Port Resolution, Tanna - in pics

Kokamo's Pacifc Meanderings
Tom and Rachel
Sun 1 Aug 2010 06:49
Here are a few pictures from our initial visit to the Island of Tanna. We had an amazing few days with the incredibly welcoming and friendly families in the village of Port Resolution, close to the anchorage on the Eastern side of the island. We were extremely lucky as the timing of our visit coincided with a huge ceremony to celebrate the circumcision of four young boys. After being circumcised the boys, who were about 7 or 8, go into the bush for a month to live away from their families and learn to become men.  They're accompanied by an older teenage boy who helps look after them and as I understood it food parcels were smuggled out to them but they weren't allowed to see their Mums.  The celebration we were present for was to welcome them home so there was great excitement and as you can imagine lots of tears from the mothers! 
 
We also managed to fit in a trip to Mount Yasur, Tanna's volcano.  Where else in the world can you stand on the crater rim of a magnificent, and violently active volcano watching huge lumps of molten rock being flug high into the air without any kind of barrier or health and saftey warning to get in the way.   
 
 
Smoking Mount Yassur in the as seen from the boat.  
 
 
Proper fireworks.  Our night time visit to the volcano was truely awesome, if a little frightenning. The noise of the explosions and the feel of the heat on your face were extraordinary.  Watching the boulders of lava crash down on the opposite side of the crater we really hoped the wind wouldn't change direction.  
 
 
 
 
Back in Port Resolution and preparations for the celebrations were well underway with huge teams of women making enormous piles of 'laplap', a special dish of taro, yam or manioc mixed with coconut milk and baked, wrapped up in leaves, into a kind of cake.  For this special occasion the laplap was filled with chicken or pork - tasty! 
 
 
 
Even the kids were working hard - here they are making plantain puree, which will also be made into laplap.
 
 
 
The celebration began early in the morning with huge piles of gifts being assembled in the Nakamal.  These were exchanged between the families of the four boys and brough by visitors and other family members from neighbouring villages.  The piles contained masses of food - lots of yams and taro, then mats and cloths and baskets.  Massive kava roots were carried in next, followed by pigs, goats and even a couple of cows, which were duely dispatched. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The women and the girls were all wearing fantastic costumes  - beautiful grass skirts which had been specially painted in bright colours and feathers in their hair - and yes, there seemed to be a lot of tinsel! Everyone was pretty excited as the party was almost about to begin.
 
 
 
The boys arrive in a procession of men, being shielded from view, they can't quite say hello to their mums yet.
 
 
 
The boys with their mentor are given breakfast and all the women are finally allowed to greet them, giving gifts of food and treats of biscuits. I had made a cake for them so I was allowed to join the line up.  
 
 
 
The women forming the outer circle of a traditional custom dance.
 
 
 
Charles with his Mum Leah and some of the family. 
 
...And that was just the morning.  The evening celebrations carried all night.  Tom joined the men for some kava and was looking a little odd and sounding rather unlike himself by the time the women were allowed back to join in. I spent the afternoon with Leah and her eldest daughter Jacobeth who cooked and enormous laplap specially for us. Once enough kava had been consumed everyone put their costumes back on and the dancing started. By this time many more people had arrived in the village and as the night went on the circle of dancers in the centre of the Nakamal got bigger and bigger.