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Pacific folklore has long
associated the discovery of kava with sexual scenes. The
most famous folktale concerning the origin of cultivated
kava is the one that I'll now recount.
Long, long ago, on one of
the islands in what is now Vanuatu, in the early days of
the first ancestors, two sisters went out into the
forest to gather wild yams for food. After collecting a
large basketful, the women walked to the shore where
they could wash the dirt off the yams and scrape off
their peels. The sisters squatted by a tide pool at the
water edge and began to clean the yams.
Totally unknown to them, a
voyager from a nearby island had only days before
secreted a special kava plant among the rocks at the
water's edge, at the very spot where they were now
working. While the two sisters cleaned their yams, the
hidden kava plant sprouted a fresh green stalk that
reached up and into the vagina of one of the women.
Naturally, she was greatly surprised. She felt the
tickling of the plant within her, which caused
pleasurable sensations throughout her body.
"Oh, my sister," she
called out. "What is the agent of my excitement?" Her
sister saw with surprise that a fresh shoot of kava was
the stealthy agent of the other's sudden happiness.
Clearly, this was no ordinary kava plant. They carefully
removed the kava from where it had been hidden, wrapping
it in a length of wet coconut fiber. The sisters brought
the kava plant back home, where they planted it in their
garden and tended it secretly for several years.
At that time, men drank
kava made only from the roots of wild plants found in
the forest and mountains. Sometimes the kava was
pleasing, and it made the men feel relaxed and happy.
But at other times the wild kava made them dull and
caused their heads to ache. One day, when the special
kava plant tended by the sisters was mature, the women
dug up some of the root and presented it to the men at
the kava drinking ground. "Try this," advised one of the
sisters. "This is the true kava. If you drink from this
kava, you will never drink wild kava again. This kava
will give you the greatest pleasure."
The men were pleased at
this idea and commenced to prepare the kava. For this
task, they summoned a female virgin from the village.
She was young and had dark eyes that would make a man
feel carried away as if in a dream. She sat upon broad
banana leaves and chewed the kava root very carefully,
until the root in her mouth was mashed into a soft,
moist pulp. She then spat the pulp gently onto palm
fronds.
After she made several
piles of mashed kava in this manner, the girl placed the
kava into a wide wooden bowl and added water. She worked
the mashed kava in the water thoroughly with her hands
until the liquid became the color of muddy water. Then
she strained the kava twice through coconut fiber,
poured the drink into coconut shells, and offered it to
the men for their pleasure.
The men lifted their
coconut shells and drank, one after another, until all
had partaken of the kava. Soon they were smiling broadly
with great happiness. They laughed and conversed with
one another for a long time, forgetting all their cares.
The men agreed that the kava cultivated by the sisters
was indeed the true kava. And so it came to pass that
since that time, kava has been prepared from plants
grown in gardens and plots, and the men always chose it
over wild kava.
Excerpted from "Psyche
Delicacies" by Chris Kilham. |
