Almost 2 Centuries After Christian Missionaries Arrived in Fiji...
- Thread starter kasa_balavu
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Getting people to literally burn their culture in the name of faith. Another score for religion!
That’s all from me. I have many thoughts and opinions, all of them negative about it.
kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
The chief quoted in the article was Methodist so is likely to be a kava drinker. Of the old churches, the Catholics and Methodists drink kava, while the Seventh Day Adventists don't.
While Catholics and Methodists are still in the majority, numerous new evangelic/charismatic/pentecostal churches have sprung up in the past two decades. They're usually started by some random guy who decides he wants to have a following. He latches on to some random American or Australian church keen on saving souls in the third world, builds a church, plays a lot of loud music, and shouts louder than the preacher down the street.
These sorts of churches seem to make up rules as they go along, and usually end up becoming quite extremist as a point of difference to the more easygoing Catholics and Methodists.
When one wants to appeal to a spirit to do harm to someone on your behalf, it's customary to pour out some kava for the spirit. This use of yaqona in vakadraudrau ("witchcraft") has made it a prime target for this breed of preacher.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
I feel the same way kap
Alia
'Awa Grower/Collector
When one wants to appeal to a spirit to do harm to someone on your behalf, it's customary to pour out some kava for the spirit. This use of yaqona in vakadraudrau ("witchcraft") has made it a prime target for this breed of preacher.[/QUOTE]
Often in Hawai'i an 'awa drinker will first toss a few drops of beverage over their shoulder as an offering, then drink a cup themselves. My "reverence" has had a different focus or maybe a paradigm shift, change in approach or underlying assumption- in that I propagate many, many 'awa plants and give them to people here who wish to grow 'awa in Hawai'i. I also tend my own plants as if they are family in order to perpetuate them and preserve them. While not actually praying to a god this is the best way, as I see it, to keep the species going. At least, to my way of thinking, it is more useful than tossing beverage over ones' shoulder. Not meaning to offend.
Often in Hawai'i an 'awa drinker will first toss a few drops of beverage over their shoulder as an offering, then drink a cup themselves. My "reverence" has had a different focus or maybe a paradigm shift, change in approach or underlying assumption- in that I propagate many, many 'awa plants and give them to people here who wish to grow 'awa in Hawai'i. I also tend my own plants as if they are family in order to perpetuate them and preserve them. While not actually praying to a god this is the best way, as I see it, to keep the species going. At least, to my way of thinking, it is more useful than tossing beverage over ones' shoulder. Not meaning to offend.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
I think many of what people used to believe is related to a) the power of placebo in thought based manifestation. That we humans posses the ability to attract events through thinking but need the placebo so to speak of a higher authority or plant or event to make it happen...
And b) the existence of viruses, bacteria, etc can explain a lot of stuff in regards to evil spirits etc since most herbal purifiers are actually very high in anti bacterial/microbrial properties.
And b) the existence of viruses, bacteria, etc can explain a lot of stuff in regards to evil spirits etc since most herbal purifiers are actually very high in anti bacterial/microbrial properties.
kastom_lif
Kava Lover
Vanuatu is similar. Catholics, Presbyterians and Anglicans all enjoy kava. SDA's won't drink it, though they've recently decided that kava is alright to grow for sale. LDS won't touch kava at all.
And of course there are new age, charismatic, and fringe denominations all with their own opinions of kava.
Placebo effect is absolutely real. There have been documented cases of nakaemas making people terribly sick. Or look at "bone pointing" in Australia. That sorcery is so powerful that it can kill or leave victims crippled for life.
That raccoon that killed some of my chickens the very night after I started carving a tamtam... when I caught him, I kept his baculum. Just in case.
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