Fiji: The Kava Ceremony and the Culture Behind the Postcard
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The Fiji that most visitors see — resorts, white sand, turquoise water — is real and genuinely beautiful. The Fiji that most visitors don't see is more interesting. The 330 islands of the archipelago contain iTaukei Fijian, Indo-Fijian, Rotuman, and Chinese communities with distinct cultures that have coexisted in varying degrees of tension and harmony since Indian labourers were brought by British colonists to work sugar plantations in the 19th century. The result is a country whose cultural complexity is invisible from a beach chair.
Kava — yaqona in Fijian — is the ceremonial and social drink that lubricates almost every significant interaction in traditional Fijian life. Made from the powdered root of the pepper plant, mixed with water and strained through cloth, it produces a mild numbing of the lips and tongue and a calm, clear-headed relaxation that is quite distinct from alcohol. Village ceremonies require kava. Arriving at a traditional village without a sevusevu — a gift of kava root — is a social error. Presenting it correctly, with appropriate words and posture, opens every door.
Firewalking in Fiji is practised by the Sawau people of Beqa Island, who walk across heated stones without injury in a ceremony that is genuinely, measurably extraordinary. The explanation offered by the practitioners is spiritual preparation. The explanation offered by scientists has not been fully satisfactory. The firewalking happens. The feet are not burned. The mystery remains.
