The villages of Malekula are roughly broken into two groups, the Small Nambas and the Large Nambas, and are distinguished by the size of the nambas (penis sheaths) they wear. The degree of kastom tradition varies in each village. Some villages in Vanuatu have returned almost completely to their traditional way of life, dressing as their ancestors have. Others, like the village in Wala Island dress in western clothes and attend Christian church, but will perform their traditional kastom dance for tourists and for special ceremonies in village life. Wala Island hosts large cruise ships once or twice a week and we were lucky to arrive as the only boat in the harbor. We quickly met Rubin and he showed us around the island.
There are 5 different tribes here and each has it own special area. These areas are large open and lined with stones and are used for Kastom dancing and ceremonies. We found that the stones on one side of the clearing are for men and the other side for women. The central spot on each side is the place of honor for chiefs past and present. Each time a villager is born, a stone is added. It is said that the elders can recite several generations by name and the stones are used as proof of membership in a tribe or village.
One area of stones mark the circumcision of the boys at about age 12 when they become men. Again a stone is added at the completion of the ritual for each man. Apparently, the ceremony lasts for several days and is culminated by each boy shooting an arrow into a large ancient banyan tree. The arrows are left as a sign of their manhood. We were honored to see the tree and were told that the cruise ship people were not allowed in this area.
We enjoyed our private tour and had good explanations of the local plants, dances, cultural exhibits and the ceremonies we would see on "Cruise Ship" day. We gave Rubin some rope for the tour and received several vegetables and herbs from his garden. We negotiated a price for the entire Emily Grace crew to join the "Cruise Ship" day festivities for about the same amount each cruise passenger would pay.
The next day, the mammoth cruise ship pulled in and anchored further out than Emily Grace and we saw them shuttle past our home in the small lifeboats snapping photos of the American Yacht. We soon joined the 1000 Australians ashore and enjoyed the day. We saw small kids holding iguanas and parakeets, and much dancing. The men wore little except their penis sheaths and many of the women were topless. While now performed for the cruisers, it is still much like what Captain Cook would have seen in his day. Our advantage is that Cannibalism stopped here around 1987 and we had one less worry!
After a couple of dances by the men, the women did a sitting dance that represented the yam picking season. The yam crop is extremely important to the tribes; this is evidenced by many of the dances dedicated to it as well as the tabu of walking through the forest during yam season.
After the dancing by the men and women, they showed us some kastom magic. Two men layered spade shaped leaves and then holding only the stems on each side they carried a young boy around on the leaves. We were also shown how to start fire the traditional way with two sticks. The man had a small bundle of coconut husks blazing in a few minutes. We saw some archery marksmanship and even Emily had a try at shooting a handmade bow and arrow. Another Vanuatu custom is sand drawings. Many of the women practise this ancient art based on drawings many years old. The trick is to make the entire drawing smoothly without stopping.
It proved to be a nice day and a good way to see a lot of the culture demonstrated and explained clearly.
Tom even managed an invite on to the cruise ship to surf the internet for a couple of hours and to check in with the customs and immigration officials that had come specially to check the cruise ship into Vanuatu.
As on Epi, the villagers on Wala Island commuted each day to the main island to work in their gardens. So each morning and afternoon outriggers would paddle to and from the island. They would stop by to say hello and we would occasionally trade for fruits and vegetables. We stayed one more day after the cruise ship left and then headed less than 5 miles north to Vao Island. Stay with us Dear reader to see why that became one of our favorite stops in Vanuatu.
Tom
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