Vanuatu voodoo
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 15 Sep 2010 12:39
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Wednesday 15 September
As I told you in my previous blog we met Robert
Koran yesterday and we have been invited to his family home tonight to have our
dinner.
Robert and his family are from Ambrym. His Great
Grandfather is 103 and is still alive and is a village chief on Ambrym. Due
to the great grandfathers' age however, Roberts grandfather Johnson
Koran is the acting chief. In due course Roberts father Wilfred
will be the chief too.
We have been invited to the grandfather's village
to visit him and we will get there on Friday. We hope he will guide us
through the rich traditions and culture of the islands.
We have already heard and read much of the magic
powers of many things in Vanuatu and in fact I have been offered a special
concoction which I can bury on my business premises to make it prosper. I am
guessing it must be a wad of cheap and plentiful money!
We have heard how nobody can harvest a yam on
an island unless a certain spiritual man says so, lest the volcano will erupt or
a great storm will come. We have also heard of the cultural traditions relating
to rites of passage ceremonies.
When boys reach puberty they are circumcised
and moved into a separate bungalow for one month, where he can have no contact
with women whatsoever. During this month many men will visit the boy, soon
to be young man, imparting much knowledge and wisdom and teaching the boy of the
many things he needs to know about life and love and being a man. After
this month is up he exits the isolation house and a "rom" dance (not to be
confused with "romance") is held. He can contact women again and of course the
Kava is drunk and a night of celebration goes on.
Right next to Robert's home, at a village up a dirt
track, about twenty minutes from town, while we ate the splendid feast
prepared for us by his family tonight, there was such a celebration going
on at the next house. However before arriving at the house we were taken to
some Kava drinking houses, called Nakamal, where the seriously powerful,
and probably halucinigenic Kava, is imbibed. This is something quite
different from the Kava in Fiji and Tonga. Perhaps it is no wonder that Vanuatu
has been voted two times running as the happiest place on the planet!
For women when menstuation begins, they are also
isolated for the period of their menstruation and have no contact with men. Also
they are not allowed to cook - just to rest and have everything prepared for
them by other members of the family. This goes on all through their lives
until menstruation ends.
There are many more beliefs and traditions in the
rich and varied culture that is Vanuatu, but
the strange thing is that this is all juxtapositioned and intertwined with
christianity which most people also practice.
This afternoon we stocked up on a few items from
the port Vila market which amazingly is open 24/7 and we loaded up with
materials to gift to a school in Ambrym which we were told we should
visit.
This is going to be a very interesting
trip!
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