Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu [1 ed.] 9781845459390, 9781845455996

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Person and Place

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

SERIES: Person, Space and Memory in the Contemporary Pacific Volume 1 Experiencing New Worlds Jürg Wassmann and Katharina Stockhaus

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Volume 2 Person and Place Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu Sabine C. Hess

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

Person and Place Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

Copyright © 2009. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Sabine C. Hess

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

Published in 2009 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2009 Sabine C. Hess All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2009. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84545-599-6 (hardback)

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

55996_Hess_ppii-cmh3.indd 1

6/22/09 9:31:23 AM

Contents

vi vii viii ix xi xiii

Introduction 1 Sociality: Ideas, Ideals and Practice 2 Person 3 Life Cycles 4 Being in Place 5 Talking about Place 6 Church and kastom: An Old Couple

1 15 42 67 105 138 156

Conclusion Bibliography Appendices Index

193 201 213 233

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List of illustrations List of Figures, Maps and Tables List of Abbreviations Preface Acknowledgements Maps

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

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List of Illustrations

0.1 Eli Field Malau, Joana, Hilton, Armstrong, Preden, Iudicas, 1999 4 0.2 Author’s first recording, 1999 5 0.3 Working with Eli Field, 1999 7 3.1 Meat distribution 75 3.2 Distribution of food: taro, meat parcels and rice by village 76 3.3 Further distribution of food by household 76 3.4 Preparing löt 79 3.5 Bridewealth at kastom wedding: Kali, Nesta and their son Gavin 92 3.6 Anglican wedding of Webster and Bridley 95 3.7 Mourning for Mary-Etel 98 3.8 Mourner with fasting ropes 102 4.1 Joana harvesting taro 114 4.2 Tan vônô, the canoe of vênê¼ ta Lo 121 4.3 John Elizabeth Kökör, Footprint of Wovol 131 5.1 Eli’s blackboard 152 6.1 Anglican baptising through a local priest 158 6.2 SDA baptising through a South African priest 158 6.3 Mt Geret, Gaua 171 6.4 Women chiefs Romol and Marie-Claude, and their secretary Ellison, Qake, 2003 179 7.1 Dance of Qet, traditional masks 197 7.2 Dance of Qet, modern mask made and worn by a local man who now lives in Port Vila 198 8.1 Cathy Doris Lekel 215 8.2 Roy Wutot Lemegev Kipe 219

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Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

List of Figures, Maps and Tables

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 4.1 5.1 6.1

Kin terms for male ego Kin terms for female ego The sösögö relationship The wotwot relationship ‘The end of the bone’ gölö siri Layard’s diagram of moieties as alternating sides Dispute setting The journey of the soul (Qelbe 1999)

19 19 25 26 32 123 140 167

Maps 1 2

Vanuatu Vanua Lava

xiii xiv

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Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

Today’s existing vênê¼ in the ‘two sides of the house’ Marriages between vênê¼ in Vêtuboso Avoidance terms Food avoidance during pregnancy Bridewealth Sequence of kastom activities at death Seasonal calendar (Caillon and Field 2002) Land titles Non-human powers Terms for persons and their extensions Places of the dead Island Council of Chiefs on Vanua Lava Village fines

vii

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

22 23 31 72 93 100 111 124 162 163 170 175 177

List of Abbreviations

B brother C child D daughter e elder F father fs female speaking H husband M mother ms male speaking S son W wife y younger Z sister ANU Australian National University SDA Seventh Day Adventist VCC Vanuatu Cultural Centre VCHSS Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Site Survey VNCW Vanuatu National Council of Women

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A note on layout Three languages occur in this book: English, Vurës and Bislama. Words in the local vernacular Vurës are printed in bold italics. For words in Bislama, the nation wide spoken creole, the font Helvetica Condensed is used.

viii

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Preface

This book – the second volume in the series Person, Space and Memory – responds to the plea for ‘precise local studies whereby the local is understood as the realm of experience where different influences meet’ (Wassmann and Stockhaus 2007). It is an anthropological in-depth study of people living on the West coast of Vanua Lava, Vanuatu. By looking at ‘what happens at the local level’ rich ethnographic detail about people’s everyday life provides the basis for engaging in a wider theoretical discussion that seeks to speak to current debates about personhood, agency, place and memory in relation to tradition and change. Interest in the relationships between personhood and place has a long history in Pacific studies. This volume draws upon existing bodies of work on ‘place’ and ‘person’ in Melanesia, but brings them together in a new way. Although there have been studies exploring this link, in anthropological literature on Vanuatu, ‘place’ has mostly been discussed in relation to colonial history, political economy and effects of the national economy rather than in relation to concepts of the person, as has been done by researchers working in Papua New Guinea and other regions of the Pacific.1 Personhood in Melanesia has been theorised using concepts of dividuality, individuality, partibility and degrees of permeability and autonomy. This research examines whether Marilyn Strathern’s argument – that for ‘Melanesian persons’ the distinction between ‘individual’ and ‘society’ is not relevant – holds for present-day Vanua Lavan persons. Given that Vanua Lavans have engaged with Western forms of individualism, this research examines changes and continuities that relate to what can be seen as three different kinds of individualism: Christian individualism, the psychological idea of an individual ‘core’ and the capitalist notion of possessive individualism. Engagement with Christian individualism, with a singular person’s relationship with God, presupposes a moral ‘core self’ that makes a person responsible for their own actions. While Vanua Lavans are familiar with concepts like ‘sin’ and understand personal responsibility, there are still occasions where the cause of one’s actions lies outside one’s own body. Also, the resting places of the dead according to Christianity, paradise and hell, are imagined to have a place on Vanua Lava, just like the traditional ones.

1. However, see for example works of Larcom (1980), Rubinstein (1978) and Bonnemaison (1997). ix

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x

Preface

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Capitalist notions of possessive individualism are starting to be visible in disputes about land and in oratory concerning the ‘buying of women’, especially with the growing influence of Bislama, which has only one word, pem, for a multitude of different kinds of transactions. Ownership, custodianship and user rights are carefully distinguished – even the different uses, for example, of a coconut (to eat, to drink, to plant, to give) require different possessive markers in the local language Vurës. Other Western practices that affect local understandings of a flexible contextualised relationality are, for example, writing, bureaucratic leadership, feminism, romantic love and more permanent ideas of identity, such as ‘criminal’. None of these, so far, has seriously undercut local understandings of personhood. Vanua Lavan personhood contains elements of embedded and autonomous aspects and retains these despite historical transformations. Western individualism has not triumphed over indigenous dividuality but both aspects of personhood have strengthened over time. Furthermore, the notion of dividuality can be extended from its application to ‘person’ to understandings about ‘place’. In the Melanesian context it has been argued that a (dividual) person is almost unthinkable without a place. Therefore, places too have to be understood as dividuals, which has important implications for how place(s) is thought and talked about, in particular with regard to questions of land ownership. Both concepts, person and place, are considered in detail in their specific local history, taking account of Vanua Lavans’ ongoing engagement with modernity. This book provides a snapshot of contemporary notions of personhood and a ‘Melanesian modernity’ in flux, where discontinuities and continuities compete, merge, co-exist and are moderated by local agency and a cultural logic that might itself be changing.

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

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Acknowledgements

Becoming an anthropologist, conducting fieldwork and writing this book feels in many ways like having been awarded three lives: one in Heidelberg, Germany, one in Canberra, Australia, and one on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu. My gratitude extends to all people in my three lives who helped me along the way. This book, and the preceding Ph.D. thesis, was made possible thanks to an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, an Australian National University (ANU) Ph.D. Scholarship, and the financial assistance of the Department of Anthropology in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS) of The Australian National University. In particular I would like to thank my supervisors Alan Rumsey and Margaret Jolly and my advisors Darrell Tryon and Mark Mosko for their support and guidance. Thanks is also due to numerous researchers, staff and students in Australia – too many to name in person. Robert Tonkinson first supported my dream of conducting fieldwork in Vanuatu when he was visiting the Institut für Ethnologie in Heidelberg in 1998. He as well as Mary Patteson, Geoffrey White and especially Lamont Lindstrom provided valuable and insightful comments and suggestions for this book. In Germany I would like to thank Jürg Wassmann for his encouragement and support to undertake anthropological research and for welcoming me back to the department in 2006. In preparation for fieldwork and the topic of place I would like to thank the ‘space girls’. My parents and friends in Heidelberg have continuously looked after me, sent me parcels with German chocolate and offered consolation when I suffered from homesickness. In my third life, in Vanuatu, I would especially like to thank my Vanua Lavan parents Eli Field Malau Vutvut and Joana Rô Sôrôr Söm; my brothers, Kali, Hilton, Armstrong, Preden, Iudicas; and my sisters, Webster and Freda. Especially my adopted father, and fieldworker of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Eli Field did not tire to help me with my work and my general well-being. Without his support, dedication and knowledge this book would not have been possible. I am indebted also to my extended family and indeed to the people of Vêtuboso, Vatrata, Wosag and Qakê for offering their hospitality and support. I would like to make special mention of Kate Ruth Gëksigle, who is also a fieldworker of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC), and other main interlocutors, Cathy Doris Lekel, John-Elizabeth Kökör, Roy Wutot Lemegev Kipe, Hosea Waras, Emely Rêli ¾veg Qiat, Doran Rörösôq and xi

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xii

Acknowledgements

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Noris Meneg Qiat. In Vêtuboso I have worked closely with the French agronomist Sophie Caillon and the Australian linguist Catriona Malau, then Hyslop. Finally, I would like to thank Ralph Regenvanu and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre for granting me a research permit and invaluable information of how things are done in Vanuatu. The VCC provide an excellent network for all researchers working in Vanuatu: email access, an excellent library, and audio and photo copying facilities.

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Maps

Vanuatu

xiii

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Maps

Vanua Lava

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xiv

Introduction

This book, based on eighteen months of fieldwork on Vanua Lava, is concerned with contemporary notions of personhood and the relationship between persons and places.1 A detailed study of every-day practices provides insight into people’s engagement with modernity, and also as to how they relate to the past, make sense of the present and anticipate the future. While this book is about the people of Vanua Lava, it is through the author’s eyes that the reader will get to know them. Therefore, I shall start with what has become a classic feature in anthropological writing: the arrival story.

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Arrival story I first discovered Vanuatu on the map in 1990, when travelling on a roundthe-world ticket. Having come from Germany all the way to New Zealand, I was contemplating which way to get back to Europe. Vanuatu looked an interesting place to visit but the trip did not happen for various reasons. Back then, I had no idea what anthropology was, or that it even existed. Having arrived back in Heidelberg, Germany (via India), I studied English literature and later Anthropology (Ethnologie). The region was brought to my attention again by the newly appointed head of the Department, Jürg Wassmann, and the Institute’s subsequent specialisation in Oceania. It was in this context that I met Bob Tonkinson who encouraged my vague dreams of doing research in Vanuatu. In October 1999, with an MA under my belt, I made my way to Port Vila to assess my options. People at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre assisted me in choosing possible field-sites and directed me to one of their longstanding fieldworkers, Eli Field Malau on Vanua Lava. Having sent a radio message, which no one had heard, I finally arrived, literally out of the blue, on Eli Field’s doorstep. During this first trip I only stayed for about four weeks with him and his family. He and the chiefs invited me to come back and do ‘proper research’ if I could find the funding. On my way back I came to Canberra and established contact at the ANU with Alan Rumsey, whom I had also first met in Heidelberg, and Margaret Jolly. In March 2001 I moved to Canberra and started my PhD at the Dept of Anthropology, RSPAS, with both of them as my supervisors. 1  Sections of this book, in particular from chapter two and six, have been published in Hess (2006). 1

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2

Introduction

During those first six months I prepared for my fieldwork. I read anthropological literature relevant to my topic: ‘person and place’. However, especially the literature on Vanuatu, where discussion about kastom2 and the reinvention of tradition looms large, created certain expectations in me as to what I might find and what I hoped to achieve in the field, which I believe should be made explicit here. Lissant Bolton, in her recent book Unfolding the Moon, describes her fieldwork as ‘participant engagement’ rather than participant observation because she had the expressed objective of making changes (Bolton 2003b: xv). While I had no explicit intention of making changes I was well aware that my presence, my conversations and my actions might well do so. Reflecting on those conversations and actions, I have to admit to a project that other anthropologists may be able to relate to. I wanted to find their kastom to be a success. I hoped that the people I would encounter were aware or would become aware of the potential of their kastom, that they would value their way of life and rest assured that they did not need always to look for answers outside. These hopes showed in my conversations with people about my ‘world’ (about money, homeless people, drugs, terrorism, etc.). No doubt influenced by existing literature about Vanuatu, I also believed that ni-Vanuatu (and Melanesians in general) have a healthy mixture of adaptability and resistance. They would give new things a try, incorporate them if found to be useful and compatible with local beliefs and values, or reject them if not. In other words, I believed in people’s embodied agency, which I imagined to have a ‘self-healing’ quality – a strategy to manage cultural change. I had heard this being discussed as the ‘Melanesian way’. The Papua New Guinean politician Narokobi defines the ‘Melanesian Way’ as ‘a total cosmic vision of life in which every event within human consciousness has its personal, communal, spiritual, economic, political and social dimensions. It is, by its very nature, inherently open to change’ (Narokobi 1980). Notably, I only found this quote after I had done my fieldwork. Within this framework I also wanted to explore problems and disjunctures, but I imagined them to be only temporary: ‘my field-site’ could not be the scene of a ‘failed culture’.3 While I was vaguely aware of my predispositions during the fieldwork they surfaced to a greater extent during the writing process. I had to decide who my audience was. There were the academics (supervisors and 2  The term kastom comes from the English custom. In the past it referred to niVanuatu tradition before contact with Europeans and in contrast to their way of life. Today, its meaning has expanded to encompass past and present ways of life, including arts, politics, religion, and law. The concept of kastom and its shifting meanings is discussed through out this book and especially in chapter six. 3  I use the term ‘failed culture’ parallel to the term ‘failed state’, which has recently been applied to Papua New Guinea.

