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Potent Roots and the Origin of kava

Botanical evidence suggests that kava, Piper methysticwn, may have first been domesticated in northern Vanuatu, and this implies that no Proto-Oceanic term can be reconstructed with this meaning. The dissimilarities between widespread terms for 'kava' like maloku in northern Vanuatu, yaqona in Fiji, and kava in Polynesia have complicated the issue, making it unclear what the earliest reconstruction might be. I show in this paper, however, that the term kava apparently derives from a Proto-Oceanic term *kawaRi, which referred to a root with special psychoactive and/or ritual properties: probably a species of ginger (Zingiber zerumbet), and possibly also to "wild" kava (Piper wichmannii) and to plants used in stupefying fish. This form apparently underwent a semantic and formal change, and was applied to kava when it was first domesticated. Later lexical changes in Vanuatu and Fiji are investigated, and a chronological sequence for the spread of kava--including spread from some Polynesian source to New Guinea--is proposed. 1. BOTANICAL AND OTHER BACKGROUND.' The English term kava refers to the plant Piper methysticwn and the mildly narcotic drink made from it. The plant is cultivated and the drinking of kava is institutionalized in Vanuatu, Fiji, Rotuma, much of Polynesia, Pohnpei, and in a few isolated areas in New Guinea (Brunton 1988, Crowley 1994:87). There is no evidence that kava was used in New Caledonia until the last twenty years or so, and only marginal evidence of its use in the Solomon Islands (see 2.3). Kava is perhaps best known as a prepared drink that is used both in ceremonial