spotlight

Kava gets in the spotlight

By a staff writer

Kava, otherwise known as ava, awa, kawa and yaqona, has been an essential part of the religious, ceremonial and medicinal life of the South Pacific Islands for centuries.

WHEN Europeans first came to the Pacific, it was drunk throughout Polynesia and in many parts of Melanesia. Nowadays, however, it has virtualy been abandoned in Hawaii, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands, and it is less used in Samoa than it was formerly.

But one cannot go far in Fiji without seeing it, drinking it, or hearing about it, and it is still extensviely used in Tonga. In Fiji, there is always a bowl of it in the Villages, in many stores and in town offices.

Kava is prepared for drinking from the root of a bush, Piper methysticum. Classically, the pre paration is done by chewing the root and spitting the macerated remains into a bowl, where they are diluted and strained.

Normally, years go by without anyone paying any particular at tention to the subject of kava and kava-drinking. Recently, however, kava has been in the spotlight be cause: • An American scientist has discovered that the principle in gredient of kava has a soothing effect on rats. • A Fijian chief has forbidden villagers under 50 to drink kava. • The South Pacific Com mission has issued a technical in formation circular in which the medicinal properties of kava are discussed.

The US scientist who has been trying kava on rats is Dr. Joseph P. Buckley, of the University of Pittsburgh. He and his assistants have isolated the chief ingredient of the kava root from which the drink is made. They have dubbed it K-l.

Recently, Dr. Buckley injected K-l into what he called “mean rats”—rats that were so wild that

they couldn’t be held without heavy gloves.

One shot of K-l and the bit ing, scratching rats became docile, Dr. Buckley reported. “What’s more,” he said, “they could still walk along a rotating rod with out losing their balance. And they suffered no hangover”.

Dr. Buckley added: “Maybe this explains why the South Sea Islanders who take kava lose their anger and feel peaceful and happy.”

The Fijian chief who has banned people under the age of 50 from drinking kava lives in the village of Viseisei, near Nadi.

According to a Fiji Govern ment news bulletin, the chief is reported to have imposed the ban after consulting the village council.

The reason given—an odd one by the sound of it—is that “the drinking of yaqona by young people hinders the progress of Fijian village life”.

The South Pacific Commission circular which discusses the medicinal value of kava is a re print of an article on the “Evaluation and Effectiveness of Ancient Hawaiian Medicine”, by F. L. Tabrah, MD, and B. M.

Eveleth, MD. The article origin ally appeared in the Hawaii Medical Journal for January- February, 1966.

The article says that the effect of drinking 15 grams of rootstock of Piper methysticum in half a pint of water is “to pleasantly paralyse, at the cord level, sensory transmission”.

Subsequently, the article con tinues, “a euphoric state develops, during which the mind remains clear; the drinker is tranquil and friendly, and refuses to be an noyed; and finally, if the dose is enough, sleep ensues. Several hours of dreamless sleep follow; the drinker awakes feeling marvellously well, and no hang over occurs”.

The article says that besides being drunk for pleasure, kava has been widely used in New Guinea during tattoo procedures as an anodyne (pain reliever) and that it was used by ancient Hawaiian medical men to control pain.

It adds that kava is used com mercially at present as a bladder sedative, but that there is a need for further clinical investigation of kava as an anodyne, muscle relaxant and ataractic (tran quilliser).