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Introduction

3

examiners), people on Vanua Lava and people in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. I also felt committed to what I have come to call ‘Eli’s project’. Eli indicated that he wants me to write ‘a handbook of Vanua Lavan kastom’, a kind of ‘kastom-bible’, a reference book that will help him and others look up, remember and decide on the right way to do specific kastom-tasks. So that finally, as he put it, he can ‘retire’. Eli, who had adopted me as his daughter, is a fieldworker of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, and also a kastom chief. In all our conversations, but also in his overall public role, his personal agenda was promoting kastom. Everything we discussed came with a lesson on how things ‘are’, ‘were’ or ‘should be’ according to kastom. There was a strong tendency on his side to create a functionalist vision of kastom, where every part has its place and all adds up to a coherent whole. The Vanuatu Cultural Centre, I was made to understand (although not in the words I use here), values books that contain factual descriptions, rather than interpretations that no one can read, understand, let alone put to a practical use. Eli Field and others who may read this book may find my theorising distracting, wishing for a more essentialist ‘guide book’. Fischer notes: As the former subjects of colonial and neo-colonial governments seek to recover and assert their ethnic distinctiveness, they quite naturally turn to those elements that are perceived as being most authentic, the apparent essence of their culture. […]

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Nothing quite tests the limits of one’s commitment to deessentializing multivocality as a native’s critique of one’s work (1999: 473ff)

I hope that this book is readable by a more general audience, and that it represents the people of Vanua Lava in a way they can relate to (as the ‘book’ will surely make its way back there). This work is aimed to contribute to an understanding of cultural change in anthropological theory in general, and in contemporary Vanuatu specifically.

The field This book is based on three fieldtrips of a total of 18 months to Vanuatu in the years 1999/2000, 2001/2002 and 2003/2004. The village Vêtuboso on the West Coast of Vanua Lava, Banks Islands, has about 6104 inhabitants and is the largest village on the island, which has a total population of about 1,933.5 The island is the largest of the Banks group (28 x 19.5km, 331 km2). The main language of communication in the village is Vurës, 4  My census, March 2002. 5  Unpublished information of the National Statistics Office based on the 1999 Vanuatu National Population and Housing Census.

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4

Introduction

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Photo 0.1: Eli Field Malau, Joana, Hilton, Armstrong, Preden, Iudicas, 1999

followed by Bislama. English and French are taught in the island’s schools. Other languages spoken on the island are Vera’a and Mosina.6 Mwotlap is spoken on the eastern side of the island, where there are many people from the island of Mota Lava, who work mostly for the provincial government in Sola. Although without road, telephone connection or electricity, Vêtuboso is the biggest settlement on the island. Shipping is infrequent, arriving every six to eight weeks. People live mainly as subsistence farmers (except the school teachers and nurse). Their main cash crop is copra, and to a lesser extent kava. Money is used to cover school fees and basic needs such as soap, kerosene, salt, and so on, as well as for traditional transactions such as bridewealth payments. Vêtuboso is known for its irrigated taro, which is the major staple food. On Vanua Lava taro assumes the high traditional position yams do on other islands of Vanuatu: no festivity, be it kastom or church-related, is thinkable without taro. The island’s largest denomination is Anglican (90 per cent), followed by Seventh Day Adventists (4 per cent), and various others. Vêtuboso has an English language primary school covering grade one to six. Year seven has also been offered since 2001. Before 1945 the village was situated by the coast, on what is now called Vureas Bay. Apparently the Melanesian Mission had chosen the site because in the past it was a popular battleground for rivalling groups. Due to a large landslide cause by an earthquake people 6  Lemerig is on the verge of extinction with about three speakers left.

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Introduction

5

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Photo 0.2: Author’s first recording, 1999

moved to today’s area. The houses are arranged in a large circle around an open grass area, with the Anglican Church and the community hall7 in the centre. Residence patterns in the main village are mixed, but most often patrivirilocal. In outer settlements residency is exclusively patrivirilocal. Most people seem to have two houses, one in the village and one further away, on their plantation or in their garden. A word should be said about my research situation. On my initial visit to Vêtuboso I was adopted by Eli Field, an experienced fieldworker of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, as discussed above. This made me part of the same vênê¼ as my mother, Joana, qö¾ (night). Having been an only child up to then, I suddenly found myself with two sisters and five brothers as my closest family. In the beginning I was treated as a white guest. Nobody expected me to help with chores, and it took a while to overcome this legacy of colonial times: white people can’t work. My family was very caring, at first to the point of over-protection, which would have kept me away from events I wanted to attend. For example, one day an old woman died in the neighbouring village, Vatrata, about one hour’s walk away. Arrangements were made for my mother to stay at home and keep me company while everybody else went to the funeral. I had to argue that attending events like this was part of my work. Eli Field, who knew a lot about anthropology already, had thought more about my physical wellbeing 7  This hall is the former church building.

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6

Introduction

as a guest and daughter than as a researcher. I managed to attend the funeral and subsequent events. During my first three months on Vanua Lava I lived with my family in a little village about ten minutes walk from the main village. During this time my family built me a house to sleep and work in, as well as a cooking house in the main village. These were situated next to the house of my father’s sister, who is married to my mother’s brother. At first nobody expected me to live there by myself as I was seen as incapable of looking after myself. Villagers inquired whether I would employ a house girl, buy a gas stove, and have screen windows put in. Eventually people understood that I wanted to live ‘black man style’. Initially there were concerns about my safety, because local unmarried girls do not usually live by themselves. In this respect it was an advantage to be white; a real daughter could not have insisted on this point. Even though I lived on my own, my relatives always had an eye on me to make sure I had enough food, firewood, and so on. Villagers often commented with ‘oh sorry’ that I had to do all the housework myself, but my family was quite proud that I could do it. Having a base in the village meant that I was closer to more kinds of action and that people could drop by my house more freely to chat rather than make their way to the village of my family. While I was staying in the community two other researchers decided to work there. Catriona Hyslop, an Australian linguist, is writing a grammar book on Vurës; Sophie Callion, a French agronomist, works on biodiversity of taro and coconuts. Both of them were also adopted. While Sophie came for two short intensive three-week periods, Catriona was there during my last four months in the field. Eli’s roles as fieldworker and father, and mine as researcher and daughter proved to be a challenge throughout my stay, because on Vanua Lava ideas of kinship, relatedness and social classification permeate all aspects of everyday life. Who one talks to, jokes with or how one behaves towards another person is in accordance with classificatory kin relations. The same rules of behaviour apply, for example, if a person is one’s biological father, father by clan membership, or by adoption – a restriction I sometimes painfully felt because as an anthropologist I wanted to ask questions of everyone. The nature of the questions a daughter may ask her father, a situation which I found myself in with Eli Field, is limited. Arguing that while we worked on specific topics our kinship relation should be put aside was not acceptable. A Western-style working relationship or the notion of friendship cannot eclipse rules of behaviour set by kinship. According to the traditional kinship rules I could approach women and maternal uncles (MB, MMB) for certain types of information, which I subsequently did. Three of my MMBs became key informants. However, these traditional patterns of behaviour did not prevent one of my uncle’s wives from becoming jealous. A meeting was held to discuss the matter and officially everything was fine again; but my informant stayed away. Fortunately he could write quite well so we corresponded. Eli supported

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Introduction

7

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the correspondence as he appreciated my work, but, when I had been told a restricted story he was so angry that he threatened to withdraw from the research if I continued to pursue this kind of knowledge. After this incident he deliberately used his position as a kastom chief to ensure that people would consult him first about what to tell me – a situation I was not happy with, but could not do much about. Eli as fieldworker and father was caught in the middle between the Western practice of accumulating and public sharing of knowledge in a scholarly fashion, and his deeply internalised practice of secrecy and selective sharing of knowledge along kinship lines. At the same time I was torn between wanting to know everything and wanting to learn the rules for behaviour and become culturally competent. This situation proved to be annoying, inhibiting and often painful for both of us. Both of us had to navigate through value systems with increasingly fuzzy edges as we made our way towards understanding the other person’s approach. The whole year we continually worked with this tension between the two knowledge systems. Eli came to understand that I had no interest in exposing individuals’ behaviour or secrets and learned to talk about people’s behaviour in a more abstract way. I also changed and sometimes became so enculturated to people’s restricted forms of knowledge transmission that on one occasion when a Canadian journalist asked Eli about secret men’s business in my presence I felt ashamed and pretended not to have

Photo 0.3: Working with Eli Field, 1999

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

8

Introduction

heard the question. Eli’s comment at the end of my stay, I think, sums up both, the pain and the achievement in our researcher/kin relationship: ‘We had a good hard time’. When I first arrived and told people that I was interested in learning about their culture, everyday life as well as kastom people nodded, seeming to understand. The fact that I was staying with Eli, kastom chief and fieldworker, quickly shifted the emphasis to the more formalised aspects of kastom, leaving the everyday part out of the equation. Upon the completion of my house I was even given a kastom name: Ro bogereg es ta vônôlav, which means ‘woman nurturing the life of Vanua Lava’. My interest in everyday life activities made me attend many church activities as well. Events, such as weddings and funerals have kastom as well as church elements. Going to all these events that were always connected with feasts and sometimes with entertainment also earned me the name of ‘Sarah lafet’, which roughly translates as ‘party girl’. Also, people commented that they thought I came to record kastom, but now I really seem to be more interested in ‘church’. Their wish to assign me to one ‘side’ or another proved to be a recurring theme throughout my research.

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Thinking about person and place It was a ni-Vanuatu’s question, ‘Sabine, Germany how many islands?’ that first triggered my interest in the relationship between person and place. Her question made me wonder how people’s understanding of places is influenced by their own environment and experience. Looking at anthropological literature on place and person suggests that there is a large difference between Western and Melanesian perceptions of place (Hirsch 1995; Feld and Basso 1996; Fox 1997). In the Melanesian context landscape is talked about as cultural process rather than as a framed timeless picture (Hirsch 1995). The Melanesian literature on place is internally diverse with a strong regional representation of Papua New Guinea. Place in Vanuatu is mainly viewed in relation to questions of identity, kinship and movement within the larger contexts of politics of kastom, colonial struggles or economic development (Rodman 1987; Bonnemaison 1994; Jolly 1994; Bolton 1999). The literature on place in the Papua New Guinean context more often incorporates discussion of notions of personhood (e.g. Schieffelin 1976; Kahn 1996; Strathern & Stewart 2000). Although anthropological literature on Vanuatu acknowledges the importance of place, the relationship with person is implied but not explored to the extent that it has been for other areas in Oceania. If, as Marilyn Strathern argues, Melanesians are dividual and the distinction of individual versus society is not a relevant one, what implication has this for the relationship between person and place? Can place also be described as dividual? Has there been a change in the understanding of personhood and place due to engagement with modernity?

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Introduction

9

With over 150 years of European contact this seems likely. LiPuma (2000: xii) argues that change through modernity might be visible through new roads, Western money, physical presence of missions, and so on, but more interesting and more pervasive is the transformation of people’s categories of knowledge and the structure of desire. Bronwen Douglas (1998: 2) notes that ‘Christian concepts of the individual as a moral agent in personal communion with God, appropriated and indigenised by Melanesians, are the earliest and still the most pervasive “Western” versions of the person encountered in Melanesia’. In what ways have Christian concepts of individualism and individualistic ideas of ownership, in the form of a Lockean possessive individualism, affected people’s categories of knowledge? What has changed notably in the recent past are ideas about kastom. In Vanuatu, and elsewhere in Melanesia, people talk about kastom, referring primarily to a ‘customary’ or ‘traditional’ way of life that existed before European contact. However, as Foster notes, the ‘gloss of “custom” is a paradox, a claim about historical continuity expressed in a creolised form that bespeaks historical change’ (1995: 1). On a national level kastom became a highly politicised concept in the search for identity at the time of independence in 1980 (Tonkinson 1982b). The term kastom is used mainly in contrast to church (jos) and school (skul), but also in contrast to Western models of jurisdiction (kot) and political leadership – it is seen as offering an alternative. More recently, though, the discourse has shifted to a position where in some contexts kastom and church are said to be the same or sem mak nomo. Kastom is no longer a description of past practices and beliefs, but has become a way to act in the present and think about the future (Curtis 2002). The VCC has actively promoted kastom and shaped the scope of its meaning. Bolton notes that at first women were practically denied kastom; only men were seen as bearers of it (Bolton 2003b). The VCC’s activities and her own engagement to promote and record women’s knowledge about mat weaving and dying changed this. Today nobody doubts that women have kastom too. The guiding principles in the VCC research policy state that ‘Kastom embodies and expresses the knowledge, practices and relationships of the people of Vanuatu and encompasses and distinguishes the many different cultures of Vanuatu. The people of Vanuatu recognise the importance of knowing, preserving and developing their kastom and history’ (Vanuatu Cultural Centre 2005: 1). Kastom, as these quotes show, is one of the defining features of local, and national, identity. Place is equally important to people’s identity, although more at a local level than a national one (Rodman 1987; Bonnemaison 1994; Jolly 1994; Bolton 1999;). If kastom embodies and expresses relationships between people, and their identity is grounded in place, then we have a triangular relationship between person, place and kastom. If one of them changes, how are the others affected? Could a change in the meaning of the category kastom imply that the understanding of person or place has changed too?

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Introduction

Kastom is a category that is important to consider in order to understand the changes in other categories like person and place. Looking at local understandings of person and place through a variety of topics such as kinship, contemporary practice of life-cycle rituals, engagement with places, oratorical strategies in meetings, ideas about the journey of the soul, and issues around leadership will allow a present-day view on continuity and change of knowledge, categories and practices and their respective engagement with each other.

