The dried roots are pounded and mixed with water to create a mud-coloured liquid. Traditionally this is drunk from coconut shells. You are meant to down your bowl in one go. No sipping or spluttering.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation of Australia say this of yanqona: "a drink for ceremonies and cultural practices. These rituals were said to strengthen ties among groups, reaffirm status and help people communicate with spirits."
This is not entirely true. Many male Pacific islanders use it as a regular social drink - not just in ceremonies and rituals. As Pacific waves burst upon reefs and beaches on dark tropical nights, men sit in grog houses sharing bowls of the depressant liquid. Conversation fades away and utter relaxation follows. Zonked out, worries and urges suppressed, the night progresses. Perhaps a rising moon is reflected on the surface of the ocean as stars twinkle through feathered coconut palms. Under the influence of grog, little seems to matter any more.
Eventually you go home and sleep like a log, waking peacefully in the morning - still ever so slightly affected. Calm and untroubled. No need to get overexcited.
Excessive use of the drug could result in liver damage but yanqona is not addictive and most western Pacific islanders who consume it have their habit under reasonable control. There are much worse things you could do - like drinking tumblers of whisky or voting for Donald Trump.
This blogpost was inspired by John Gray who just yesterday asked visitors to "Going Gently" to refer to inanimate objects that mean a lot to them. For me, the first things that came to mind were the grog bowls that sit on our mantle piece, next to the South African ironwood elephant. I brought those bowls back from Fiji in 1973.
They were given to me by the old men with whom I often shared grog in the palm-roofed hut just behind our house in Motusa on the island of Rotuma. Because I was young, they would sometimes get me pounding the roots with a metal bar, in order to prepare a fresh brew and of course I was happy to do that.
The bowls are beautiful! Do you just keep them as mementos, or occasionally drink from them?
ReplyDeleteIt will hardly surprise you that I had not heard of this particular drink before. Having to down a drink in one go is something I find difficult - where is the enjoyment in that? Or does it taste so badly that the enjoyment only comes afterwards, from the drink's effects?
It is pretty bad. You drink it for the forthcoming narcotic effect not for the taste.
DeleteSounds like a lovely drink. I'm surprised pharmacetuical companies have not pounced on it and sought a patent for it. A drink that has few adverse side effects and makes people feel relaxed. Now I want some.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't taste lovely but you get used to it. You drink it because you want the zonked out feeling it brings.
DeleteI doubt you visited my blog the year I went to Asheville to visit Jessie and Vergil and there was a kava place right next to where I stayed. Every afternoon I would drop by and have a kava. It was a very subtle, mellow feeling. I can imagine that drinking more than one bowl (cup?) of it would deepen the experience. How lovely that you have those bowls to remind you of your even more precious memory.
ReplyDeleteI am going to check that out by looking back through "Bless Our Hearts".
DeleteWonder if that is where groggy comes from. You have had some amazing experiences.
ReplyDeleteWe all have ADDY. It's the assimilation that really matters.
DeleteWhat does the grog taste like YP? I use to know a man who sold bottles of his home brewed bitter for ten Bob a bottle.
ReplyDeleteIt was not very nice. Sometimes it would make you gag.
DeleteToo bad grog was not available for attendees at our Democratic and Republican National Conventions last month.
ReplyDeleteI believe you implicitly when you say you pounded roots when you were young.
To tell you the truth, I suspect that Joe Biden has yanqona for breakfast! He's so chilled out and laid back. Did you also pound roots when you were a lad Bob?
DeleteFiji is on my wish list of places to visit. I always fancied wearing a grass skirt.
ReplyDeleteTraditionally - at least on some of the islands, women danced topless.
DeleteThe South African ironwood elephant appears to have been drinking from the bowls too much and has fallen off the mantle piece.
ReplyDeleteI put them on our coffee table.
DeleteKava is the devil's invention. Lured into by the Eastern promise of peace and calm descending on me I tried it once. ONCE. Same difference. A PG Tip would have had more impact.
ReplyDeleteBeing me, no stone unturned, always trying to get to the bottom of anything, I looked into Kava (liver damage anyone?) and binned the lot. Anyway, I don't need my mind altered. It's my mind and long may it mind. I don't even take sleeping pills, or any pills for that matter.
Before I forget, in the motherland and Scandinavia and Finland GROG has a different meaning. Rum, hot water, brown sugar rocks (they crackle on impact of the hot water before you add the rum). The Nordic seafarer's friend. The friend when you have the sniffling cold of all colds.
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I think that Fijians simply borrowed the term "grog". Naval veterans in Britain often called rum grog.
DeleteMy only knowledge of grog was a naval drink and, in particular, the drink of the Royal Navy until some time in the 1970s. I used to be very keen on Naval Warfare in the time of Nelson. The idea of drinking kava/grog with the effects that you mention is completely anathema to me.
ReplyDeleteI think that the "grog" you are referring to is rum?
DeleteHas some free enter prizer commercialized this product?
ReplyDeleteI believe it is possible to buy dried yanqona but I have never seen it for sale in England. Besides, it wouldn't be the same.
DeleteThose are lovely bowls and the story behind them is very interesting. It sounds like a drink that could give you a good night's sleep!
ReplyDeleteThe only deeper sleep you can have is death!
DeleteWhen I worked in herbal medicine we used to make kava extract, when you buy it extracted into alcohol it's a lot more expensive and all herbal medicine tastes like mud anyway :)
ReplyDeleteIt's good to have such evocative memory triggers: the bowls must trigger all senses? is there any yanqona smell left?
I just sniffed them Kylie. After almost fifty years there's not a trace left behind. I would not have thought that kava and alcohol make a happy couple.
Deleteno, but it's probably only taken a teaspoon at a time
DeleteSo it's not alcohol that makes it a depressant -- it's the plant itself? Or is it fermented? I love the bowls. I have some African olive spoons that are similarly sentimental to me.
ReplyDelete