In 1852 the Wesleyan minister and missionary Richard B. Lyth described how in the Fijian kingdom of Cakaudrove there was a daily rule of absolute silence at sunrise. Then the king’s herald would proclaim that he was about to chew his kava root, whereon all his subjects shouted, ‘Chew it!’ This was followed by a thunderous roar when the ritual was completed. The ruler was the Sun, who gave both life and order to his people. He recreated the universe each day. In fact, most scholars nowadays insist this king wasn’t even a king, but merely the head of a ‘confederacy of chiefdoms’ who ruled over
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