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Selected notes on history Before launching into contemporary life on Vanua Lava I would like to remark briefly on the historic background and context in which Vanua Lavans find themselves.8 Before European contact Vanua Lava was the hub for trading traditional shell money from Rowa, to the north of Vanua Lava, to islands further south such as Gaua and Espiritu Santo (Huffman 1996: 182). People were actively engaged in everyday subsistence as well as in ritual activity, mainly the suqe and the tamate (male-only graded and secret societies, which continued well into the Mission period). There also seems to have been a way for women to achieve high status, called tavine motar (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 110). In the 1820s through to about 1860 European contact was made mostly through whalers, who introduced diseases and firearms, amongst other things. Through introduced illnesses and blackbirding the population declined sharply. In 1910, sixty years after contact, a British resident estimated that there were roughly 2,000 people in Vanua Lava (Speiser and Stephenson 1990: 33). One can only speculate by how much the population had been decimated by then. Traders and men in search of sandalwood came in the 1840’s. During those years missionary contact and influence was negligible. The sandalwood trade, described by Shineberg (1967, 1999), from 1830 to 1865 seems to have been concentrated mostly in the southern islands of the New Hebrides and so seems to have bypassed Vanua Lava. Whiteman (1980) describes the corrupting effect that the contact with whalers, bˆeche-de-mere collectors and sandalwood traders had on some islanders, but he also notes that the exposure was unequal. Still, there seems to have been a steady stream of whalers, traders, other fortune seekers and even anthropologists. For example, we know that the Russian anthropologist Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay spent seven days on Vanua Lava in 1879. He had followed the trading vessel Sadie F Caller (Ballard and Govor 2008). The very substantial ethnographic descriptions of Vanua Lava and surrounding islands by the missionary and anthropologist R.H. Codrington rest on his visits to the Melanesian Mission in the years 1863 to 1887. 8  For a concise overview of Vanuatu history see, for example, MacClancy (2002). For detailed information on political history see Van Trese (1995).

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Introduction

11

The famous anthropologist W.H.R. Rivers travelled to Vanua Lava in 1907–1908. He published one of the most detailed early accounts of social organisation of the area, and even mentions the village Vatrata in his chapters about the Banks islands (Rivers 1914a). Another anthropologist, Felix Speiser, who travelled around the New Hebrides between May 1910 and July 1912 also visited Vanua Lava. His book Ethnology of Vanuatu (Speiser and Stephenson 1990) was originally published in German in 1923.9 The northern parts of the New Hebrides were missionised by the Melanesian Mission from 1847 onwards. The Anglican Church established headquarters on the island of Mota. The size of the island and its population as well as the one language spoken there made it easier for the Mission.10 Vanua Lava and Mota were first touched by Bishop Selwyn in 1857. Montgomery mentions three main places of Anglican activity on Vanua Lava: Port Patterson, Pek and Vureas (Montgomery 1904: 81). He himself visited Vanua Lava twice. In his book The Light of Melanesia from 1896 Montgomery mentions 8 schools, 351 baptised, 134 scholars, 568 attending services, 520 heathens for Vanua Lava (Montgomery 1904: 74). He also laments the substantial loss of potential Christians though the labour trade. Selwyn and Patterson convinced a local boy, George Sarawia, to come with them and train as a priest. Sarawia later wrote his own account on his thoughts, motives and transformations (Sarawia n.d.). He became one of the most successful Melanesian priests in the Banks islands. In 1869 George Sarawia established the first Christian Settlement on Mota, calling it Kohimarama (Whiteman 1980: 227). This may well have been the first ‘village’ – with a church in the middle – as we know it today throughout Vanuatu. While the Anglican Church was tolerant towards local customs in the beginning, they soon changed their views. They did not want their newly converted Anglicans not to attend church for three months at a time while being secluded for suqe rites. The turn of the century brought increasing economic activities and other competing Missions to the area. This led the Melanesian Mission to change their approach. They were now seeking to establish missionaries as permanent residents, introduce women’s work, organise an educational system and also develop a medical outreach throughout the Mission. In 1931 English was chosen over Mota as language of instruction in the schools; but Mota continued to be the language of instruction in the theological college until the mid 1950s (Whiteman 1980: 306).

9  The original title was Ethnographische Materialien aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln. 10  Montgomery writes: ‘Perhaps nothing will show the difficulty of mission work in an island such as Vanua Lava so much as the fact that in this small space … there are sixteen dialects, many of them very different from each other. Such difficulties help to understand why a large island holds out longer against the work of the Mission’ (1904: 80–81).

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12

Introduction

The Anglo-French Condominium was established in December 1907 and lasted until 1980. During this time both British and French planters and traders were present on Vanua Lava. On the west side, until today, the school in Sanla¾ (Vêtuboso) teaches in English, the school in Vatrata teaches in French. The secondary school in Arep teaches in English; for French secondary education children have to travel to Mota Lava. A theological college was established on the east side of Vanua Lava in Port Patteson. During this time there was also a road (and a truck) between Vureas Bay (where the copra dock was), the village Vêtuboso and Vatrata. Today this road is overgrown and transport of copra is done by manpower only. On the eastern side of the island, today’s seat of the TORBA provincial government, the road runs from a few kilometres north of the airport to just beyond Mosina, a total of about 10 kilometres. The catastrophic fall in copra prices in 1925 from £22 per ton to £3 per ton (MacClancy 2002: 97) may have contributed to the exit of many European planters, even before land was returned to traditional owners after independence. During the Second World War a large number of American soldiers were stationed on Espiritu Santo. Their presence brought a different kind of ‘white man’ to people’s attention; one that they perceived as a kinder and more generous one. In terms of remembered history, natural disasters loom large in people’s memory. For the two communities of Vêtuboso and Vatrata two natural disasters, an earthquake in 1945 and a cyclone in 1972, remain present in their memory until today. The earthquake and subsequent landslide in 1945 caused both villages to relocate from the coast to higher ground. The cyclone in 1972 is remembered by eyewitnesses as destroying large areas of primary forest as well as gardens. The French and British government supplied food to the area for some months after the disaster. It is difficult to assess how much has changed locally since independence in practical terms. The provincial government, schools and hospitals are now all state run. Copra production is organised by cooperatives and traders are mostly of Chinese decent. They service the area infrequently, with ships arriving once every six weeks or sometimes even only every six months. The churches, Anglican and SDA, still provide some education, like kindergarten and Sunday schools. Contact with outsiders is now mainly through researchers, tourists and aid workers, rather than planters and government officials. So, while people’s knowledge and engagement with the outside world has steadily increased and effected some change, there was also, and still is, a strong move towards the preservation and revival of kastom. Since independence this move was probably the most important in terms of the emergence of people’s national identity and selfesteem. Today, Vanua Lavans find themselves in a situation that is at the same time traditional and modern. People’s beliefs, reflections and agency arising out of this particular historic situation are the subject of this book.

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Introduction

13

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The chapters In chapter one I will outline ideal rules and actual practices of kinship and other forms of sociality. Kin terms and avoidance terms are an important aspect of people’s expression of relationality, and adoption and friendship extend this relationality beyond blood. On a daily basis, relationships are managed by appropriate ways of showing respect, avoiding, or joking towards the same ‘side’ or the other ‘side’ – in other words, by keeping the right distance, according to kin classification. At a village level, larger work groups are formed for task-related projects. These function through a mixture of kinship, religious alliances, residence patterns and membership in political parties or church groups. Chapter two is dedicated to different aspects of Vanua Lavan personhood. Although notions of the person are visible throughout the book, this chapter seeks to draw together different strands that are often discussed separately, such as: does the theoretical distinction between the Melanesian dividual person and the Western individual hold in Vanua Lava? In what way can a person be described as partible or permeable? What does body language and habitus with respect to place tell us about concepts of the person? When is someone perceived to be a ‘good’ person? What role do emotions play in people’s relationship with each other and with place? What effect does people’s continuing engagement with Western ‘individualism’ have on their understanding of personhood? How does this affect their relationship with place? Chapter three deals with life-cycle rituals. What can the events that mark birth, marriage and death reveal about personhood and place? In what ways are local practices influenced by modernity (births attended by trained nurses, Christian weddings)? To what extent does this engagement with modernity change understandings of person and place? For example, what effect does the existence of money have on these rituals? Has paying bridewealth become a commodity transaction? Where do exchange rituals stand now in the gift versus commodity debate? What role does food play in rituals as well as in everyday exchanges? How do life-cycle events ground a person in a larger context of plural persons and places? Chapter four looks at ways of being in place. What is considered the right way of moving in different places? How do people engage with place on a daily basis? How do people talk about qualitatively different places such as gardens, bush, inhabited areas and sacred places? What are the relevant categories and naming patterns? How are rights to land, access or ownership acquired and passed on? How flexible or rigid is the system of land transmission in a society that seeks to accommodate everybody? What can be learnt about values, oral histories and mnemonic strategies from sacred places or places of cultural or historic significance? How is knowledge about them restricted, transmitted and used? How does knowledge about place affect personhood? In chapter five I analyse in detail one particular land dispute meeting. Dispute meetings in Vanuatu mediate not only between two parties, but

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14

Introduction

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also between values of ‘Western’ justice and customary values of peace and unity. The meeting also touches upon competing doctrines of kastom and church. People have to argue convincingly that their claim to the land in question is stronger than that of their opponent. What oratorical strategies are used in disputes about place in a specific context? What makes an authoritative statement? Chapter six explores the concept of person and place in the negotiating process between kastom and church. Why are kastom and church sometimes said to be the same and other times different? What aspects do people think about when they say this? How have Christian ideas about individual salvation and life after death engaged with kastom beliefs? Is there one soul, or maybe two? Where do people imagine heaven and hell to be? Where will the dead go? Does this depend on their level of commitment to Christianity? Will they be eternally separated from their ancestors, kin, affines and their place? To what extent have notions about the Christian ‘individual’ as a responsible moral being affected peoples’ understanding about their own agency? Another way to explore the relationship between kastom and church in relation to person and place is to look at their respective leaders. What makes these persons kastom and/or church leaders? What ‘symbols of authority’ do they use? How are they organised? Why are the Melanesian Brothers so effective in mediating conflict? Is the Christian notion of the ‘individual’ and Western possessive individualism effecting a change in the person and place nexus?

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• Chapter 1 •

Sociality: Ideas, Ideals and Practice

In the beginning there was matriliny

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The mythological beginning of humans on the Banks Islands lies with the local god Qet who lived with his mother and eleven brothers in the village of Alo Sepere (Codrington 1969 [1891]).1 Stories of how life began vary across the region but they all explain how the first humans relate to each other. In other words, they start with kinship. Interestingly, life in the Banks Islands started with a basic building block of matriliny – Qet and his mother – already in place. As for the beginning of humans, Codrington collected three somewhat different accounts. In the first account, translated from Mota, written by a native of Vanua Lava, Deacon Edward Wogale, Qet ‘began to make things, men, pigs, trees, rocks, as the fancy took him’ (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 156). Here, no explanation is offered as to how he made them. In the second story, told at Lakona, Gaua, Qet created humans thus: Qat cut wood of dracæna-trees into shape; he formed legs, arms, trunks, heads, and added ears and eyes; then he fitted part to part, and six days he worked about it. … he danced to them … he beat the drum … he beguiled them into life … Then he divided them, setting each male by himself and giving him a female, and he called the two husband and wife. (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 157) In the third version, told on Mota, Qet created man from the red clay from the marshy riverside at Vanua Lava. The first woman was Iro Vilgale. Qat took rods and rings of supple twigs and fashioned her as they make the tall hats for the qatu, binding on the rings to the rods, and covering all over with the spathes of sago-palms: hence her name from vil to bind, and gale to deceive. (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 158)

1  Codrington and others use the Mota spelling ‘Qat’, but in Vurës it is Qet. According to Ivens the name of Qet’s mother is ‘Kwat goro som’ – som being the word for shell money (Ivens 1931: 163). The brothers are named after leaves of trees; see Appendix A. 15

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The three versions differ with respect to the manner of creation and material used. The first version establishes Qet’s omnipotent powers of creation. The second perhaps merges Christian elements and kastom motives, although it is not possible to assign certain elements to one or the other definitively, as they could have been coincidentally the same to begin with. Bearing in mind that Codrington’s informant was a converted Christian it is conceivable that his representation of kastom story is compatible with Christian narratives of beginning. For example, he describes six days of creation but instills life through drums and dancing. Each man is given one wife. Christian preference for monogamy is perhaps evident in this example. In the third version the first woman is associated with deceptive qualities, just like the Christian Eve, whose deceptive qualities are seen as the reason for today’s hardships. There is also evidence, though, that indigenous narratives construct women as evil, and as the source of adultery (Jolly 2003b). Also notable is the difference in materials used to create each of the sexes. These vary from unknown substances to trees, to clay for men and plant material for women. The more permanent materials, trees and clay, are associated with men. This resonates with contemporary findings that men are regarded as rooted and more connected to a particular place, like trees or stones, and women are seen as more mobile, like canoes and branches of nanggalat (Bonnemaison 1994; Bolton 1999). The two crucial points to bear in mind from these stories are the institutionalisation of matriliny and the possible early, seemingly unproblematic, incorporation of Christianity. Now, here is another account of creation that was given to me, also relevant to the emergence of kinship: Qet lived with his mother and eleven brothers. One day he persuaded his youngest, slightly female-looking brother to go fishing. He ordered the rainbow fish beraw (Acanthurus lineatus) to cut off his penis, and replaced it with shells. The breasts were also made from shells. He then presented this first woman to his eleven brothers. She gave birth to eleven girls, who were subsequently married by their fathers, his brothers; and so the population started. When there were enough people Qet divided them. He made everybody go into a large house when it was raining. But because the roof was not completed it rained down the middle. Thus the people were divided into two groups or ‘two sides of a house’ (Roy Kipe, 05.05.2002).2

While the creation stories recorded by Codrington account for matrilineal reckoning of descent this last story establishes exogamous moieties and their link to notions of place or house. Today, when people refer to the time before the kinship system, they say ‘we were like dogs’ – to be human one must recognise kin and observes taboos appropriate to kin relations. 2  For Pentecost there is a similar story where the creator Barkulkul effectively castrates his youngest brother with a hot chestnut, transforming him into the first woman (Jolly 2003b). Regarding the ‘two sides of the house’ compare also Taylor (2003).

