Samoan Kava Custom 



By William Churchill 



|||ENSTRUUM of manners, social solvent, kava occupies the 

 most important place in the life of the Polynesian com- 

 munities of the Pacific. In cases of physical exhaustion it 

 goes very far indeed to neutralize the fatigue toxins and 

 restores the wearied man to the enjoyment of his common 

 life. Merely an infusion, wholly devoid of vinous fermentation or 

 alcoholic distillation, it provides a beverage which cheers good society 

 and leaves behind it no regret for intoxication. The central point of a 

 ritual of ceremony wherever the Polynesians use this agreeable drink, 

 it is in Samoa that we find its group of observances at the highest 

 point of ornate ceremony. 



Among many far more important records of kava ceremony I find 

 a rapidly penciled memorandum on a scrap of paper. Brought once 

 more to light after several years it is easy to recognize the word-for- 

 word accuracy in this note, for that reason in particular I employ it 

 for the purpose of presenting to view a simple kava meeting in the 

 hamlet of Vaiala just outside my official windows. 



Vaiala is a subordinate hamlet of the district of the Vaimauga on 

 the north shore of 'Upolu and immediately east of Apia. It is not the 

 seat of district government, that is properly in the hamlet of Mo'ota 

 at the distance of a mile eastward and separated by two slight streams; 

 but in conditions of Samoan life, which need not enter into this narra- 

 tive, Vaiala has been for the better part of a century the place of abode 

 of the ruling chief of the district rather than Mo'ota, although the 

 definitive parliaments of the men of the Vaimauga must be held on 

 the malae or village green of the latter place. The chief of Vaiala is 

 Le Patu, but, except in matters distinctively relating to the hamlet, 

 he is quite overslaughed by the presence of his superior, the district 

 chief. Chief of the district is Tofaeono, a name which may readily be 

 recognized in the narrative of Wilkes as Tufai, a turbulent chief four- 

 score years ago whom it was found necessary to deport to Uvea, an 

 ante-Christian scoundrel whom his descendants recall as a deplorably 

 bad man who received less punishment than he merited. Manogia- 

 manu is the hereditary speechmaker (failanga) of the Vaimauga and 

 therefore the mouthpiece of Tofaeono. A visiting party (malaga) has 

 been sojourning in Vaiala for the conventional three days and is about 



[53] 



