Customs, Cults and Canoes
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Sat 1 Sep 2007 06:58
19:31.493S 169:29.762E
Having stayed almost two months longer than we originally planned we have
finally managed to drag ourselves away from the simple pleasures
of cruising in Fiji. We have visited some wonderful spots over
the last couple of years but the sheer white sand and blue
sea beauty of these islands combined with the wonderfully friendly locals
made it a tough place to sail away from. Neptune
clearly thought we had been having too much fun and made the three day
passage across to Vanuatu a miserable, wet, bumpy trip. We
left Lautoka in perfect conditions sailing towards a beautiful
sunset but sadly it did not last. At around midnight the full moon
disappeared behind a bank of clouds......it was the last we saw of
it! After all that flat water sailing inside protecting
reefs it was a bit of a shock to be back out on the ocean and soon, with the
wind rising, an uncomfortable and confused sea developed.
We spent the next few days wondering why on earth we had left!
Fortunately, the mind is quick to forget these discomforts and having
anchored safely in Port Resolution on the island of Tanna all it took was a
decent breakfast and a good sleep before we were again looking forward to the
excitement of a new country. First job was to check in with Customs and
Immigration which would normally involve hitching a lift for two hours on the
back of a pickup truck on unsurfaced roads across to the main town.
However, we were in luck and, as there were a couple of other boats wanting to
check out, the Customs men made their way over from the other side of
the island to see us. They arrived only 24 hours later than expected which
by local standards is apparently pretty good. This meant we got to
complete all the tiresome bureaucracy in the pleasant surroundings of Port
Resolution Yacht Club (see photo below). It is not the most formal
establishment in the yachting world and it is described in the local guide as
"just a grass hut with a flag pole in front" but it must be right up there
amongst the nicest!
I think from the little we have seen so far, Vanuatu is going to be an
interesting place to visit. Much of it is still very
traditionally Melanesian (penis sheaths and pig tusks through the
nose) while Port Vila about 120 miles north of here is an regular Aussie
holiday destination complete with modern hotels and casinos. The 83
islands are home to an extraordinary 115 different indigenous languages
along with the more widely spoken English, French and Pidgin. Two thirds
of the population are still illiterate but while impossible to measure,
they may well be a lot more content than much of the "educated" population
of the world. This is despite a colonial history that is almost
unbelievable in the "cock ups" (sorry, I really can't think of a better way
to put it) imposed on these far away islands with a national story
that swings between the comic and the tragic. The population
fell from around half a million at the time of the first European contact down
to around 40,000 by the 1920s. The French and the Brits decided
to share The New Hebrides as it was then called, so set up two
independent governments governing the same country at same time (I'm not
making this up!). It was called "The Condominium" and the result
was pandemonium which surprisingly and chaotically survived until
1980.
Christian Missionaries of various denominations were responsible for
"civilising" much of the Pacific (mainly by stopping them eating each other) and
in much of Polynesia Christianity is now almost universal. Here in
Vanuatu however, much of the population viewed the religion introduced
by white men with some scepticism and since WWII there have, in some
areas, been mass conversions away from Christianity. Some of these
people have returned to "traditional" religions but many
more have adopted an unlikely range of local cults. One quarter
of the population of Tanna are adherents of the Jon Frum cult who believe
that one day their saviour will come from overseas bringing material
wealth in abundance for all. Even more bizarre are the inhabitants of
one village on the island who actually worship Prince Phillip (I am
not making this up either!). This seems to stem from a visit he made to
the island in 1974 and believers are convinced that Prince
Phillip originally came from Tanna in another form and one day will return
to rule over them.
As you can tell, this does not seem to be a country that is entirely in
step with the rest of the world and will I'm sure throw up many surprises during
our stay. Here is just a little vignette to finish. We were visited
early this morning by a local fisherman in his outrigger canoe. We sat
chatting and after a while he kindly gave us a papaya for our
breakfast and I in turn gave him some large fishhooks (always supposedly
popular in these subsistence communities). I then complemented him on his
fine canoe (pictured below) which he told me had taken two weeks to
carve from the trunk of a breadfruit tree and he asked if I had
built our yacht (I think he was serious). Finally before he
paddled away he rather stumped me by asking if we had
any good DVDs he could borrow!?!
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