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Sociality

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Identifying with a matrilineal clan not only places one in relation to one’s contemporaries, but also connects a person to past and future generations. People trace their origins back to a female ancestor. These ancestors, rather than being remembered as named individuals are remembered according to the places they are said to ‘come out of’. Thus, descent and kinship on Vanua Lava moderate not only the person-to-person relationship, but also the person-to-place relationship.3 In the person-to-person relationship the rules of social relations formulated in the kinship system can be seen as a guiding framework for action. Persons, as social agents, interact within this frame. Even when transgressing the rules of behaviour (for example in marrying ‘wrong’), reference is made to the norms of kinship and descent. Knowledge about the nature of these relationships is crucial in enabling meaningful relationships between people. In the following section I outline the basic principles of Vanua Lavan kinship, descent and the notion of ‘sides’. During my fieldwork I was puzzled by people’s effortless navigation between these sometimes contradictory aspects of relationality. While trying to understand kinship, descent and sides as distinct categories but interrelated ‘systems’ helped me to think, I came to realise the importance of people’s egocentric rather than sociocentric understanding that allows for situational and shifting rather than absolute or eternal relations to each other.

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The ideal of kinship as system of relationality Basic principles and practice ‘“Kinship”, then, is the network of relationships created by genealogical connections, and by social ties (e.g. those based on adoption) modelled on the “natural” relations of genealogical parenthood’ (Keesing 1975: 13). As already hinted in the introductory chapter on Vanua Lava, all social relations are seen through the lens of kinship. This extends well beyond the relations through ‘blood’. When ambiguous persons appear, such as anthropologists or people from other islands, people may not be able to construct a relationship to each other through a person they both know. If a newcomer stays for a while, and more importantly, is likely to return in the future, he or she is adopted by a family. The fact that I was adopted on my first day of arrival was quite exciting to me, but for my family it seemed matter-of-fact. Strangers, like me, are presumed to feel lonely and possibly threatened in a place where they have no relatives and therefore ‘know no one’. Adoption is a way of including a newcomer and making them feel safe and welcome (but also a way of controlling their movements). My kin positioning enabled not only my immediate family but also other people on the island to relate to me and interact appropriately. People introduced themselves or were introduced to me through a kin term: ‘you 3  This has been shown for other places in Vanuatu too (Bonnemaison 1994).

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

call me uncle’ or ‘this is a mother of yours’. Besides Vurës kin terms the Bislama terms ‘mama’, ‘papa’ as well as ‘angkel’ are also widely used. This initially caused some confusion on my part as I was addressed as angkel by my mother’s brother. The term angkel, I learned quickly, is used reciprocally between uncle and nephew/niece, as is bubu for grandparent and grandchild. However, while the grandparent-grandchild relationship is expressed with the same term (bôbô) in Vurës, there are different terms for uncle (maröuk) and nephew/niece (van¾ök). Even more treacherous was the use of the Vurës term for father, mam. Because the language from the neighbouring island Mota was used in the past by Anglican missionaries as a lingua franca, religious terms such as ‘father’ for priest have remained in common usage on Vanua Lava. The Mota term for father/priest is mama. Thus, on Vanua Lava, a man can be a mam, a mama and a papa at the same time! As elsewhere in the Pacific region, kin terms on Vanua Lava are used in a ‘classificatory’ way, to embrace a large number of collateral relatives, although one’s immediate family unit is still recognised. The choice between Vurës and Bislama is often utilised to differentiate between classificatory and biological kin. For example, people may refer to their biological father as papa and to a classificatory father as mam or vice versa. The term papa, which in common English usage is used only to refer to one’s biological father, is in Bislama expanded to refer to classificatory fathers as well. The Vurës term mam continues to be used for both. I found most people use both terms interchangeably, but make a conscious distinction in their speech when both, their biological and a classificatory father, are present. As can be seen in figures 1.1 and 1.2 the system can be described as Crow type in Dravidian terminology (Keesing 1975: 148ff). While parallel cousins (MZC, FBC) are siblings, cross cousins are distinguished as such. The father’s sister’s children are classified in the same way as relatives of the first ascending generation, whereas the mother’s brother’s children are classed with the first descending generation. This pattern has been recorded for Vanua Lava by Allen in the 1960s and more recently for the neighbouring island of Mota (Allen 1964; Kolshus 1999: 15). However, I recorded an exception to this system. Both the FZ’s children (and others in one’s father’s vênê¼) as well as the children of one’s MB can be addressed either as parents or as children. Whether this is a recent change or whether anthropologists and interlocutors alike had a tendency to simplify the rules is open to speculation.4 Even when one takes this more fluid principle into account the pattern remains: parallel cousins at the same generational level are siblings, while cross cousins, who are on 4  For example, Hviding notes regarding kinship and land tenure in the Solomon Islands: ‘when questioned by me customary leaders explained their own “essentialist” … exaggeration with reference to their historically-informed belief that Europeans (i.e. “Westerners” in a general sense) are incapable of comprehending the complex variability and fluidity of Marovo kastom’ (2003: 101).

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Sociality

19

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Figure 1.1: Kin terms for male ego

Figure 1.2: Kin terms for female ego1

1  The terms sögö (1sg sögök) and tavalgi are explained in the section in this chapter on ‘About lines and sides’.

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

the same generational level, become one removed. Children of two men who marry each other’s sisters are said to be ¼iar verser (children to each other).5 In practice, cross cousins negotiate who is the ‘child’ and who the ‘parent’. This happens by one party starting to address the other as they think fit and the other reciprocating with the complementary term. Codrington notes that for a man all women (presumably of the same generational level) are either sisters or wives, while for a woman all men are brothers or husbands (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 22). One may add that if a woman is not chosen as a wife she may be classified as mother or daughter; a man not chosen as a husband becomes a father or a son. The nominal shift in generation aids the required change in behaviour from a potential joking relationship towards a relationship of respect. The fact that the father’s sister is also addressed as mother is worth noting. She, being of the other side, has to be respected. While the address for her may be the same as for one’s own mother there is no confusion in everyday practice about the different nature of the relationship. This becomes apparent also in the difference of behaviour towards one’s grandmothers. While one may joke with one’s MM, one has to respect and always give truthful answers to one’s FM. This sheds light on the nature of the cross-sex sibling relationship. As Rubinstein observed for Malo, there is no term which designates brothers and sisters together as a unitary group, like the English term sibling (Rubinstein 1981b). While brothers and sisters are close in the sense of loyalty they also practise physical avoidance. Brothers pay fines for their sister’s adultery; sisters cook and wash for their brothers if their wife refuses because of their husband’s adulterous behaviour. A woman addresses her brother’s child as nötuk, my child, in reciprocity for its respectful address of her as mother, die. However, a man addresses his sister’s child as van¾ök, my niece or nephew.6 This latter relationship is traditionally much closer that the former because to a man his sister’s children are of his own vênê¼. Thus a man’s ties to his wife and children can be at odds with his ties to his sister and her children. In the past his ties to his sister prevailed (inheritance of land passed from him to her children) while today ties to his wife and his own children seem stronger as it is his own children that will inherit the land.7 While it is important in everyday life to know with which kin term to address whom, it is equally crucial to know what expectations and obligations are entailed in these forms of address. The basic rules 5  Sister exchange marriages are not practised in the sense that a sister replaces the bridewealth payment of her brother. Hence the more correct way of describing this relationship is two sets of cross-sex siblings marrying each other. 6  Note also that to a woman her sister’s daughter’s child is her bôbô (grandchild), but to a man his sister’s daughter’s child is his sisilên (great niece or nephew). 7  I discuss this shift in chapter four.

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of behaviour, especially whom one has to respect and whom one may joke with, as well as the correct address for each other, are frequently commented on at larger gatherings. This prevents children and newcomers from making mistakes and reminds all others – just in case – of proper conduct. The main focus of conversation, though, is usually upon one’s vênê¼. These named matrilineal clans, seen as the basis of all order, are the predominant way to talk about people’s descent and corporate identity.

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From moiety to clan Following the oral histories recounted at the beginning of the chapter, once Qet had established the two sides of the house, or moieties,8 they divided further into subgroups called vênê¼.9 The term vênê¼ can be seen as equivalent to the term clan, used by Rivers, who described it as ‘an exogamous group within a tribe or other community, all the members of which are held to be related to one another, and bound together by a common tie. In general, this tie is either a belief in common descent from some ancestor, real or mythical, or the common possession of a totem’ (Rivers 1914a: 7). Noteworthy here is that on Vanua Lava a particular named person is not remembered as the ‘founding ancestor’ of a vênê¼ (as in Rivers’ formulation) but as a ‘place where people come out of’. Today there are eighteen different vênê¼ on Vanua Lava. However, when I asked people to sort these into two sides some people were less confident doing so than others. People do not know for sure which vênê¼ were originally on which side, but they insist on the principle of two sides of the house as the basis for marriage alliances. The association of one’s vênê¼ with a moiety is understood from an egocentric perspective not a sociocentric one. Any two vênê¼ can constitute the two required complementary sides of a given house. Incest taboos between the vênê¼ (for example ½ot and Qakê) are really only observed where actual common descent is remembered. Nonetheless, the table below shows vênê¼ grouped into two sides, mainly based on information collected by Eli Field. The common descent of vênê¼ is marked by grouping them into the same box, shaded in grey or white. The biggest exception concerning marriages on the same side is marriages between the vênê¼ bêut and rêvi (nine marriages). However, as already indicated, on a day-to-day basis these vênê¼ are not considered to be on the same side. This again points to the egocentric nature of people’s understanding of ‘sides’. The biggest vênê¼ in the village are qö¾ (60 marriages), bêut (41 marriages) and rêvi (28 marriages). The relatively 8  These were said to be named, but nobody can remember what the names were. 9  Vienne (1984) recorded phraties for Vanua Lava, but no one in the community would confirm this.

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

high number of endogamous marriages within qö¾ can partly be explained through adoptions of outsiders into the vênê¼, but there is also a kastom story of a man of qö¾ named Wovol, who married his sister Resen. They were chased away by their family from Gaua and settled on Vanua Lava at a place called Abô. This story, and particularly the power of their place of residence, is often referred to when explaining the violation of the rule (John-Elizabeth Kökör, 27.12.2002).10 Table 1.1: Today’s existing vênê¼ in the ‘two sides of the house’

Bêut

Gô

Gavêgbalas

Lo

Na¼al

½erlav

Sêbêr Vë¼ölö Wutrôw

½ot Qakê Qö¾ Vag Vanötur

Rêvi Kalrôw Qötusa

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Veran Table 1.2 illustrates the statistical patterns of marriage in Vêtuboso.11 Although the vênê¼ are distributed between the ‘two sides of the house’, which are generally exogamous, one finds for example that lo marries qö¾, or bêut marries veran. The vênê¼ qötusa, na¼al and vag are not represented in this village. People of na¼al are found on the Eastern side of Vanua Lava in the area of Mosina. People of qötusa live in Vatrata, Wasag and Pek (Abek). People of vag live in Vatrata and Mosina (Doran Rörösôq, 24.04.2002). Bearing in mind that the division into two absolute sides is controversial, the result shows a significant degree of adherence to the norm of moiety exogamy. Therefore, one could speculate that the expression of people’s egocentric view is a more recent development. There are 78 marriages between the two sides and 33 marriages on the same side. Out of those there are only six marriages within the same vênê¼. In total 70.27 per cent of marriage alliances can be said to be ‘straight’. For the neighbouring island of Mota, Kolshus notes that 45 per cent of people were married to the same side in the last ten years (Kolshus 1999). 10  When I returned to the field in 2004 Eli told me that he had given orders to my immediate family not to visit me for two weeks after I had recorded the sites in 2002, for fear of the power of the place. 11  My census, March 2002.

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2

1

½e

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1

4

½erlav

½ot

1

4 1

2

1

1

1

2

1

4

1

1

*  Note that the vênê¼ names in this line are abbreviations of those in the column, in the same order.

Vanötur

Qö¾

7

2

Lo

Qakê

4

Gô

Veran

Kalrôw

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

½

1

Qa

8

Qö

2

4

2

6

1

1

1

1

Lo

Rêvi

1

2

Gô

1

Ve

Wudrow

1

Ka

9

4

Rê

1

1

W

Vë¼ölö

1

Vë

1

1

Sê

Sêbêr

1

Ga

1

5

Bê

Gavêgbalas

Bêut

Male

Female*

Table 1.2: Marriages between vênê¼ in Vêtuboso

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1

2

1

1

Va

Sociality 23

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

Each vênê¼ also has its own story of origin; knowledge of some of them is well preserved, while for others the accounts are vague or contradictory. The totems of identification range from stones representing animals, such as na¼al, female pig; to names of origin of other islands, like Mere Lava (¼erlav), Mota (¼ot), Gaua (gô) and Qakea (qakê); to night (qö¾), marking the fact that these migrants arrived at night. In the past a new descent category, or vênê¼, emerged when a baby girl was found that could not be clearly assigned to an existing vênê¼.12 For example the creation of the vênê¼ veran goes back to a girl being found amongst the litter of a pig, who was thus believed to have been borne by that pig. The area where she was found is named Veran. Later on, a woman found another baby girl apparently borne by a rat. Because the baby was found in the area of Veran, and the woman of the vênê¼ veran decided to adopt her, she became part of veran. From then on, though, the vênê¼ veran has had two descent lines: veran qô (pig) and veran gôsôw (rat). Similarly, the vênê¼ ¼ot, qakê, qö¾, vag and vanötur are all said to come from the island of Mota, but in different waves of immigration. Rivers notes the name for Mota’s ‘one side of the house’ as Takwong (Rivers 1914a: 22), which is no other than vênê¼ ta qö¾ on Vanua Lava. What is only one clan on Vanua Lava is a whole moiety on Mota, as the names of the vênê¼ have disappeared there. Today, no new vênê¼ are created any more. This is explained by the fact that all land is already occupied by the existing vênê¼. Each vênê¼ has a specific place associated with it. People’s origin on the island, even when their ancestors are said to have floated ashore in a canoe or on a bamboo, is linked to the land. The places are remembered collectively, usually by the members of the respective vênê¼, who are thought to have an obligation to remember their history. Not knowing one’s vênê¼ is a great shame and misfortune because one has no kin to protect one’s life, or rights to land to sustain oneself. People from Mota of the qö¾ side are treated as family of the vênê¼ ta qö¾ on Vanua Lava. People from Mota Lava are generally pitied because they have lost knowledge of their kin system and thus the bonds between persons and places.13 It is this original bond to place, captured in one’s vênê¼ name, that forms the basic connection between person and place, and thus between past and present and future. It transcends every other aspect of relationality in Vanua Lavan society in everyday life, especially people’s ideas, plans and aspirations for the future.

