Kava Fact of the Day Origins Of Kava

[The Kap'n]

The plant we know and love as kava, Piper Methysticum, grows in a multitude of locations across the Pacific Islands, and has an extremely long history of careful cultivation. Drinking kava is derived from the wild form, Piper wichmannii, which is the fertile piper species and does not require humans to propagate. The wild form is indigenous to PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Studies by Lebot, Merlin and Lindstrom in The Pacific Elixir: (1997:5) suggest ‘farmers in the Norther islands of Vanuatu were the first to select and develop the species as a vegetatively reproduced root crop’ [1]. Kava was domesticated less than 3000 years ago in Vanuatu before being carried east toward traditional trade routes to Fiji and Polynesia, and west towards PNG and other parts of Micronesia [2].

[1] Lebot, V., Merlin, M. D., & Lindstrom, L. (1997). Kava--the Pacific elixir: The definitive guide to its ethnobotany, history, and chemistry. Rochester, Vt: Healing Arts Press.

[2] Robinson, D., Raven, M., Makin, E., Kalfatak, D., Hickey, F., & Tari, T. (2020). Legal geographies of kava, kastom and indigenous knowledge: Next steps under the Nagoya Protocol. Geoforum. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.11.001

 

[Alia]

The plant we know and love as kava, Piper Methysticum, grows in a multitude of locations across the Pacific Islands, and has an extremely long history of careful cultivation. Drinking kava is derived from the wild form, Piper wichmannii, which is the fertile piper species and does not require humans to propagate. The wild form is indigenous to PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Studies by Lebot, Merlin and Lindstrom in The Pacific Elixir: (1997:5) suggest ‘farmers in the Norther islands of Vanuatu were the first to select and develop the species as a vegetatively reproduced root crop’ [1]. Kava was domesticated less than 3000 years ago in Vanuatu before being carried east toward traditional trade routes to Fiji and Polynesia, and west towards PNG and other parts of Micronesia [2].

[1] Lebot, V., Merlin, M. D., & Lindstrom, L. (1997). Kava--the Pacific elixir: The definitive guide to its ethnobotany, history, and chemistry. Rochester, Vt: Healing Arts Press.

[2] Robinson, D., Raven, M., Makin, E., Kalfatak, D., Hickey, F., & Tari, T. (2020). Legal geographies of kava, kastom and indigenous knowledge: Next steps under the Nagoya Protocol. Geoforum. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.11.001

Here in Hawai'i we are grateful to the travelers who-- "...carried east toward traditional trade routes to Fiji and Polynesia, and west towards PNG and other parts of Micronesia " All these areas where kava is traditionally grown, or as Vincent Lebot (Le-beau) wrote-- "Indigenous populations unlocked the door to an artificial paradise by consuming an elixir prepared from this plant species, endemic to this vast area of scattered islands and growing nowhere else." --indeed have their own mythical stories of the origin of their traditional plant and it's beverage.