A Fijian Welcome

The conference began, fittingly, with the traditional Fijian Welcome Ceremony or Sevusevu, in honour of our President, Peter Fox. In Fiji it is the custom for visitors to a village to present a gift to the chief and request permission to enter the village. The gift always contains some yaqona (also commonly known as kava), which is the dried root of a plant of the pepper family. The root is pounded to a powder and then mixed with water to make a drink which looks like muddy water and has mildly narcotic properties. It tastes slightly earthy and peppery but not unpleasant, and leaves a slight numbness on the lips and tongue.

For our ceremony, woven mats were placed on the floor, and on them was placed the tanoa, a large wooden bowl with legs, which contained the prepared yaqona. The President was invited into the area and sat down. Short speeches of welcome and acceptance were made by our Fijian host, Revd Jimione Kaci, and the President’s spokesman Revd Jolame Sedra. The speeches normally contain expressions of thanks and mutual respect and end with the chant ‘mana, e dina, a muduo’ which, when translated, means ‘true, indeed, words of wisdom’.

As the person of highest rank, the President then received the first bowl of yaqona. The drink is served in a cup made from half a coconut shell and should be drained in one swallow, when it is pronounced ‘maca’ (empty). Other people present at the ceremony join in a ritual handclap before and after the drink is served.

In a village setting, the yaqona would then be offered to everyone else, in order of importance. But our ceremony ended there, and the rest of us were invited to try it later in a less formal context.

Edward Williams and Sala Kaci