12  It was suggested to me that often children of an incestuous relationship were abandoned by their mothers. When they were found their kin relation was unknown and therefore a new vênê¼ was created. 13  Qö¾ also exists on Gaua, but because of different languages spoken on the island tracing names of clans proves difficult; only insufficient data could be obtained.

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About lines and sides As people go about their daily business many decisions are made according to whether one is of the same or the other side as someone else. If one can establish the same side or line, that is, a degree of sameness, one will join a workgroup or follow one’s obligations as one thinks fit. Just as the grouping of different vênê¼ is egocentric in nature, though, membership of lines and sides allows for considerable flexibility as well. There are a number of different concepts in Vurës that need to be distinguished. As one may expect, distinguishing sides and lines happens situationally and on different levels. Sameness in the context of kinship and descent is frequently expressed through the term laen in Bislama. It can refer to relationships in a narrow sense (my matrilineage) or in a wider (my cognatic kin) sense. Similarly, saed can be used to refer to a whole moiety as well as to a single person that is ‘on the other side’. The important message when people comment about lines or sides is their emphasis on situational sameness or difference. The relationships that all fall under the broad term laen are: vênê¼, gagêi, and sösögö. Someone talking about their laen in the sense of vênê¼ may include everybody of that vênê¼ or (more likely) only his or her directly traceable matrilineal relatives. If someone is of the same vênê¼ as oneself their ‘sameness’ does not need to be emphasised separately. In this particular, narrow understanding of laen, vênê¼ is mostly translated into Bislama as traeb, which can be equated with the term lineage, rather than clan (Keesing 1975: 150). The term gagêi is used when referring to a man’s descendants, including his children and their children. While this kind of understanding of sameness, due to descent, starts with a man rather than a woman it extends cognatically, including his daughters and their children. However, laen is also used in a classificatory sense. This is also the case when the Vurës term sösögö is used. Children and wives of two brothers can be said to be of the same sösögö, even though the wives might be of different vênê¼. In this case one could say that through the term sösögö or laen the ideal of the two sociocentric moieties is reconstructed from an egocentric point of view.

Figure 1.3: The sösögö relationship

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

Figure 1.3 shows children of different vênê¼ who have a father of the same vênê¼. Their fathers are classificatory brothers, so they too address each other as brothers and sisters. Not only are the children siblings, but the wives are also included in this grouping of sösögö. In this context they are on the same side while in a different context they could be on different sides. In the context of sameness a man’s children and his MB’s children, who could again be of a different vênê¼, are also equated. They are said to be wotwot to each other.14 In everyday life they address each other as brother or sister respectively.

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Figure 1.4: The wotwot relationship

Figure 1.4 shows that all the wotwot, despite their sameness, are of different vênê¼. Relationships of this kind are, according to Keesing, typically found in connection with matrilineal systems. He writes that ‘in a Crow system a line of matrilineally related men are equated in reckoning kinship: usually it is the children of these men who are actually classed by a single term’ (Keesing 1975: 114). The wotwot relationship was described to me as especially powerful. When one wotwot is ill the other must not come to visit; otherwise the ill wotwot will die. The reverse is also possible. If someone has just died only the wotwot can bring him or her back from the underworld. The notion of sides is mostly stressed when marriage alliances are discussed. The exogamous rule of marriage is expressed through the very material image of the house, which can not ‘stand up with just one side’. Thus not only a vênê¼ but each spouse can be seen as one half of a whole. This resonates with Marilyn Strathern’s argument that in Melanesia persons can be seen as partible or dual, forming one half of a pair (Strathern 1988).15 While each marriage is said to combine opposite vênê¼ to form a complete house, the children of the couple are said to be 14  Wot means born. 15  Not only married couples can be seen in this way, though. In a very general sense people seem always inclined to do tasks in pairs or groups of people, whether it is sets of siblings, friends, father and son, or other combinations. Even I was always ‘paired’ off; if no one else was around then my pet dog was said to be my partner (biri¾ên).

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on the mother’s side. The father is tavalgi, on the other side. It is worth noting here that unlike in English where we distinguish ‘one side’ from the ‘other side’ the same term tavalgi is used for both aspects; so it is more correct to say ‘one side’ and ‘one side’. The image is not so much that of difference but of an opposition that is inherently complementary. Thus, children call someone of their father’s vênê¼ ‘tavalvet’, which literally means ‘one side stone’, acknowledging their difference but at the same time their sameness through a connection that invokes a place. The father is not a different stone, but only the other side of the same stone. As stones are important markers of identity with a place, the father’s side – and with it one’s own connection to the land of his vênê¼ – is thus acknowledged. So, what on first sight appears to be a matrilineal organisation of kinship reveals patrifilial connections as well. Today only vênê¼ membership is obtained through the matriline, while other aspects such as choice of residency and inheritance of land, are grounded in cognatic relations. The relationship to one’s father’s matriline is acknowledged through the expression wot, ‘born of’. It can be seen as the opposite, or better the complement, to vênê¼ as it refers to the father’s vênê¼. For example, through my mother I am vênê¼ ta qö¾, through my father wot le vênê¼ ta sêbêr, born from the vênê¼ sêbêr. This relationship is thus one of the kind that Fortes (1953) calls complementary filiation. If a man wants to stress his descent from his father’s father (or any other grandparent other that his MM) he would say ‘no ma bôbô min vênê¼ ta X’ (I say grandparent to the vênê¼ X). Ideally a man should marry a woman of the same vênê¼ as his father. This way a man and his grandson would be of the same vênê¼. Thus while a man’s children are not wot, born from, the same vênê¼ as he is, at least in alternating generations they maintain lineality. Today, non-ideal marriage alliances are allegedly increasing.16 However, this is hard to verify because people’s claims of these might be part of a local as well as a national rhetoric of losing kastom. However, people are keen to remember their patrifilial connections as their major land rights are transmitted through the patriline. I found that people’s knowledge about their ancestors (cognatic and adopted) varies, going back between four and seven generations. Men’s strong attachment to their father and to place reveals itself in predominantly patri-virilocal settlement patterns, which can be understood in part as preparation for future land transmission.17 This poses the question of whether the descent system is possibly changing from matrilineal in the past to cognatic in the present and possibly patrilineal in the future.18 Then again, the concept of descent seen as lineality – today and perhaps also in the past – seems too 16  By non-ideal I refer to marriages that are not wrong in the sense of incest, but those in which men chose a marriage partner that is not of their father’s vênê¼. 17  Men are often associated with trees, women with canoes or birds (Bonnemaison 1985). 18  This is explored further in chapter five but see also Allen (1981).

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

simple to grasp the complex and cyclical possibilities of relations relevant in everyday life. It also elides the importance of place, not just in the sense of residence but as a broader value of connection between persons. Kin terms on Vanua Lava, then, can be understood to be a consolidated manifestation of several defining aspects of social distance. These aspects are: gender, generation and ‘side’. The first, gender, is not negotiatable. The second, generation is negotiable to the extent that people can nominally shift one generation up or down. The third, ‘side’, has both enduring and changing aspects. This shall become clearer later on.

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Respect: The space in between Relationships between people and within sides, generations and genders are carefully managed. The appropriate distance or social space between agents (people and places) is expressed as respect, döm mav (lit. think heavy). This encompasses all aspects of action: speech, thought and deeds. A display of lack of respect is described as going ‘over’, da sogsogolo (lit. to make it over). It is not only other people that demand respect but, as I will argue later, places too can be offended and ‘hit back’ – and thus can be said to have agency, just like a person. A person can be imagined as having invisible sphere, a kind of fluid boundary that may not be transgressed, and that can be ‘thicker’ or ‘thinner’ depending on situation and relationship with another at a particular point in time. Here I would like to give a brief personal example to illustrate how people think and talk about respect. Shortly after my arrival in Vêtuboso a cargo ship anchored in the bay. The ship, run by Chinese businessmen, only comes every two to three months. So this is always a major event: people sell copra, buy supplies or otherwise just take the day off to watch other peoples’ transactions. I had asked my mother, Joana, to come with me, as people decided that I had to be accompanied. She had not been on a ship for approximately twenty years due to the demands of child rearing. My youngest brother Iudicas was two years old, so he, we agreed, could be left with my father, Eli Field. Once we had arrived at the beach Eli suggested that he should come instead of my mother, but I insisted on the previous arrangement. When the small motor boat came to the beach to pick up new passengers Joana and I ran for it and jumped on, leaving a disgruntled Eli and a crying twoyear-old on the beach. With about 20 others aboard we made our way to deeper waters where the ‘Kula’ was anchored. The ship was bustling with people. When my turn arrived to stand at the small shop window I bought supplies for my family and myself: rice, sugar, matches, soap, batteries and tinned mackerel in tomato sauce. While we were waiting on deck for the boat to take us back to the beach, I took a photo of Joana to commemorate the occasion. In it she stands next to the door that leads into the ship wearing a white t-shirt, and is looking slightly embarrassed sideways to the floor.

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We climbed down onto the boat again and zoomed back towards the beach. The waves crashed onto the black sand and people took careful measure when jumping from the boat onto the beach. I was the last one to get off and, inexperienced as I was, I jumped too late and a wave caught me off balance. Aware of the camera in my bag I resisted letting myself fall into the water. A sharp pain soared through my right hip as it was dislocated for a short moment. The following days I rested as best I could and my ‘grandmother’ gave me some kastom treatment, which consisted of massages and secret songs. Weeks dragged by and I continued to limp. None of the suggested treatments seemed to help, which to me was no surprise because these kinds of injuries just take time to heal, but to everybody else this apparent non-changing condition was of great concern. About three weeks later my uncle, Joana’s brother, took me to one side at a village feast. He suggested that I should pay my father because I went ‘over’ his wish by insisting that my mother follow me onto the ship. I was surprised, but intrigued by his explanation. I had to rub 40 Vatu, approximately 50 cents, four times over the injured hip and give it to Eli with an apology. When I did this Eli seemed surprised but accepted the payment without question or protest. However, later that day he offered his explanation of the accident, which was that I and my mother had run away from my youngest brother, who was left behind, crying on the beach. Whereas my uncle saw the cause in my behaviour towards my father, my father shifted the focus primarily towards the neglectful behaviour of my mother towards her child. Whatever the ‘real’ reason for the accident may have been, the effect of the incident was that I became very cautious in opposing my father’s suggestions, and my mother has not been on a ship since! Such an accident is usually ascribed to a force called tagar that ‘fires back’.19 It is gained by eating certain leaves. The second syllable -gar means ‘their food’, which is an expression often used in the sense of ‘their problem’, or ‘the answer to their challenge’. The power that a person has incorporated through the consumption of leaves is first ‘their food’ and then becomes the ‘food’ of the challenger. It has to be said though that the disrespected person rarely intends harm to the culprit, although they sometimes anticipate it. Thus, respect, or the appropriate social distance, is or should be maintained at all times. It can be detected in every aspect of relationality: address, speech, laughter, body language, action, emotion, thought; in short in the form of habitus (Bourdieu 1977), discussed more fully in the next chapter. If respect is breached several things may happen, as my example illustrates. When a transgression of respect goes unnoticed, the disrespectful 19  Jolly notes a malevolent form of an ancestral spirit called tegar for Pentecost (Jolly 1996: 241)

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Ideas, Ideals and the Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

person might have an accident. He or she will then ‘remember’ (êlgôr)20 a possible cause and rush to pay the offended person to restore good relations and health. Another possibility is that the disrespected person pays the culprit a small amount to restore his or her respect, thereby shaming them back to conform through respectful behaviour. Respect is thus a kind of measure of social space. Going ‘over’ someone can be understood as intruding into or ignoring someone’s sphere. Avoiding someone beyond the required distance is equally insulting. Being more distant than one should be is also a sign of disturbed social relations.

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Avoidance Respect, joking and avoidance all follow the same principle. Showing respect towards a person entails not being allowed to joke with or laugh at them. However, a favourite pastime of people is to joke about someone in the presence of someone who is not supposed to laugh at this person, and then scold them if they cannot help themselves. Avoidance within the institutionalised form of in-law relationships can be understood as an extreme form of respect. The form of avoidance that is most often commented upon by Vanua Lavan people is name avoidance between in-laws. A person may not say or even write the name of their parents-in-law or same sex sibling-in-law. This is generally explained with reference to the fact that one side paid bridewealth to the other side. Not uttering their name is seen as a form of respect. Often people have two or more names, so when referring to another person who happens to have the same name as one’s in-law one can use their other name. Teknonymous appellations such as so-and-so’s mother or wife, or even just calling a baby’s name when calling its mother are also common.21 A person could also be referred to in conversation as sian gogon (his or her name taboo), which presumes that the addressee knows all the avoidance relationships that the speaker has, and can therefore correctly identify who is being talked about. In addition to using the appropriate avoidance term, one addresses the other person in the polite dual form kômôrô¾, you two. When referring to their ‘qaliga’ (Bislama for parent-in-law) people differentiate among them according to the ‘same side’ or ‘other side’ principle. So ego’s mother-in-law is always to be more strictly respected. She is said to be like ‘nanggalat’, a stinging nettle tree one better avoids. The father-in-law still has to be respected, but quite often he could also be an uncle, with whom a certain familiarity is possible. The Bislama term ‘tawian’ for same sex sibling-in-law is also widely used. The avoidance 20  Êlgôr is usually translated with ‘to look after, to watch, to be careful’, but in this context it is used as ‘remember’ with a sense of anticipation, rather than the expression döm kêl (remember, think back). 21  I have also heard a woman calling her daughter-in-law simply by shouting reqe (woman).

