Kava and the WoW in Fiji. Implications?
Jason Roberts
Yokwe kom. I'm back. A couple of months on remote Pacific atolls has done
wonders for my sanity, blood pressure and temper.
Now, my plea for insights from Mormons and friends familiar with the
Church in the Pacific:
I recently learned that a prohibition against Kava* drinking was formally
made part of the Word of Wisdom in Fiji, but nowhere else. I am very very
suprised at this because it has always seemed to me that there is a huge
amount of tolerance for Kava drinking in the Church. I understand on some
level why it was necessary, in fact Kava drinking has become a very
serious problem in Fiji. Kava drinking in government buildings while
working was only recently made illegal, and Kava drinking was blamed in
the most recent issue of Pacific Magazine for the high rate of divorce and
infidelity in Fiji (apparently Kava kills your sex drive.)
Nonetheless, Kava is considered by some to be largely a ceremonial drink,
Eric Shumway drank it with the King of Tonga when the King visited the
PCC. But anyone who has ever been at a typical Kava session might be hard
pressed to find large amounts of ceremony involved.
Kava drinking has been with Saints in the Pacific for a long time. In
early Church history in Hawaii the Mormons following Walter Murray Gibson
(living mostly on Lanai) prohibited drinking Kava, but those living at
Laie were Kava-drinkers. Kava drinking is still a common sight on Friday
and Saturday nights in Laie.
The ban of Kava-drinking in Fiji has potentially interesting consequences.
Are Fijian Mormons banned from Kava while living in Majuro, Manua, or Port
Moresby? Are there other instances of Church sanctioned (an important
qualification) local WoW restrictions? Is there any chance of getting beer
drinking "legalized" for Milwaukee Saints? (note tongue visibly pressing
against cheek.) Are there other instances of ceremonial intoxicants that
are permitted by the WoW, like peyote?
How is Kava regarded by Mormons in other parts of the Pacific? What do the
Members generally think about it, what do the local leaders say about it,
and what do Missionaries think about it?
*Kava is a narcotic drink made from the roots of the pepper plant, which
are dried and ground into a fine powder then placed into a cloth through
which water is strained.
--
JASON ROBERTS
An bilinlin koba, komen lometo.
Karen Lofstrom
Jason Roberts (jkro...@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
: *Kava is a narcotic drink made from the roots of the pepper plant, which
: are dried and ground into a fine powder then placed into a cloth through
: which water is strained.
It tastes like sawdust (definitely an acquired taste) and it never got
me the slightest bit intoxicated or "high". Maybe I didn't drink
enough of it, thanks to the taste, but I have a hard time seeing it as
a narcotic menace.
It's the social part of it that affects people, IMHO. Stay up all night
chatting over the kava bowl, miss church the next morning. People
could do that with mint tea ...
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes the depths of cyberspace get disturbed, strange creatures float
up from the nameless voids of bit buckets and snatch the innocent surfers
with their cruel tentacles. -- Peter Vorobieff
Jason Roberts
In article <jkrobert-310...@f181-173.net.wisc.edu>,
jkro...@students.wisc.edu (Jason Roberts) wrote:
> Karen's views demonstrate the level of tolerance for Kava drinking in the
> Church, which is why I was suprised that it was "banned" in Fiji in the
> first place. Karen, where was your experience with Kava? What were the
> attitudes of members (local and expatriate) there regarding Kava? Are you
> suprised that it has been restricted in Fiji?
Uhhh, sorry Karen. I've been gone for a few months and just assumed that
you were Mormon. Sorry for the boneheaded mistake.
> > --
> > Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
Jason Roberts
Jason Roberts
Posted and mailed.
In article <4tnajv$2...@mochi.lava.net>, lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom)
wrote:
> Jason Roberts (jkro...@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
>
> : *Kava is a narcotic drink made from the roots of the pepper plant, which
> : are dried and ground into a fine powder then placed into a cloth through
> : which water is strained.
>
> It tastes like sawdust (definitely an acquired taste) and it never got
> me the slightest bit intoxicated or "high". Maybe I didn't drink
> enough of it, thanks to the taste, but I have a hard time seeing it as
> a narcotic menace.
Definately didn't drink enough of it. Or maybe you drank a weak kind. Or
maybe you weren't drinking it right. Usually kava drinkers drink a
half-coconut shell full in one gulp, not sip and savor the taste (or lack
of taste). This goes on for hours, literally.
In any case the narcotic affect of Kava is obvious if you spend some time
around people drinking Kava. After a couple hours of drinking Kava a close
Mortlockese friend of mine claimed that his legs were paralized. It took a
bit of convincing before we could get him to walk. I think most people
don't drink kava long enough to get to that point however.
