Kava Kava, Our Favorite Pepper: Kava kava

» Goodelyfe - Kava kava

My first taste of kava happened in 1965 during a visit to Fiji. It was at the Fijian Visitors Bureau in Suva. It look like mud in the tanu and tasted even worse.

Years later, I was married to an ethnic Fijian woman. Through my brothers in law, I came to get a better appreciation of kava, now more correctly called by me as yagona [pronounced "yangona"] in its proper cultural context. Over many years I have consumed gallons of yagona - different types - waka, lewena and green. It is a social drink known to relax. But it is also an important part of the social glue within this region. When visiting friends, it is important to bring along a kilo of yagona as a sevusevu or gift offering. This is then infused using a tanu [that rather large wooden bowl] filled with water and a sulu [the Fijian skirt cloth] to act as an infuser. The yagona is then pounded in a mortar and pestle to create a fine powder which is then infused in water. Drinking it is a ritual requiring the individual to take the full contents of a coconut bowl [bilo] down the hatch in a single sip. This is usually followed by a great deal of chatting and singing until the next round. There is no doubt that it does relax the individual for sleep comes readily and easily after a few hours of drinking yagona.

Now that it appears in a tablet form, I shudder at the loss of context. The culture surrounding the use of yagona is lost, the properties objectified and the use limited. That saddens me.

The one thing that is lost by this method of removing this from the cultural context is examining the side effects of the drug, and there are some very negative side effects. For men, it is a loss of sexual ability. Performance drops off in direct proportion to the quantities taken. In Fiji this is the common complaint of their women. Yet another side effect is the occurrence of what is known as "snake skin", a particularly nasty skin condition that arises after many years of taking yagona. As the name suggests, the skin in soft areas, mainly the neck scales and peels like that of a snake. Seeing people suffering from snake skin is a pathetic sight.

I mention the above for I have not seen any research upon the long term effects of taking the kavakava tablets. Furthermore, I have not seen any research which concentrates upon the known side effects of yagona in relation to the taking of the kavakava compound. For those enamored with kavakava, the above is a caveat. Once knowing the context, then it is easy to establish the veracity of some of the excited claims being made about the kavakava tablets.

-- posted by Goodelyfe