August-September 2005 – VANUATU

At the end of August it took us just 24 hours to sail to the Southern most Island of Tanna, part the many islands of Vanuatu, which used to be jointly owned between England and France, until they gained their independence in 1980.  All the islands are volcanic in origin, and are densely cloaked in tropical forests, many with steaming vents and volcanic activity.  The volcanic activity is caused by the deep trench between the two continental plates which we sailed across.  The Eastern side of the trench is slipping below the western Australian plate, and has to let off steam every so often, causing the volcanoes and islands.   The Vanuatans look the same as the ‘kanacs’ as they came from the same islands in Indonesia thousands of years ago.   Thank goodness we speak French, as many of the members of the same village choose to send their children either to the French speaking school or the English one.  The French speaking Vanuatans were actually easier to understand than those that speak English.  Some of the villages are so separated from each other by mountains or volcanoes that they speak totally different languages, if they visited their neighbours, they were killed and eaten!  Therefore 102 languages have developed.  Once they were colonised however, and transport allowed better accessibility, pigeon English was introduced to enable them to communicate amongst themselves and their new colonisers.  It took us ages to get to grips with the way they speak this pigeon style of English, especially as the accent sounded so foreign!  Where the ‘kanacs’ of New Cal had aluminium fishing boats, the indigenous people here only have dugouts as their form of transport.  We’re greeted by a young man in a dugout at every island we visit.  Thankfully we don’t have swarms of them around us, and they only approach us and come alongside if we invite them.  Friendly people abound in these islands.  It was wonderful to be invited to take part at a Birthday party for one of the families we became friendly with on Tanna.  They have a supply ship with which they can trade copra for basic foodstuffs so few times a year, and sometimes only once, that the yachts visiting can trade clothes and food with them in exchange for fruit and vegetables.   We never had this contact with the locals in New Caledonia, they did not need to trade with us, so therefore had no need to approach us.

The Mnt Yasur volcano visit was finally arranged on a non-rainy evening.  We took a ride in a 4WD rather than walk the 15 kms through the jungle from our Port Resolution anchorage.  Three vents take it in turns to spit out showers of molten rock and smoke.  When the biggest one blows there’s an ear splitting explosion.  The earth trembles and a fountain of fiery magma soars skywards above the rim we’re sitting on.  At night, glowing boulders as big as trucks somersault back down into what looks like the embers of a vast campfire.  Then, we hear a great ‘gasp’ as of indrawn breath, followed by an almighty bang and great lumps of red hot magma shoot upwards in a dense writhing column.  I just hoped that none of those huge rocks were going to land on our head.  We’d stumbled past some of them on our way up to the rim, and no helmet would have protected us from those giant blocks of stone!

The ‘Kastom’ village of Yakel has a spindly old chief who looks all of the 110 years he is proud to carry.  The tourists are encouraged to visit, as a means for them to earn money, but it feels rather strange being an onlooker to the only people who now wear grass skirts and penis shields on the islands.  Mostly the villagers are dressed in old clothes given to them by passing yachts or those they can buy when they manage to travel into the main town for just a few Vatus.  It’s the missionaries who have encouraged clothing amongst these people, which I feel is a mistake, as they look like poor people dressed in rags rather than proud people as these villagers did who don’t have to worry about washing and replacing worn clothes!    A massive banyan trees surround the dancing area, with a tree house built high up in its ancient branches, where the boys are kept in seclusion after circumcision.  Soon the ground shakes as about 30 male dancers form a tight circle and rhythmically stamp their feet.  Off to one side, the women skip and whirl around while singing in harmony.  Deep chanting fills the air.  Dust hangs in a white mist at waist level; I imagine we’ve stepped back into the distant past.  We missed the land-diving on Pentecost Island, but saw plenty of photos, of which one is printed at the end.  These people are the originators of the now popular ‘bungy jumping’ only they land on softened ground on their heads, with their feet tied up with springy lianas, which grow in the trees during the month of May and June.

Split gong ‘tam-tams’ calling the dancers    

High Chiefs of the Village in their penis shields

The island of Ambryn has two volcanoes, where the magic is very strong.  It has a traditional ceremony called the Rom dance which combines grade-taking elements and magic.  It takes place every August, followed by a pig kill.

The Rom costume consists of a tall, conical, brightly painted banana-fibre mask with a face resembling a witch or a baboon and a thick cloak of banana leaves that conceals the wearer’s body.  As the Rom dancer represents a spirit, each costume is burned after the dance in case any of the spirit’s power remains, otherwise the spirit will take it over and haunt or impersonate the dancer.  It’s tabu to see a Rom costume being made, so we felt lucky to be able to witness these powerful artefacts in situe surrounded by the huge 6m tall slit-gongs called tam tams.  These have humanoid faces, elongated with huge disk-like eyes representing ancestral figures. Despite having missed the event, a friend’s photos of the event helped bring it to life, although the costumed dancers were now wearing shorts and t-shirts as they showed us around.  The group of islands north of the Vanuatun chain of islands called the ‘Banks Group’ offered us a wonderful welcome.  They have fewer yachts visiting them, and are just so grateful to be able to trade with us.  We had saved most of our second hand clothing and ‘give-away’ stuff for these islanders, and were not disappointed when we received coconut crab, crayfish and freshwater prawns in return, as well as large hands of delicious bananas, mangoes and pineapple, as well as the usual papaw, tomatoes, beans and spring onions.

Grooms family on their way to the wedding                                    

                 Exchange of money at Wedding Ceremony

Claude and George, French friends on their boat Cariad, had been sailing with us since we left New Zealand, and were making friends fast as she is a Medical Doctor, and able to offer her services to the villagers.  We were all invited to a wedding in the original missionary village of Ambek on Vanua Lava.  This was a ‘Kastom’ ceremony where 40 notes of 1,000 Vatus ($10) are handed over to the bride’s family by the groom’s family, presented in split bamboo sticks.  After a long lecture given by an elder to the young betrothed telling them to behave themselves, grow plenty fruit and vegetables and have enough to provide for their family and friends,  we were included in the dancing, kicking up the dust around the ‘tam-tam’ and offered some good food afterwards.  Nobody gave them wedding presents, other than ourselves – they were quite amazed at our tradition!

These independent islanders have to pay for their children’s education.  Other than selling copra to the trading boat that calls on them once a year, their only other form of income is from tourists paying to see traditional dancing.  We welcomed the opportunity of enjoying these dances at several islands, but often they would rather have clothes, and not the money.  It seems that only about 30% of the children are schooled enough to be able to read and write, the rest just live their traditional life-style, growing vegetables and fishing, making houses out of bamboo for the walls and palm leaf for the roof and weaving mats for flooring.  They are all happy people, the children specially are always laughing and giggling, and they don’t even have any toys to play with! But it’s a hard, physical life.  We met a Vanuatun man who had been educated at Theology College in Auckland, New Zealand. He was translating the goings on at the wedding we attended.   He’s divorced he’s first wife, caring for 2 of her children and living with another woman who is pregnant by him, due in 1 month’s time.  He had chosen to come back and live on his own land and have the traditional life-style, despite his education, and exposure to ‘civilisation’.  Many people do, they realise that their life is not that bad after all!

Lenakel Market, Tanna with  Mandarins galore

           Masked Rom Dancer

Soren Larsen in backgrnd

Champagne Beach, Espirito Santo

             Trading fruit and veg for clothes

Pentecost land diver