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terms follow the same logic as other kin terms: they extend to classificatory in-laws. For example my sister-in-law’s sister I also address as wölus. Table 1.3: Avoidance terms Relation

Male ego

Sister’s husband Wife’s brother

wël

Brother’s wife Husband’s sister Parent or child in law

qalêg

Female ego

Address

Expected behaviour

rëwël (wöluk)

name avoidance, no joking, respect

wölus wël

wölus (wöluk)

qalêg

qëlgëk

name avoidance, no joking, respect

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Joking relationships ‘What is meant by the term “joking relationship” is a relation between two persons in which one is by custom permitted, and in some instances required, to tease or make fun of the other, who in turn is required to take no offence’ (Radcliffe-Brown 1940: 195). Joking relationships can be understood to be the reverse, or at the other end of the spectrum, of avoidance relationships. There are three kinds of institutionalised joking relationships on Vanua Lava that can be distinguished: dievusvusriaw, susur and gölö siri. The former is between cognates and the latter two between affines. Dievusvusriaw literally means ‘mother beating intersex pig’ and it applies to one’s FZ or MBW.22 Today this kind of joking relationship has become obsolete but in the past she had quite an important role to play. There were no restrictions on the kinds of jokes one could make with her. She was obliged to keep one’s secrets and she was the right one to use as a messenger for love affairs. Messages that were given for her to pass on could take the form of speech or song. She was also the one who prepared a man for married life by teaching him about sex. Because information on the exact nature of the relationship with the dievusvusriaw was contradictory and vague it is difficult to assess whether this was a symmetrical or, as the term die suggests, an asymmetrical joking relationship. While Rivers only 22  Some people also said that it could also apply to one’s FZD, FZDD, and so on. Rivers recorded the comparable term veve vus rawe for Mota. It was used for the father’s sister, who plays an important role in the initiation ceremony of her brother’s son, where she strikes a (hermaphrodite) tusked pig. She is respected by her nephew, who does not call her by name. She is his confidante and also involved in choosing his wife (Rivers 1914a: 38).

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mentions this relationship between a man and his FZ, I was assured that a woman could also have a dievusvusriaw. Another joking relationship is that of the susur. The word susur describes the motion ‘to sew’. One’s susur would typically be one’s MBW or HZC. Again there are no restrictions on the kinds of joking topics. Typical jokes include cleaning one’s feet on the other’s clean clothes, rubbing one’s backside against their face, trapping the other under one’s skirt, asking them if they ate rat, and so on. The other may not get angry at one’s actions but may return the joke. While everybody knows about joking relationships, I was offered no explanation as to why they exist. RadcliffeBrown’s structural-functionalistic explanation is that avoidance and joking behaviour function as stable anchors for a social system (RadcliffeBrown 1940). Stasch (2002) argues for the Korowai of Papua New Guinea that being in a joking or avoidance partnership with someone resonates with the value of relationality between persons, stressing plurality rather than singularity. Uttering the name of a person one has a name avoidance relationship with would emphasise that person’s existence as a singular being. Radcliff-Brown also mentions, unfortunately without reference, a particular joking relationship for the island of Mota, where a man teases his FZH who is addressed by a special term. On Vanua Lava I found this relationship too, whereby the FZH is called gölö siri, which literally means ‘the end of the bone’. Radcliffe-Brown explains the existence of this relationship by the fact that the FZS would be addressed as ‘father’, thus the father of a ‘father’ is a grandfather with whom mild joking is permitted (1940: 206). During my last phase of fieldwork in 2004 I had

Figure 1.5: ‘The end of the bone’ gölö siri

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the chance to record a kind of joke or game one plays with one’s gölö siri, called titi qô (to make a pig or point). Three children, Nellie, John and Samuel, had found a twin mango, two fruits that had grown out of one seed. One morning they, their father and their FZS went to the house of the gölö siri, they also addressed as ‘uncle’, equipped with the twin mango in a beautifully decorated basket plus a second basket with garden produce. As they came within hearing distance of the house the father of the children started to sing: na van selsel, selsel wê meri ê ve tô den na le vet ê sustagêr den na.

I come challenge, challenge the eel runs away from me in the stone disappeared from me.

le a le a lê

(chorus)

na van selsel, selsel wê meri ê ve tô den na le vet ê sustagêr den na.

I come challenge, challenge the eel runs away from me in the stone disappeared from me.

namro¾ weden i bê lusial ê me to ko e nê le¾le¾ e vesus den na le vet e sustager den na.

I hear the noise of water running against he vanishes hides from me in the stone disappears from me.

le a le a lê

(chorus)

namro¾ weden i bê lusial ê me to ko e nê le¾le¾ e vesus den na le vet e sustager den na.

I hear the noise of water running against he vanishes hides from me in the stone disappears from me.

The gölö siri comes out of his house and sits on a stool in front of the door. The two older children John (seven years old) and Nellie (ten years old) present the baskets: John: Tat, i¾kê na ga¾ o qô gênak.

Uncle, here is your food this pig.

Kômôrôk mê êl o ma¾ko ko o varam. We two saw this twin mango. Kemektöl me tek me min nêk, vita na ga¾ o qô gên.

We three bring it to you, so your food is this pig.

Nêk mi te ser kêl le min kemektöl!

You can not give it back to us three!

John and Nellie laugh: hehele.

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The gölö siri replies: O ra van¾ök no go malaklak idian aê o qô nagëk kômôrô¾ mê ti.

My nephew and nice I am very happy about my food the pig you two made.

Ba no ga da êl nanök o bes ta lo sôksösögöt kêl ta lo ram kêl et min kômôrô¾ e kêmitöl na gök o qô kêmitöl me tek min no.

I will try my best to give back to you two or you three my food the pig you three brought to me.

Then Welsam, their FZS sings the song of ‘titi qô’ Qô ê qô gor ê gor ê qô a geret e tê mêlmêli¾ rôw ê la ê ga¾ qô me gorlav e.

Pig e pig cannot give back the pig at the mountain it overflows down to the sea your pig will remain forever.

Qô ê qô gor ê gor ê qô a geret e tê mêlmêli¾ rôw ê la ê ga¾ qô me gorlav e.

Pig e pig cannot give back pig at the mountain it overflows down to the sea your pig will remain forever.

Tete ram tete ram qô ê qô gor ê gor ê qô a geret ê te mê meli¾ rôw ê la ê ga¾ qô me gorlav ê.

You cannot give back the pig the pig cannot give back the pig at the mountain it overflows down to the sea your pig will remain forever.

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John and Nellie laugh: hehele. The meaning of the game, emphasised with the children laughing at their ‘end of the bone’ is that they have ‘given a point to him’, and he may never be able to return the gift, the twin mango. Note that unlike in an English-speaking context, where John and Nellie would have scored a point against their uncle, in Vurës the understanding of this interaction is rather the reverse – they have given him a ‘point’. In the song the gölö siri, or ‘uncle’, is like the eel being trapped at his house, the stone. The gift, the twin mango, is referred to as a pig, which points to the traditionally high value a pig had in the past.23 It is considered such a big gift that the receiver may not be able to give it back in his life time and he may well ‘be dead with it’ and carry the debt and the shame that comes with it to his grave. Even though it is a game, it is certainly a shame to be surpassed with a gift from one’s niece and nephew. John and Nellie use the word ser (to give back, respond) in their speech, whereas in the following song the 23  In her article ‘The Problem of the Semi-Alienable Pig’, Macintyre (1984: 118) discusses why on Tubetube pigs and enemies fall in a grammatically semialienable category. She ponders why shell valuables can also take the possessive suffix that denotes edibility. The above example may show how giving any high valuable can be figuratively declared ‘your food’.

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much stronger ram (to give back, revenge) is used.24 The desire and moral obligation to reciprocate, to give back, extends to all aspects of people’s lives and thinking, as is common in Melanesian societies (cf. Young 1971; Mauss 1974; Meigs 1984; Kahn 1986; Schieffelin 1990; Weiner 1992).

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Signs of change A special relationship exists between oneself and one’s mother’s brothers or mother’s mother’s brothers. These uncles are one’s closest allies but at the same time must be respected at all times. This was explained to me as follows. If a chief had to judge two people, one of them his own son and the other his sister’s son, he would probably favour his sister’s son, as he feels more closely related to him. However, this ideal is no longer always practised (if it was ever) as the following example will illustrate. My family and I went to a dispute meeting to support one of my classificatory brothers who was in trouble, together with two other young men, for adultery with a married woman. One of the chiefs who decided on the fines was the father of one of the accused. Three different fines were announced ranging from several thousand vatu plus a pig to only a few hundred vatu. The son of the chief paid the lowest fine. Not only did the chief favour his own son, but the young man’s MB, who by the matrilineal ideal should support him, actually demanded the fine rather than his father, the MB of the betrayed husband. The whole ceremony was heavily criticised both for the outcome as well as the process. The husband’s party only wanted the fine and had basically refused to have a proper meeting, which is a crucial part of the peace-making process. Only then can peace be restored through the payment of the fine.25 This episode illustrates the subtle changes emerging in relational alliances. The MB-ZS bond is losing its importance. Since European contact, according to Allen, inheritance of land rights have changed from matrilineal to patrilineal, and residency patterns shifted from avunculovirilocal to patri-virilocal (Allen 1964: 320). Today, people still remember the matrilineal ideal of kinship loyalties but not that they once lived on their mother’s land and inherited it from their MB. Emotional ties and loyalties have also shifted to one’s father. While people take great pains to know and remember correct terms of address, knowledge about genealogies is in decline. Rules of whom one should marry are becoming obsolete 24  Certain words of the song are not in Vurës but in an older language that is understood by all Banks and Torres Islanders: the eel, mari, in Vurës mare; the sea, la, in Vurës lo. Geret means mountain, but is also the name of the volcano at Gaua, which has a big crater lake whose water flows into the sea via a powerful waterfall. 25  I was also criticised for taking a picture of such a ‘rubbish kastom’. The appropriate behaviour to show one’s disapproval was to stay away – another difficulty to manage as a researcher.

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in practice, with the increasing importance of notions of free choice and romantic love. The Christian missionaries may have also influenced this process. Young people teach each other how to kiss (like white people in the videos), while older men remain disgusted by the thought of kissing their wife.26 Ideals of beauty (fair skin and ‘big hair’), while they seem not to have changed very much (Speiser and Stephenson 1990: 68), override the value of the correct vênê¼ in the choice of marriage partners. The wish to marry a white woman (or man) seems widespread. Whites or Europeans are seen not only as more beautiful but are also imagined to have higher intelligence (waes), greater access to consumer goods and a better lifestyle in general.

Extending the network As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, all face-to-face social relations are modelled on kin relations. Newcomers are swiftly included through adoption. This is not only a matter of hospitality and safety, but also of new connections, which are seen as opening roads to other islands, countries, marriage alliances and business opportunities. Adoption, as one uncle of mine put it, is like a life insurance and retirement policy. The adopted child will care for one better, because their status, when it comes to inheritance of land, is not as secure as their siblings. Similarly, a formal friendship with another person expands one’s network.

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Adoption While the specific reasons for adoption vary, they all result in the extension of networks. There are open and secret adoptions, and adoptions at earlier or later stages in a person’s life. Ideal rules for adoption follow the logic of the classificatory kinship system. A woman should adopt a child from a woman of her own vênê¼. A man can also adopt a child from a man of his vênê¼. This means that the child is not and should not be of the same vênê¼ as its biological or adopted father. If a man adopts a child from his brother, their wives might not be the same vênê¼ but still the principle of ‘sides’ is observed. This case is another example for the classificatory notion of ‘line’, sösögö. A secret adoption is called tun, like the ceremony that changes ownership of land forever. Tun literally means to roast or to heat something over the fire. It is then ‘dead’ in the sense that it cannot grow again somewhere else. The foster parents pay the agreed amount of money – which is hidden, wrapped in a leaf of wild taro (Alocasia macrorrhiza) – to the biological parents. The money is hidden, just as the fact of the adoption is meant to 26  Felix Speiser mentions that lovers do not kiss (Speiser and Stephenson 1990: 66). When I put this to my interlocutors they agreed with the explanation that according to kastom people only kiss in respect, not for love.

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remain hidden. The child must never be told about its real parents. This form is chosen when the adoption is not following the rules and the baby changes sides. At the time of transferring the baby, two other ceremonial payments are made. One called tuw bô¾ is given to the biological mother. Bô¾ is the piece of cloth used to tie the baby to the back of the mother. The other, won ¾ere sus (to block the breast) is paid to both mother and father, because the father feeds the mother and her milk runs for nothing. All of this has to be performed before the child permanently recognises its new mother. If the adoption is open, the baby is not taken away immediately from its natural parents, but at a time that suits both parties. Payments for an open adoption, where the child is aware or told later about their status, are lower and made openly. Often children are adopted but maintain close connections to their biological parents. They may alternate living with either family. When a couple has only daughters they would seek to adopt a boy as a kind of insurance for old age. They will pay the doctor’s and maternity fees, ruruse. The child may never live with them but is expected to help care for the adopted parents when in need. When a couple has only sons the urge to adopt a girl is even stronger, because she ensures the continuation of the vênê¼. Adoptions at a later stage in life are called van tevel rôw (go two sides). They happen most commonly due to practical reasons, such as a child going to school in another village and therefore living with another family. As the child grows up with the children of that family and shares their food, he or she is said to be liwo lê tibiar nitiwial (lit. big from one basket), and becomes part of the adopted mother’s vênê¼, while retaining the original affiliation as well. When the child moves away again at a later stage an obligation towards the foster parents remains, and the child’s future spouse will address them by the appropriate avoidance term, just like their biological parents. In this way a person can be seen as part of another vênê¼ through adoption.27 In relation to the other vênê¼, a person is then said to be sa¾tine (lit. the middle; the middle post of a house). Depending on the level of integration into the other family and the movement between one’s original and host vênê¼, a person creates very specific sets of connections to other vênê¼. It has to be observed that while a person is seen as related to all other persons of their own vênê¼, he or she is only related to the gagêi of the person with whom he or she has the adopted relationship, not the entire vênê¼. Adults, especially outsiders, are adopted to integrate them into the local community. Through marriage to a local a man from Malakula or a woman from Tanna will have a family-in-law, but usually they are given the protection of a vênê¼ through adoption as well. Only in this way do 27  Also through patrilateral connections and through marriage.

