Noni Juice

The early Polynesians sailed from South East Asia into the wide ocean that was to become their home carrying plants. This huge migration took place around 2000 years ago. And on every new canoe came the plants the settlers would need for food and medicine.

Noni was one. In fact, some accounts relate that of the dozen most common medicinal plants they carried, noni was the second in popularity! No wonder noni juice distributors today report booming interest in noni juice.

Ancient uses of noni juice

Noni juice and other products of the noni plant were used as herbal remedies to treat a range of common diseases and to maintain good health among the new settlers and their communities. The Polynesians used all of the noni plant, particulary for medicine and for dying their cloth.

There are records of noni roots, stems, bark, leaves, flowers, and noni fruit used in a suite of 40 known herbal medicines. As well, noni roots were used to make a yellow-red dye used on tapa cloth and mats.

Noni juice in myth

Noni juice also features in Polynesian folk stories. Their hero’s and heroines ate noni and drank noni juice to survive famine.

For example, the story of Kamapua’a, the pig god, who loved Pele, the volcano goddess, features noni juice. He mocked Pele with a song, “I have spied the woman gathering noni/scratching noni/beating noni.” This verse is thought to be a referrence to Pele’s eyes becoming red. She became so anoyed that she launched into battle with him.

A Tongan story tells of the god Maui being brought back to life after noni leaves were placed on him.

Noni carried in migrations

A thousand years ago Hawai’i Loa lead his tribe to the island group that eventually took his hame. On that great migration he carried the things his people would require to settle in the new islands. It is said he took 27 specific plants, the so-called ‘canoe plants’. Fourteen were for food. They included coconut, breadfruit and taro. The rest were for wood, tapa cloth and healing. Of the carefully chosen healing plants one was noni la’au. And noni la’au has been part of tradtional Hawai’ian healing resources since.

Noni juice and Captain Cook

The extrodinary British naval Pacific explorer and seaman, Captain James Cook, sailed to Tahiti in the late 1700s and found noni juice was drunk and the noni fruit was eaten there.

Other Western records of noni juice

A book published in London in 1866 recorded that the Morinda citrifolia fruit was eaten in Fiji.

Later publications describe the use of this fruit as a food throughout the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, Australia, and India.

In Roratonga noni juice and the noni fruit was often used by the Cook Islanders. Australian Aborigines were seen to be fond of the nonit. In Samoa, noni juice and noni fruit was often used.

Modern researchers interested in noni juice

In more recent times, in 1943, Morinda citrifolia was clasdified as edible in a technical manual of edible and poisonous plants of the Pacific Islands.

It is apparent from the regional medical histories, recent Western studies, and anecdotal reports from leading noni juice distributors that Polynesian peoples asserted a significant health benefit from noni juice and the noni plant. We are becomieng aware that the medical knowledge of these ocena-bound people was complex and often effective. For this reason, modern scientific and medical researchers are studying the plants they first pioneered the use of.