148: 548-55

McCall, Grant & John Prescott. 1988. Kava: use and abuse in Australia and the South Pacific. (National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre Monograph No.5). Sydney: National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre

Pollock, Nancy (convenor). 1995. 'Special Volume: The Power of Kava.' Canberra Anthropology 18(1 & 2): 1-182

Prescott, John & Grant McCall. 1988. Kava: use and abuse in Australia and the South Pacific. Sydney: National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre

Prescott, John et al. 1993. 'Acute effects of kava on measures of cognitive performance, physiological function and mood.' Drug And Alcohol Review 12: 49-58

Turner, James W. 1986. '"The water of life": kava ritual and the logic of sacrifice.' Ethnology 25(3): 203-14

Visser, Edward P. 1994. 'Skeletal evidence of kava use in prehistoric Fiji.' Journal of the Polynesian Society 103(3): 299-317