A study done by the Council of Social Services in Fiji recently found that
kava abuse is one of the key factors in family and marital problems. Also
shown was that kava abuse was greater than the abuse of other drugs,
including alcohol and marijuana.
Kava is not a narcotic menace on the order of say, crack, but I think it
would be naive to say it is not narcotic at all.
> It's the social part of it that affects people, IMHO. Stay up all night
> chatting over the kava bowl, miss church the next morning. People
> could do that with mint tea ...
Karen's views demonstrate the level of tolerance for Kava drinking in the
Church, which is why I was suprised that it was "banned" in Fiji in the
first place. Karen, where was your experience with Kava? What were the
attitudes of members (local and expatriate) there regarding Kava? Are you
suprised that it has been restricted in Fiji?
>
> --
> Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sometimes the depths of cyberspace get disturbed, strange creatures float
> up from the nameless voids of bit buckets and snatch the innocent surfers
> with their cruel tentacles. -- Peter Vorobieff
--
Karen Lofstrom
Jason Roberts (jkro...@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
: > Karen's views demonstrate the level of tolerance for Kava drinking in the
: > Church, which is why I was suprised that it was "banned" in Fiji in the
: > first place. Karen, where was your experience with Kava? What were the
: > attitudes of members (local and expatriate) there regarding Kava? Are you
: > suprised that it has been restricted in Fiji?
: Uhhh, sorry Karen. I've been gone for a few months and just assumed that
: you were Mormon. Sorry for the boneheaded mistake.
That's alright. I'll answer your questions anyway.
I spent two and a half years in Tonga, and participated in a few kava
ceremonies. Once, before I realized what was happening, I was
installed as the kava-server at a church kava circle; my hostess
thought I would be a great draw to raise money for the Methodists.
After that, I managed to hang out at the other end of the circle, as
tou'a, meaning that my rank and status were anomalous. A very safe
choice. A few times the highest ranking person there insisted on
serving kava to the palangi (foreigner) so I had to drink it. Yuck.
Living in Tongan households, however, I indirectly participated in
dozens of faikavas -- listening to them from my own room before I
succumbed to sleep. The topics always seemed so soporific -- who had
grown the biggest yam, how the fishing had declined in the past few
years, etc.
The Tongan Mormons weren't forbidden to drink kava, AFAIK. When I
stayed in a Tongan Morman household in La'ie, Mr. 'Unga hosted lots of
faikavas.
Other sects known as strict teetotalers, like the Jehovah's Witnesses
and the Seventh Day Adventists also countenance kava drinking.
Faikavas are just talk, talk, talk, endless talk. The worst that
happened was that people would sleep late the next day. I contrast
this to the effects of alcohol (Australian beer or home-brew "hopi").
People got drunk, belligerent, fought, occasionally killed each other
with machetes. Kava is nothing in the same league.
I personally don't see why the LDS would want to ban it. It would cut
the South Pacific Mormons off from their neighbors and friends, which
seems utterly cruel -- or is that the point of it, after all?
--
Karen Lofstrom SCIENTOLOGIST BAIT lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OT7-48 1. Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them
individually until you know they received your communication.
barmstrong
In article <jkrobert-300...@f180-041.net.wisc.edu>,
jkro...@students.wisc.edu says...
(snip)
>
>I recently learned that a prohibition against Kava* drinking was formally
>made part of the Word of Wisdom in Fiji, but nowhere else. I am very very
>suprised at this because it has always seemed to me that there is a huge
>amount of tolerance for Kava drinking in the Church. I understand on some
>level why it was necessary, in fact Kava drinking has become a very
>serious problem in Fiji. Kava drinking in government buildings while
>working was only recently made illegal, and Kava drinking was blamed in
>the most recent issue of Pacific Magazine for the high rate of divorce and
>infidelity in Fiji (apparently Kava kills your sex drive.)
>
(snip)
One would suppose that we don't always need to be commanded in all things (I've
heard that somewhere before). I would suspect that local Church leaders could
make prohibitions for their local people based upon local conditions. Making
it a formal commandment for all of the Church would make as much sense as
banning the ingestion of rat poison for many folks --- they just wouldn't do
it anyhow. Kava is also bit hard to get in most places outside of the S.
Pacific.
I did note that a Polynesian fellow was recently pulled over and cited by
the police for driving under the influence of Kava here in Salt Lake -- maybe
I better check it out, eh? :)
Brad
Jason Roberts
In article <4ttu1m$o...@news.cc.utah.edu>, barms...@park.admin.utah.edu
(barmstrong) wrote:
> In article <jkrobert-300...@f180-041.net.wisc.edu>,
> jkro...@students.wisc.edu says...
(original stuff about Kava snipped. Go back and read it if you care.)
