チャールズ国王、サモア伝統のカバ飲み「高位の首長」に

【アピア（サモア）ＡＦＰ＝時事】英連邦加盟国であるサモアを訪問中の英国のチャールズ国王（７５）は２３日、首都アピアで伝統の飲み物「カバ」を飲む儀式に参加した。チャールズ国王はまた、現地の村の「高位の首長」の称号を授与された。（写真は、サモアの首都アピアのモアタア村で行われた歓迎式典で、「カバ」の入った器を受け取る英国のチャールズ国王）
　チャールズ国王は、彫刻が施された木造建物の上座に着席。酩酊（めいてい）効果のあるカバが、ココナツを半分に割った器に注がれ、振る舞われた。現地では「アバ」と呼ばれている。
　チャールズ国王は「このアバに神の祝福がありますように」とつぶやいてから、容器を口に運んだ。
　チャールズ国王がサモアを訪れるのは初めてだが、現地ではおおむね好意的に捉えられている。
　チャールズ国王と妻のカミラ王妃は儀式が行われた村、モアタアの「トゥイ・タウメアシナ（高位首長の意）」の称号を授与された。
　村の指導者レナタイ・ビクター・タマプア氏はチャールズ国王の訪問を前に「われわれの村を歓迎式典に選んでくれたことを光栄に思う。贈り物として称号を授けたい」とＡＦＰに話していた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/10/24-19:21）

King Charles III took part in a traditional kava-drinking ceremony before a line of bare-chested, heavily tattooed Samoans and was declared a high chief of the one-time Pacific island colony Thursday.
The British monarch is on an 11-day tour of Australia and Samoa, both independent Commonwealth states -- 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 where he was presented with a polished half-coconut filled with a narcotic kava brew.
The peppery, slightly intoxicating root drink is a key part of Pacific culture and is known locally as ava.
The kava roots were paraded around the marquee, prepared by the chief's daughter and filtered through a sieve made of dried bark.
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.
Charles's wife, Queen Camilla sat beside him, fanning herself to ease the stiffing tropical humidity.
- High Chief -
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 visited the village of Moata'a where Charles was made Tui Taumeasina or high chief.
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 raised the issue of climate change and showed the king and queen around 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, and will address a leaders' banquet on Friday.
- Colonialism and climate -
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 56-nation Commonwealth's emissions from fossil fuels.
Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change Ralph Regenvanu called on other nations to join the treaty.
As a Commonwealth family, we look to those that dominate fossil fuel production in the Commonwealth to stop the expansion of fossil fuels in order to protect what we love and hold dear here in the Pacific, he said.
Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong said her gas and mineral-rich nation was working to be cleaner.
We know we have a lot of work to do, and I've been upfront with every partner in the Pacific, she said.
Pacific island nations -- once seen as the embodiment of palm-fringed paradise -- are now among the most climate-threatened areas of the planet.