Kava in Nikaura Epi Vanuatu
I’ve been searching through kava research pretty avidly looking for studies and accounts of kava consumption. Most of the papers are rather technical and difficult to understand, and I say that because I’ve personally found that for myself. This one reads as if a personal friend is giving their detailed account of a fantastic journey. This anthropological paper captures a slice of Vanuatu’s kava history regarding missionaries, alcohol, the push back against kava and local kastom from various religious institutions, kava drinking as a symbol of religious rebellion, and the ultimate failure to eradicate kava, and it’s associated kastom on pious grounds.
The author gives their own personal description of their kava experience which follows:
"My own experience was that the sense of wellbeing induced by good strong kava (mei marera) is accompanied by a gentle swell of empathy and affection for those around me: men with their foibles (minor weaknesses or eccentricities in one’s character) just like me, caught in the same warp of time, now and here, adrift for a moment on the same sea of destiny. It is a mild social euphoria: nothing profound or oceanic, just a grateful expansion of selfhood to embrace others as coevals (those existing at the same time as another)."
If you pick one of these papers to read that I’ve been using as sources, I would suggest this one.
Young, Michael W. 1995. “Kava and Christianity in Central Vanuatu: With an Appendix on the Ethnography of Kava Drinking in Nikaura, Epi.” Canberra Anthropology 18 (1-2): 61–96.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03149099509508409.
(https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/03149099509508409)
I’ve been searching through kava research pretty avidly looking for studies and accounts of kava consumption. Most of the papers are rather technical and difficult to understand, and I say that because I’ve personally found that for myself. This one reads as if a personal friend is giving their detailed account of a fantastic journey. This anthropological paper captures a slice of Vanuatu’s kava history regarding missionaries, alcohol, the push back against kava and local kastom from various religious institutions, kava drinking as a symbol of religious rebellion, and the ultimate failure to eradicate kava, and it’s associated kastom on pious grounds.
The author gives their own personal description of their kava experience which follows:
"My own experience was that the sense of wellbeing induced by good strong kava (mei marera) is accompanied by a gentle swell of empathy and affection for those around me: men with their foibles (minor weaknesses or eccentricities in one’s character) just like me, caught in the same warp of time, now and here, adrift for a moment on the same sea of destiny. It is a mild social euphoria: nothing profound or oceanic, just a grateful expansion of selfhood to embrace others as coevals (those existing at the same time as another)."
If you pick one of these papers to read that I’ve been using as sources, I would suggest this one.
Young, Michael W. 1995. “Kava and Christianity in Central Vanuatu: With an Appendix on the Ethnography of Kava Drinking in Nikaura, Epi.” Canberra Anthropology 18 (1-2): 61–96.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03149099509508409.
(https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/03149099509508409)