> One would suppose that we don't always need to be commanded in all
things (I've
> heard that somewhere before). I would suspect that local Church leaders
could
> make prohibitions for their local people based upon local conditions. Making
> it a formal commandment for all of the Church would make as much sense as
> banning the ingestion of rat poison for many folks --- they just wouldn't do
> it anyhow. Kava is also bit hard to get in most places outside of the S.
> Pacific.
Can you (or someone else) give some examples of 'local' WoW prohibitions?
Such examples would certainly help clarify the issue, however I don't
think there are any "officially sanctioned" WoW restrictions that are only
local. I could (in fact I probably am) very wrong. When I was in Belgium
there was a very real movement to prohibit Flemmish saints from eating
Bloodsausage. The Area presidency apparently nixed that by saying that we
have a 'full' explanation of the WoW.
In any case, there have been attempts to get the WoW to include Kava ever
since the Mormons first went to the Pacific, yet it has never been
officially made part of the WoW. Like I said earlier, it does not suprise
me that the restriction appeared first in Fiji, just that it wasn't a
unilateral prohibition through-out the kava drinking world (not the whole
Church).
For the record, I don't think a ban on kava would be an entirely bad
thing. I have seen non-Mormons express alot of suprise (and maybe a
measure of disappointment) that Mormons (now Mormons outside of Fiji)
drink kava when they do not drink alcohol. I do not see kava as some kind
of horrible addictive menace out to claim the lives of innocent kava
drinkers (allthough there are those, both Mormon and non-, who would
disagree). My own deep appreciation for the WoW stems from the fact that
it is a constant reminder to me that I am different from those around me.
It also requires me to own up publicly for what I believe in and who I am.
Karen astutely remarked in an earlier post:
> I personally don't see why the LDS would want to ban it. It would cut
> the South Pacific Mormons off from their neighbors and friends, which
> seems utterly cruel -- or is that the point of it, after all?
Although I would leave off the "cruel" and "cut off" parts, she is right.
It would serve as a reminder to Mormons and thier friends of how seriously
Mormons take thier beliefs.
The dietary/health aspect is secondary to me, since I am sure that a
typical Wisconsin Bratwurst cook-out, repleat with German potato salad,
etc. is far worse for my health than a six pack of MGD, or 6 hours of kava
drinking.
You can purchase kava in Provo at the Albertsons on Center street (at
least you could last year), and in Milwaukee and Madison, WI as well as
most major cities in the U.S.
> I did note that a Polynesian fellow was recently pulled over and cited by
> the police for driving under the influence of Kava here in Salt Lake --
maybe
> I better check it out, eh? :)
Now THAT is amazing. Really. What law was he violating, and how did they
detirmine that he was "under the influence of kava"? I would love to hear
more about that, or point me in the right direction to research it myself
(aproximate date, city, etc.).
> Brad
I am going on and on about this because I have wondered about it alot,
talked about it with many, and just generally find it interesting. Sorry
if it is becoming tedious. I guess there aren't any Fijians on this forum,
(Fiji recently got 'net access) to help us out with this.
barmstrong
In article <jkrobert-030...@f181-172.net.wisc.edu>,
jkro...@students.wisc.edu says...(snip)
>Can you (or someone else) give some examples of 'local' WoW prohibitions?
>Such examples would certainly help clarify the issue, however I don't
>think there are any "officially sanctioned" WoW restrictions that are only
>local. I could (in fact I probably am) very wrong. When I was in Belgium
>there was a very real movement to prohibit Flemmish saints from eating
>Bloodsausage. The Area presidency apparently nixed that by saying that we
>have a 'full' explanation of the WoW.
Perhaps you could illustrate how "official" this ban on kava consumption is in
Fiji. Is it a mandate by a branch president, mission president, stake president
or what? I still believe local leaders have the authority to receive
revelation regarding such things for their local members.
(karen loftstrom wrote:)
>> I personally don't see why the LDS would want to ban it. It would cut
>> the South Pacific Mormons off from their neighbors and friends, which
>> seems utterly cruel -- or is that the point of it, after all?
I think you could argue this one about alcoholic beverages as well. Heck, I was
cut off from some of my high school chums because I wouldn't 'kegger' with
them.
(jason wrote)
>
>You can purchase kava in Provo at the Albertsons on Center street (at
>least you could last year), and in Milwaukee and Madison, WI as well as
>most major cities in the U.S.
I'm not suprised you can find some kava in Utah (which has one of the largest
Polynesian populations in the US) or in a major metro area. However, I think
you'd have a hard time finding it in the state of Wyoming, or Iowa, for that
matter.
