August 6th and 7th we attended yet another festival at Southwest Bay on the SW corner of Malekula. These are the smol namba people. They had custom dancing and demonstrations of skills and they explained the meaning of their ceremonies. When asked, they tried to explain why they practiced cannibalism up until 1979. Their version is that they were hungry and they liked the taste. However, the taste of white men flesh they liked not so much.
After the festival we took the dinghy up a river to a huge lagoon where we saw unusual birds, the usual birds and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet after a busy day. Life is good!
Wednesday, the 7th, was a perfect day, if there ever was one. I, Lynne, took the 2 bird ID books that I have for Vanuatu and New Caledonia and shared them with the local men. (Apparently only men are allowed to know about birds.) What a joy! They used their bush knives/machetes to tap on the pictures of the birds in the book and then pointed with the tip of the knife to the trees where the birds live. They knew the calls, which fruits they ate and when, and off which tree. They are very, very keen observers, lacking only the knowledge of the English names. If we heard a bird they could look it up and put the voice with the picture in the book. Just amazing! From Barry: We had more custom (kastom) dances and a pig killing ceremony. The kastom (hereditary) chiefs can have many status levels. To go up a step, they have a pig killing ceremony. This is the time of year for those ceremonies so we were able to observe one. A dancer with a spear stabbed a medium-sized pig which, thankfully, died in seconds. In respect to the pig, they took some of its blood and smeared it on the end of an oblong head stone, which was placed especially for that pig. So if you are wondering around Vanuatu and you run across a collection of small headstones with blood, now you know what they are for. The pig was quickly and deftly butchered into large sections, which were laid out on banana leaves. Each section of pig was joined with a selection of large yams, manioc and taro roots. Each pile was presented to an elder or dancer, we are not sure which. To achieve high rank, a chief must give away much wealth, by being able to raise or buy many pigs and have a large, productive garden. During a fire starting demonstration by rubbing a stick on a branch, they constructed a pile of branches for a fire. They seared the meat and burned the skin of the pig in the fire then used knives to scrape off the burned skin and hair. They also used their knives to quickly cut the skin off the taro roots, leaving a nice clean root for cooking.
Both days we had a huge lunch of local foods, plus meat and some white man's food (noodles, sweet breads made with white flour and things that looked like crepes). We visited their village, which was built on a steep hillside. It was very picturesque, the cleanest and prettiest. We saw fascinating construction and innovative civil engineering. There are 2 waterfalls with bamboo water pipes and troughs and pools and showers for bathing. One waterfall is for the women and one is for the men. You are not to go in the wrong one! After the village tour, we were free to snorkel their Marine Protected Area. Nice fish. The day ended with another romantic lagoon exploration and meeting nice locals who gave us 2 papayas from their garden. They were John and Flora in their dugout outrigger and were returning to their village after getting food from their lagoon side garden. Flora is 3 months pregnant. They are not married because John does not yet have the necessary cash to pay the bride price. He has no pigs. That's not relevant because he can use money. The 2 papayas were all the food they had with them. We returned their very generous gift by inviting them aboard, giving them gifts for their expected baby and showing them the photo album that Vince made. The poor album is really falling apart now from so much use.
We moved to a new anchorage farther north on the west coast of Malekula and which is supposed to have about the best reefs for snorkeling in Vanuatu. Sure enough, the reefs are spectacular, resplendent with hard and soft coral, reef creatures and abundant fish including some large ones. There's not a soul out here, just Barry and I and Rubber Ducky. A fine day, indeed. It is now 6:30 pm and pitch dark. The only light is starlight -no moon, no flashlights and not even a fire on shore. Again, we are struck by how much peace and beauty we give up for our lights and screens.
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