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they have a right to access land, and more importantly, their children will belong to a local vênê¼, which ensures their future right to access and pay for land through kastom ceremonies. Through adopting children or adults one expands one’s network of relations not only beyond blood but even between language groups, islands and countries. Eli, by adopting me and other researchers, now has connections reaching Australia, Germany, France, Japan and Canada. While he may never need to activate these connections, they are there as a kind of security in the background: ‘may be one day one of us has to go to hospital in Australia, then we already have family there’. The networking through adoption also has potential business implications. Back in Australia, I am expected to advertise the local waterfall to potential yachting tourists and to research information on shipping second-hand sawmills to be sent back to the island. This kind of networking widens people’s potential outreach to the outside world.

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Formal friendship While adoption is often motivated by a concern for the vênê¼, friendship concerns two individuals. As was explained to me, one deliberately tries to choose a friend from ‘the other side’ with whom one has no kin relation because the friendship will be ‘more sweet’. One enters into a gift-giving and receiving relationship entirely voluntarily with a person with whom one would otherwise not be obliged to share or receive anything. This other person is then formally referred to as bulsal (friend). However, in contemporary usage, if the expression for friend, in Bislama ‘fren blong hem’, or Vurës ‘bulsalan’, is used between a man and a woman it usually implies a sexual relationship. The idea of the formalised friend is that of sameness; one’s bulsal is like oneself. One shares everything, except one’s spouse. Friendships like this are often started quite early in life and initially the families of the two friends organise for the ceremonial exchange of gifts and food. A relationship of voluntary reciprocal obligation has begun, which is marked by a common feast where the new friends and their families eat together. The friends promise to share things in the future. When one of them dies he pays the friend left behind to compensate for the (temporary) loss of friendship tuw bulsal. Tuw literally means ‘to untie’, and refers to the invisible rope that tied the friends together. The power of these kinds of friendships reaches beyond life in this world, as the following story illustrates: Two friends meet to drink kava. One lives in the bush, the other by the sea. They use a cycad leaf to count the days when they will meet again, but one of them dies before the appointed day. His spirit still goes to tell the other that he can no longer meet him but that he should put a shell of kava for him floating in the river; it will reach him in the next world. He tells his friend that he has left shell money and a pig for him to compensate him for the ending of their friendship in this world, but that his relatives have hidden the money and

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tied the pig at the back of the house. When the friend came to cry at his dead friend’s house he went straight to the hiding places, took his gifts and went away. (Eli Field 6.12.2004)

There is no set rule about whom to choose as a friend. My two-yearold brother was asked to be a formal friend by a woman that could be his mother. However, namesakes are often chosen as friends. They are called tavalsiëk, which literally means ‘one side/other side of my name’. Again, as in the expressions tavalgi ‘one side/other side’, duality and complementarity are simultaneously implied.

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Action groups ‘[W]herever several descent groups live in a single community, what they do collectively as villagers … or simply as neighbors may be at least as important as what they do as members of separate corporations’ (Keesing 1975: 41). At a village level there are several kinds of action groups. Their scope can, however, go beyond the village or even the island. This is mostly the case with religious or political groups. As can be expected, the most commonly formed group is a kin-based work group. These workgroups get together on the basis of the same vênê¼ or the gagêi, including spouses of members. While some of them are limited in duration to a specific task, others are more permanent. At the village level, there is usually a set day of a week where for about two hours in the morning the whole community is expected to work at a specific task, such as cutting grass on the nasara. For this ‘community work’, introduced by the early missionaries, the community is sometimes split along an invisible line through the village to form larger workgroups. Tasks include, for example, building a church out of cement, a house for a new teacher or a water supply system. Smaller projects such as building ventilated pit toilets are initiated by the local clinic as part of a nationwide public health program. While education and public health include everyone, the building of a new church is only supported by villagers of that same denomination. Thus, this kind of action group draws its members by religious belief. In practice, the scale and occasion of the task influences the choice of the organisation work groups. Gendered groups are formed not just within workgroups, but also for recreation. Women meet to weave together or practise dances and songs – kastom and Christmas carols alike. Whereas before European contact virilocal residence in scattered hamlets positioned women in between men, more centralised village life initiated by missionaries gave rise to new forms of collectivity (Jolly 2003a). For example, the Mothers Union of the Anglican Church organises sewing circles; the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) equivalent holds workshops in making soap. Women met, and still meet, predominantly in the context of their vênê¼ or affinal relations. The Vanuatu National Council of Women (VNCW) and more regional and

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national church associations give women the option to connect to other women at a national level beyond kinship or denomination. While women’s collectivity seems to increase, men frequently lament the decline in men-only activities. As there are currently no men’s houses men meet either at someone’s house or under the nearest mango tree for a chat and some kava. For activities that require seclusion, men retreat to an area in the bush marked off as taboo, called salgôr. For example, for the Christmas Day celebrations in 2003 about 20 young men lived secluded in the bush for three months to prepare the magnificent head dress for the ‘Qet dance’. During the preparation time the men received ‘kastom teaching’ – what exactly that included I can only speculate, but it might be comparable to initiations formerly practised (Rivers 1914a; Layard 1942). Enduring or sharing the same ritual with other young men of roughly the same age creates a special bond as a peer group. There are also political and religious groups. At the time of elections, people’s interest in politics, not seen in everyday life, comes to the fore. While the election process is truly secret, decisions about voting for a particular candidate are often made beforehand along vênê¼ lines. Once a local member of parliament is elected people who voted for him are joined by others to form a party support group. This group then discusses what they want from their candidate, as each Member of Parliament has a certain allowance to spend on projects in their constituency. So far the local candidate has always been from other islands of the Torba province, which means that loyalties were demanded by his relatives. Thus, bigger projects like the development of roads on Vanua Lava have been few, to say the least. On a daily basis the different religious groups are much more visible and relevant than political ones. The largest denomination, the Anglican Church, has several permanent groups: Youth, Mothers’ Union, Melanesian Brothers and The Companions. The second largest denomination, Seventh Day Adventists, also have a youth group and a women’s group. They also run a kindergarten. Other denominations are often only taken up by a single family, or even a single person, and thus cannot be said to be relevant groups in the community other than classifying them as the ones who opted to be outside of the dominant village-based community.28 Only larger communities like Vêtuboso or Sola have a plurality of denominations. Smaller neighbouring villages are almost exclusively Anglican. Almost every village has a youth group. These are mainly involved in singing gospels and thus promoting Christianity by touring other villages with their action songs.29 The Mothers’ Union has exclusively 28  In 1999, on Vanua Lava, out of a total population of 1,933 persons 1,745 were Anglican, 78 were SDA, 35 Assemblies of God, 21 Catholic, 5 Presbyterian, 1 Apostolic, and 26 Other (National Statistics Office 2000: 95). 29  These are songs accompanied by synchronised hand gestures or body movements.

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female members and engages in fundraising and helping people in need.30 The Companions, composed of male and female villagers, are responsible for helping the Melanesian Brothers in practical everyday living by building houses and providing food. The Melanesian Brothers are an exclusively male group that live relatively secluded, like monks. While some members only go through an apprenticeship and then go back to normal village life, others may become priests.31 They are known to have special powers and are often asked to help in situations of conflict. Only the Melanesian Brothers and the Mothers’ Union have special uniforms. The SDA women’s group are engaged in holding educational workshops for making things such as soap or coconut butter. While the Anglicans meet for services and offer a Sunday school for children, members of the SDA meet for smaller weekday services as well as every Saturday when they spend the whole day together praying, holding Bible classes, sharing food and teaching their youth. It could be argued that due to the relatively small size of their group there is a greater cohesion. The relationships people form through their religious practice are closer to kin-like relations. This is no doubt aided by the fact that conversions often happen within a kin group first. While community-based work groups maintain social relations in a wider sharing context, both the political and the religious groups have potential outreach beyond their community, island or country. For example, the SDA church offers courses for lay priests in Fiji. The Anglican Melanesian Brothers may be transferred to different islands. Again, joining a group is another way to broaden and/or intensify one’s network of relations; one has the chance to gain knowledge and status through travel. In this chapter I have set out the ground upon which everything else follows – that is the ideal of kinship that all relations, be it to other persons or to places, are modelled upon. Thinking about sociality as a network of people and places can be taken as the basic principle of broader engagement with the world, with other people and other places. Its possibilities for expansion are limitless. It includes cognitive abilities to recognise and memorise patterns as well as to envision strategies and possibilities for future relations. As has been shown, ideas about sides and lines, opposites and complementarities, difference and sameness, are not to be understood as binaries in an absolute or eternal sense but as situational, relative values. Moving on from this foundation I will now outline in detail what constitutes the Vanua Lavan person. Questions arising are: can people be described adequately as ‘dividuals’ (Strathern 1988)? Are there signs of ‘individualism’, traditional or introduced? What is the emic understanding of a (good) person? 30  For aims of the Mother’s Union see: http://www.portmoresby.anglican.org/org/ mothersu/ 31  This experience could be compared to earlier practices of initiation that included seclusion and abstinence.

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• Chapter 2 •

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Person

‘Far from being regarded as unique entities, Melanesian persons are as dividually as they are individually conceived. They contain a generalized sociality within. Indeed, persons are frequently constructed as the plural and composite site of the relationships that produce them’ (Strathern 1988: 13). This is probably the most quoted passage from Marilyn Strathern’s book The Gender of the Gift (1988). I begin my enquiry regarding the Vanua Lavan person by embracing her assumption that Melanesians are universally both unique individuals and relational beings. To what extent do terms like individual and dividual person (Marriott 1976) and partible and permeable person (Marriott 1976; Strathern 1988),1 capture the emic understanding of what makes a person? Have ideas about the person changed through people’s engagement with modernity? How are both individuality and relationality co-present today? Which aspects of thought and behaviour do Vanua Lavans deem important? I address these issues using Marilyn Strathern’s work as a guide, and juxtapose my ethnographic material with her concepts. I start by looking at what I miss in Strathern’s ‘Melanesian person’: sacred aspects and embodied knowledge. For Vanua Lavans negotiating space is a key to relationality and engendered bodily knowledge. Dividuality and individuality are explored through relationships between singular and plural persons and between same and opposite relationships. An inquiry into moral aspects of personhood in Vanua Lava reveals that singularity as well as partibility makes a ‘good’ person. Finally, notions about a person’s autonomy as well as their permeability are explored though ideas of bodily boundaries. A closer look at people’s engagement with modernity, specifically with the ‘Christian individual’ (Douglas 1998) and possessive individualism (Macpherson 1962) will place the concept of the person on Vanua Lava in historic context.

Strathern reconsidered Strathern’s argument that ‘Melanesians’ do not think about social life in terms of the individual versus society has become widely accepted. 1  Marilyn Strathern does not explicitly define the term permeable but it is implicit in her idea of partibility. 42

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She has been criticised, however, for comparing ‘Melanesian notions of personhood not to the Western reality of personhood but to Western ideology’ of individualism (LiPuma 1998: 75). More specifically, she has been criticised for setting up several binary oppositions: of Melanesia and the West, of a gift versus commodity economy, and of anthropological versus feminist debates (Biersack 1991; Jolly 1992b; Macintyre 1995). Critics reject her deliberate distinction (Strathern 1988: 4) along the we/ they axis because, for analytical purposes, she exaggerates and contrasts Western individualism and Melanesian relationality. Macintyre, for example, suggests that both cultures ‘distinguish between the person as a uniquely constituted being and the person as a relational, social being’ (Macintyre 1995: 31ff). Strathern’s distinction along a we/they axis may be deliberate and useful for analytical purposes (1987: 4), but this analytical abstraction leaves the reader without a sense of an actual Melanesian person at a specific time and place (Jolly 1992b; Macintyre 1995; Douglas 1998). While arguments still swirl about the validity of Melanesia as a culturally discrete and homogenous area (Keesing and Jolly 1992; Thomas 1997; Jolly 2001), Strathern’s accounts tend to unify the whole of Melanesia as one imagined place, thereby denying what has generally been accepted to be a crucial aspect of Melanesian people’s identity – their connection to particular places (see for example Bolton 1999; Bonnemaison 1994). By writing about the Melanesian person in an ahistorical fashion she situates Melanesians ‘out of time’, without a specific location in history, and therefore the possibility for indigenous transformation. Her book, The Gender of the Gift, published in 1988, mostly analyses ethnographic material from the 1950s onwards (the only older publication mentioned being Leenhardt’s 1947 book Do Kamo). Yet, neither ‘Christianity’ nor ‘colonialism’ feature in the index. How can their influence not be traceable in notions about the person? Or rather, why have these changes not been worthy of scholarly attention? Part of the answer may lie in anthropologists’ tendency to seek out ‘unspoilt’ ‘authentic’ cultures as the objects of their research, deliberately avoiding places reached by the missions (Keesing and Jolly 1992).2 In earlier times, some of the most detailed Melanesian ethnographic accounts were written by missionaries such as Leenhardt and Codrington. They too concentrated on the recording of pre-Christian tradition because they saw understanding traditional thinking as necessary for their freely 2  There has been an acceleration of interest in issues surrounding modernity since the early 1990s (LiPuma 2000: 14). As for anthropologists not mentioning changes through colonial influence LiPuma suggests that there may have been an unspoken agreement to avoid conflict: ‘in exchange for the kiap’s good office, the ethnographer would stick to academic concerns – the “kinship/cosmology shit” as one obviously knowledgeable kiap put it’ (LiPuma 2000: 52).