>
>> I did note that a Polynesian fellow was recently pulled over and cited by
>> the police for driving under the influence of Kava here in Salt Lake --
>maybe
>> I better check it out, eh? :)
>
>Now THAT is amazing. Really. What law was he violating, and how did they
>detirmine that he was "under the influence of kava"? I would love to hear
>more about that, or point me in the right direction to research it myself
>(aproximate date, city, etc.).
>
You asked for it :) From the Deseret News web page www.desnews.com, 7/27/96
edition of Deseret News:
The Utah Highway Patrol is reporting an increase in the number of drivers
impaired by the herb Kava.
When consumed in large quantities, the root can create a sense of euphoria and
intoxication which leads to loss of
coordination, sedation and eventually progresses to deep sleep.
Last month, a Salt Lake County man was convicted of driving under the influence
of the herb. The conviction is believed to be
the first of its kind in the state, if not the nation, said UHP Lt. Verdi White
II.
Kava grows in the South Pacific and was originally used by the Polynesian
people as an integral part of certain religious
ceremonies. It is sold locally over-the-counter in health food and grocery
stores.
``Even though you're using substances that are not controlled or illegal, you
can be arrested and prosecuted for driving while
impaired by these substances,'' said trooper Paul Hiatt.
end quote
Basically, if you've impared your driving with any substance such that you are
a danger to others, then you can be arrested. Makes sense to me.
BTW, my search also found a story about how Howard W. Hunter apparently
participated in Kava ceremonies himself, as described in the following excerpt
from a story in the Deseret News on 3/4/95:
...
``Another elaborate ceremony occurred when he was in Samoa in 1974 to organize
a stake.
``Nearly one hundred warriors sat in the line extending on each side of the
prince, who sat at the kava bowl, and about sixty
chiefs sat in the group behind the bowl - nearly all of the high chiefs of the
south part of the island. . . . The ceremony
commenced by the speeches of greeting from the talking chiefs with all the pomp
and splendor of the ancient ceremony. After
the preparation of the kava, it was served to the visiting dignitaries by the
cupbearer. Then came the time for the giving of the
gifts. A procession formed to display the twenty-five fine mats that were given
as well as many other gifts of roast pigs, a cow,
baskets, beads and other things. We were told by some of the people that they
had never seen such an elaborate ceremony
or so many gifts in all of Samoa.''
(end quote)
I wonder what the consumption patterns are for kava in Fiji versus Samoa. Are
there different preparation methods used?
Brad
Jason Roberts
In article <4u5d19$h...@news.cc.utah.edu>, barms...@park.admin.utah.edu
(barmstrong) wrote:
(some old stuff snipped)
> Perhaps you could illustrate how "official" this ban on kava consumption
is in
> Fiji. Is it a mandate by a branch president, mission president, stake
president
> or what? I still believe local leaders have the authority to receive
> revelation regarding such things for their local members.
I agree with that bit about local leaders also. This is not a new issue
however, in fact it has been going on for as long as there have been
Mormons in the Pacific without formal restrictions on kava been recognised
(as far as I know).
Well, my source, a very knowledgeable person on the going-ons of the
Church in the Pacific has expressed to me in very clear terms his desire
to NOT have his name mentioned on the internet. I know that this brings my
whole claim under suspiscion, but I am sure that there are others out
there who can confirm it (this in fact, was part of the original intent of
this thread). In fact, I too would like to know how "official" this ban
is. I was told it was approved by someone in Salt Lake, presumably a G.A.
This whole situation is roughly equivalent to caffine suddenly being made
a part of the WoW for everyone in Oklahoma. That is what makes it so
interesting. In any case, I am no expert on Fiji, so please, someone in
the know, enlighten us. It is entirely possible that I am disseminating
Mormon Legend.
(snip)
> I'm not suprised you can find some kava in Utah (which has one of the largest
> Polynesian populations in the US) or in a major metro area. However, I think
> you'd have a hard time finding it in the state of Wyoming, or Iowa, for that
> matter.
I just asked a Samoan member of my ward if kava was available in Iowa
(they just moved here from Iowa). Apparently it is. I am sure it is not
available in Wyoming. However, I don't think you could get bratwurst there
either.
Micronesians and Melanesians also drink kava, not just Polynesians.
(snip good article, but calling kava an herb? )
> Basically, if you've impared your driving with any substance such that
you are
> a danger to others, then you can be arrested. Makes sense to me.
Me too. Thanks for providing the story. I am going to post it to
soc.culture.pacific-island.
(snip HWH story)
> I wonder what the consumption patterns are for kava in Fiji versus
Samoa. Are
> there different preparation methods used?
I believe kava is prepared basicly the same all over, but the accompaning
ceremony (or lack thereof) differs from country to country. I would
venture a guess that kava-abuse is more of a problem in Fiji than in
Samoa, but I don't know if that was true in 1974. I am glad that HWH
participated in that ceremony, in any case.
> Brad