Micronesian & Melanesian Medicine

Traditional healing across Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Micronesia developed independently on each island group, connected by shared Pacific seafaring history and, in many places, the ceremonial use of kava.

Healing is typically a community practice rather than an individual one, performed within village structures and often accompanying kava ceremony, which carries both social and medicinal significance across the region.

Village healers continue to use kava, morinda (noni), breadfruit leaves, and reef-edge plants today, with healing knowledge still transmitted primarily through community and family lines rather than formal institutions.