Pava

Pava, the man at whose house the first ʻava (kava) was drunk; his small son, slain and cut in two for disturbing the rite, was restored to life by the ʻava-libation — the charter-myth of the ʻava ceremony and the rule that none may move during it. The divine celebrant of the myth is Tagaloa-ʻUi (the first high chief), a figure distinct from the supreme creator Tagaloa authored here; Pava and his unnamed son therefore have no in-batch kin — see SOLITARY flag. Documented by Stair and Turner (secondary).

Domains

• origin of the ava ceremony
• ritual precedent and taboo

Powers

• Host the first drinking of the ʻava, the precedent of the ʻava ceremony

Sources

• J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, or Flotsam and Jetsam from the Pacific Ocean (1897), the ʻava-origin tradition
• G. Turner, Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before (1884)
• J. B. Stair, Old Samoa (1897): Pava, his slain-and-restored son, and the charter of the ʻava ceremony