It sounds too good to believe: a non-addictive herbal beverage that soothes the body, lightens the heart and sharpens the mind, transporting the weary to a refreshing sleep -- all without a prescription.
Not surprisingly, the tropical tonic is making a comeback. And that concerns some health experts.
'Awa -- or kava kava, as it is widely known -- was the mind-altering substance of choice through much of the region from New Guinea to Hawai'i in the days before European contact. The roots of the plant were chewed or pounded, mixed with water and drunk during social, religious and political occasions.
Since the sterile, seedless Piper methysticum (of the black pepper family) cannot reproduce except through cuttings, 'awa is believed to be a centuries-old mutation from a seeded plant that grows wild in New Guinea and Melanesia.
It is one of the so-called "canoe plants" -- like breadfruit, banana and taro -- that were carried from isle to isle by the voyaging Polynesians. Back then there were hundreds of such 'awa types, or cultivars, being grown throughout Polynesia, much like varietal wines in Europe. Botanists and anthropologists have used them to retrace the Polynesian migrations, because each new cultivar signaled the presence of the human hand.
Eventually, the islanders learned how to cultivate just those plants that produced the desired effects. A plant that made people drowsy might be replanted to treat insomnia, for example; a hypnotic one could be used by the kahuna, while the strongest and best would be reserved for the chiefs. In Hawai'i, the brew reserved for the ali'i was Hiwa black.
With the arrival of Western missionaries came a long campaign against 'awa drinking that eventually led to widespread prohibition. Christians did not approve of the traditional preparation: chewing up hunks of the root and spitting the mess into a bowl, mixing it with water, filtering it through leaves and pouring it into a coconut shell before passing it hand to hand, lip to lip.
Nor were the missionaries impressed with 'awa's effects, which made drinkers want to sit around all night talking story until they wobbled away on uncertain legs or fell asleep -- not to mention that they used it to communicate with their heathen gods. By 1850, 'awa possession was illegal in Hawai'i without a doctor's permission. It remained restricted until sometime after Hawai'i became a territory and U.S. laws held sway. By the 1930s, social use by the public had largely disappeared.