Psychoactive substances of the South Seas: betel, kava and pituri.

Before Western contact, Indigenous peoples of the South Pacific used three major psychoactive plants: betel in Melanesia, kava in Polynesia, and pituri in Australia. Each was widely used in rituals, traded extensively, and valued for reducing tension or inducing altered states of consciousness, with potential for intoxication. The author, drawing on personal observation, reviews their traditional and likely future use, pharmacological and clinical properties, and cultural context. While these substances are unlikely to be adopted by Western drug enthusiasts as enthusiastically as coca, cannabis, opium, or tobacco, some Western use remains possible.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Before white man brought his alcohol to the South Pacific, the indigenes were using many wild plants possessing psychoactive properties. The most prominent were betel in much of Melanesia, kava in much of Polynesia, and pituri in much of Australia. The use of each of these three drugs was widespread, institutionalised as a ritual and the occasion for extensive trade. Each was valued for its effect in reducing tension or in producing altered states of consciousness. Each was also capable of inducing intoxication. Since few physicians nowadays have had my opportunity to observe the use of all three of these substances, their main features are recalled here. Attention is paid to their traditional use and probable future use, to their pharmacological and clinical properties, and to their place in the zeitgeist of people and period. There is no indication that these substances will be espoused by the drug enthusiasts of the West as avidly as other ethno-psychopharmacological agents such as Peruvian coca leaf, the Indian hemp, the Asian poppy, or the American tobacco. The possibility, however, of some use in the West cannot be discounted.