King Charles becomes Samoan ‘high chief’ and drinks narcotic kava at welcoming ceremony

King Charles III has taken part in a traditional kava-drinking ceremony before a line of bare-chested, heavily tattooed Samoans and been declared a “high chief” of his Pacific island realm.

The British monarch is on an 11-day tour of Australia and Samoa, independent nations where he is still head of state – the first major foreign trip since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year.

Wearing a white safari-style suit, the 75-year-old king sat at the head of a carved timber longhouse on Thursday where he was presented with a polished half-coconut filled with a mildly narcotic kava brew.

The peppery, slightly intoxicating root drink is a key part of Pacific culture and is known locally as “ava”. Australia’s former deputy prime minister was hospitalised after mistakenly drinking too much of a local brew at a similar ceremony in Micronesia in 2022.

On Thursday, the kava roots were paraded around the marquee, prepared by the chief’s daughter and filtered through a sieve made of the dried bark of a fau tree.

Once ready, a Samoan man screamed as he decanted the drink, which was finally presented to the king.

Charles uttered the words: “May God bless this ava” before lifting it to his lips. The ceremony concluded with claps.

Charles’s wife, Queen Camilla sat beside him, fanning herself to ease the stifling tropical humidity.

Many Samoans are excited to host the king – his first-ever visit to the Pacific Island nation that was once a British colony.

The royal couple later visited the village of Moata’a where Charles was made “Tui Taumeasina” or high chief.

According to local legend, the area around Moata’a is where the coconut originated.

“Everyone has taken to our heart and is looking forward to welcoming the king,” local chief Lenatai Victor Tamapua told AFP ahead of the visit.

“We feel honoured that he has chosen to be welcomed here in our village. So as a gift, we would like to bestow him a title.”

Tamapua also planned to raise the issue of climate change with the king and queen and show them the local mangroves.

“The high tides is just chewing away on our reef and where the mangroves are,” he told AFP, adding that food sources and communities were being washed away or inundated.

“Our community relies on the mangrove area for mud crab and fishes, but since, the tide has risen over the past 20 years by about two or three metres (up to 10 feet).”

The king is also in Samoa for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting which is taking place in Apia.

The legacy of empire looms large at the meeting.

Commonwealth leaders will select a new secretary-general nominated from an African country – in line with regional rotations of the position.

All three likely candidates have called publicly for reparations for slavery and colonialism.

One of the three, Joshua Setipa from Lesotho, told AFP that the resolution could include non-traditional forms of payment such as climate financing.

“We can find a solution that will begin to address some injustices of the past and put them in the context happening around us today,” he said.

Climate change features heavily on the agenda.

Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Fiji have backed calls for a “fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty” – essentially calling for Australia, Britain and Canada to do more to lower emissions.

Pacific leaders argue the trio of “big countries” have historically accounted for over 60 percent of the Commonwealth’s emissions from fossil fuels.