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admitted intention of changing the Melanesian person into a Christian person. Crapanzano observes in the preface to Leenhardt’s Do Kamo: ‘For Leenhardt Christianity was a way of experiencing the world that required a certain evolution – an individuation – that took time’ (Crapanzano in Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: xi). Leenhardt is fully aware that in order to be ‘successful as a missionary’ he has to effect a change in people’s conception of the person from one that ‘knows himself only through the relations he maintains with others’ (Crapanzano in Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: xxiii) to a more individuated being, one that has an understanding of an ego or a core self. Leaving aside the possible critique about the validity of pure relationality without a core self, I want to focus on Leenhardt’s initial assumption that he at first thought this process could be achieved by introducing the notion of the spirit to Melanesian thinking. He reports that he was soon corrected by his friend and informant Boesoou: ‘Spirit? Bah! You didn’t bring us the spirit. We already knew the spirit existed. We have always acted in accord with the spirit. What you’ve brought us is the body’ (Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: 164). Christianity’s ‘achievement’, then, was the introduction of the body as the basis for a notion of individuation and identity; a new concept of boundedness and awareness of the individual body beyond the technical notion of being merely a support for relationships (Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: 24) or the site of their completion (Battaglia 1983: 292ff; Strathern 1988: 271). There are two issues I highlight here. First, there is Boesoou’s point that spirituality was an integral part of the Melanesian person long before Christian influence. So, even if Strathern does not include Christianity as an important new influence on the person, aspects of indigenous spirituality should have been discussed. Second, there is the question of the individuated bounded body. In the abstract nature of her argument the body is dissected into and composed of male and female substances, same-sex and cross-sex relationships, and a more abstract notion of gendered ‘parts’. The body is, it seems, the meeting point (or battleground?) of people’s ideas about the nature of social relationships – which are gendered. What I miss from Strathern’s work is a treatment of the gendered body as, what Bourdieu calls, the ‘memory pad’ of embodied knowledge: ‘The essential part of the learning of masculinity and femininity tends to inscribe the difference between the sexes in bodies (especially through clothing), in the form of ways of walking, talking, standing, looking sitting etc.’ (Bourdieu 2000: 141). What I would like to offer now is a description that, for now, puts aside thoughts about partible and composite gendered aspects of the body and rather explores gendered bodily knowledge in a way closer to Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus.

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Gendered bodily knowledge

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My mother Joana came into view. She was standing on the broad half-shaded path by the mango tree, just outside the hamlet. I had returned to Vanua Lava for the second time. Eli and some of my brothers had come to meet me at the airport. With books and luggage for one year we had taken a boat and arrived in the late afternoon at the black sand beach in Vureas Bay. When Joana caught sight of us coming up the hill from the sea she pointed us out to my youngest brother Iudicas who was clinging to her skirt. I was so happy to see her again; I had been looking forward to it for the past year. When I had finally made it up the slippery hill, still puffing, I tried to greet her with a smile, but her teary face made me cry too. We stood there for a minute, each crying on the other’s shoulder. Finally disentangled, we started talking as she led me into the kitchen: kal me, kal me, come inside, come inside. As I followed her from the sunshine into the dark kitchen I automatically bent down and held my skirt tight. I was back.

One of the most immediate experiences when ‘walking into’ an unfamiliar culture is people’s different body language – ways of greeting, entering a house, approaching a group of people and what is considered an appropriate distance to observe with one’s interlocutors; these are but a few of the differences I encountered. Without fully realising it at the time, upon my return to Vanua Lava for my second visit I had slid into the ni-Vanuatu ways again – not only ways of behaving but what I would describe as a ‘style of being’. In the greeting with Joana there was simultaneous happiness and sadness, which I have learnt is the ‘norm’, that is the culturally expected way to feel in such a situation. The happiness about the reunion mingles with the sadness about the memory of past separation. Bending down and holding the skirt while entering the kitchen was partly a necessity due to the small door and the step across the threshold and down (what Bourdieu would call habitat); but it was also the polite way for women to enter a house. I do not recall anybody telling me that this is the way I should behave. As a newcomer who was careful to make as few mistakes as possible, I simply copied what other women did. Similarly, crying at what seemed to me happy occasions, like reunions or weddings, I learnt by exposure and some explanations when I tried, but continually failed, to take photos of a happily married couple. In addition to appropriate ways of ‘walking and talking’, which are part of Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus, there are appropriate emotions which have their particular expression – a topic that is explored later on in the chapter. By engaging with different expressions of embodied knowledge, a different dimension of people’s relationships with each other, and with places (local, global and imagined), can be made visible. What follows is a detailed description of embodied knowledge about managing social and physical distance, negotiation of space and notions about bodyspace in Vanua Lava.

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Social and physical distance Appropriate physical distance between people can be seen in accordance with social distance as discussed in chapter one. Body contact in public can be observed between parent and dependent child, between same-sex and same-generation children and teenagers, and lastly between partners (same-sex or cross-sex) in a joking relationship. The most obvious physical and spatial separation is that between men and women. At social gatherings they tend to sit apart in same-sex groups. During those gatherings, the female sphere is more public that the male sphere. While men move freely between the female, mixed and male-only spheres, women are less likely to join a male-only group. This tendency is reflected in most other living arrangements as well. Ordinary houses (gövur), seen as places of women, are open to men, while men’s houses (gemel) are for men only.3 However, there are exceptions. During the Sunday service men and women sit on separate sides in the church. When the church becomes very crowded, some married women, but not children, can sit with the men; while men never sit on the side with all the women, unmarried girls and small children.4 While village life allows for appropriate physical distance to be observed at all times, the introduction of other public spaces like churches and public transport with confined space poses new challenges. On the larger planes flying between Port Vila and Santo, seats are allocated with numbered boarding passes and therefore passengers have no choice about seating arrangements. When travelling to Port Vila for the first time this may well be a person’s first experience of ‘urban’ anonymity. However, on flights with the 18-seat Twin-Otter between Santo and Sola passengers can choose their own seats. In this more familiar setting people carefully rearrange their seating so that same-sex rules or possible crosssex arrangements according to kinship are observed – unless the pilot interferes and rearranges passengers for reasons of weight distribution. Young people in particular are keen to experience alternative spatial arrangements they have heard about or seen on imported videos. At public celebrations there is the occasional village disco, where loud music, mostly Reggae, and poor lighting allow for closer contact and dance moves that seem outrageous to local spectators and certainly are not what the older generation would term normal or appropriate ways of behaviour. The fact that young people are immensely interested in this experience, despite their physical restriction to the island speaks of an ‘urbanisation of the mind’.5 The imitation of alternative ways of moving and negotiations of 3  This is also the case for the separate bathing places. Women’s washing and bathing areas are often in public places (e.g. stream crossings) while men’s are private and exclusive. 4  Older children go to the simultaneously run Sunday school and only enter the church for a short time after communion to receive a blessing. 5  I am indebted for this term to Ian Scales and his insightful comments in the corridors of the Department of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU.

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space allow them to experience an imagined ‘Western’ place, which may be a nightclub in Port Vila they have heard about from friends.

Negotiating space

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When passing other people, greetings, statements or questions about the nature of errands or the destination are exchanged. If one accidentally encounters a large gathering of people one walks around in a large semi circle, even if this means crawling through the bush. One should never walk through the middle of a crowd, even if people sit or stand dispersed, such as across the whole nasara for a meeting. Women passing a group of men within viewing distance should assume a slightly bent posture and hold their skirts tightly to their body. When approaching a house with an open door (indicating that someone is in or nearby) people call out for the person they first see or they assume to be there. They look in through the open door, careful not to block the entrance with their body, as blocking an entrance carries the implication of a threat by an enemy. When invited to come in people do so swiftly, so as not to linger in the ambiguous space of the doorway. Children are scolded when lingering in the doorway, which is called the ‘eye of the house’ (mete gövur) and often also the only source of sunlight. Women hold their skirt tight to their body, so the sunlight cannot reveal their shape upon entering a house and thus render them ‘naked’ to the people inside. Inside, guests are always asked to sit down on a mat or a stool, and are offered available food or water. Depending on the size of the house and the number of people present, the distance between speakers can be anything between thirty centimetres to five metres. Adult crosssex siblings are not supposed to have eye contact when speaking to each other. In general, eye contact between speakers should only be sporadic, rather than fixed, in contrast to some Western cultures where it is a sign of attentive listening or telling the truth.

Body: Space The way people negotiate space is connected to ideas about the human body, and the sphere around it, which is seen as belonging to it. Two spheres are of particular importance for Vanua Lavans: the space above any person’s head, and the space between a woman’s legs. The space above the head of a person is taboo. For example, taking a basket from above where a person is sitting without asking permission is not just a matter of impoliteness, but an intrusion of a person’s bodyspace. While this rule of respect applies to men and women alike it has to be especially observed with persons with whom one has a relationship that commands respect, such as one’s affinal relations, maternal uncles and people that are nominally one generation above from oneself. The maternal uncle’s body-space overhead extends to his house, whether he is or is not inside it. If one throws a stone over him or his house by mistake

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any future illness or accident is attributed to this assault on his space. Toren (1990) describes a similar phenomenon for Fiji, where notions of hierarchy between the members of a household increase the taboo space to the area of the house, or the elevated area (yavu) that the house is built upon (Toren 1990: 29ff). In the Vanua Lavan case notions of hierarchy intermingle with notions about the dividual and multiple person. The maternal uncle not only stands for but embodies the matriline, and therefore his sister’s child is part of him and he is part of the child. Injuring him means injuring oneself and others of the same vênê¼. The space between a woman’s legs is also taboo. This is the explanation given (by men and women) for why women are required to wear skirts. Not only the exposure of naked skin but the exposure of shape is proscribed. Thus, it is not enough to hide the flesh, but the space, the gap, between the legs must also be hidden. Women have to sit appropriately, ensuring that their skirt covers their upper thighs at all times and that one cannot see under their skirt when sitting down or getting up. This does not mean that they have to sit with their legs together, but when they are spread the material of the skirt should be gathered between the legs. Small girls are trained at a very early age to sit appropriately and are much more strongly encouraged to wear clothes than are boys of the same age. The idea behind this is that women have to deemphasise their sexuality as much as possible, because they are thought of as possessing strong ‘magic’ – sexual power. Women have to take care not to expose men to this ever-present danger. They have to assume a lower position when passing, so as not to draw a man’s thoughts to their sexuality. If a woman walks on the beach while the men try to catch fish with a net it can happen that all the fish suddenly disappear because the men’s concentration is distracted. In this way women’s power has the ability to permeate men’s bodies; their thoughts, motivation and action can be altered. This female allure is thought to drain men’s energy. A man’s interest in pursuing a certain aim (e.g. building a house) will disappear. There is talk about men being ‘unclean’ through contact with women but the main idea seems to be more about draining of energy rather than pollution (see also Jolly 2002: 21). The idea of pollution is perhaps most apparent in the openly stated rule that women are not allowed to step over food or a fireplace. They are also required not to cook for men at the time of their monthly period, although today this rule is not as closely enforced as it used to be. It was explained to me that the contact with a woman’s menstrual blood is believed to make a man sick. Why then, I wondered, were some coconuts rendered inedible by men when a small girl of about four years old jumped over them? The man, who had just bought them to drink with his male friends, had to give them away to women and children. The girl was years away from having her first period, but was nonetheless perceived as dangerous. The answer lies perhaps in the food’s exposure to the gap between her legs and the ‘steam’ (derun, this term denotes a combination of the heat and the smell of

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a woman’s sexual organs) that her sex is thought to produce. The coconuts may have even ‘seen’ her vagina. Men who do consume food affected in this way are said to never become rich or achieve anything significant in their life: they are emasculated or made weak. Women are obliged to ensure that men do not have to pass underneath any of their washing that is hung up. However, these beliefs have to be taken sceptically because, as Eli noted, strictly speaking men would not be allowed to drink water from the village’s communal water supply system, as the pipes run under ground and women step over them constantly. There are different bathing places for men and women. Unlike other locales in the area, for example Kuru village on Gaua island, where women were never allowed to enter the men’s waters, on Vanua Lava they could go if men were not using the facility at that time. However, the women’s bathing and washing areas are much more public in nature. Whereas the men bathe naked, the women never undress completely even when they bathe alone. Moreover, men never bathe downstream from women. When I followed my mother to bathe she would always put herself downstream from me. When Sophie, my French ‘sister’ came and stayed with us she was put at the top of the stream. Her being placed on top, in the most ‘male’ place certainly has something to do with polite behaviour towards visitors, but it is also related to her being perceived as more ‘male’, because she was working mostly with men in gardens and plantations researching taro and coconut and always wearing long trousers and walking boots. One evening she came back from the gardens very excited and happy, telling me how she had changed into a spare pair of shorts of one of our brothers, and how they had all been swimming in the river together. She had felt that everybody including herself had forgotten that she was not a man. Because she was not perceived as female, the space between her legs held no danger. Clothing seemed to play an important part in Sophie achieving a more male or neutral gendered habitus. Long trousers and solid shoes are aspired to by men; they combine aspects of ‘maleness’ with aspects of a ‘Western’ or modern identity. White women, especially short-term visitors or tourists can generally assume a more ‘male’ habitus, and the privileges that go with it. Because Sophie stayed for shorter periods, between two and seven weeks at a time, rather than a full year, people were tolerant of her ‘male’ behaviour and largely ignored her occasional mistakes of stepping over food or fireplaces.6 In the everyday life of local women gender ambiguities regarding dress are not so well tolerated. Women are not allowed to wear trousers, long or 6  Jolly describes a similar situation for her field-site, where a female white tourist was allowed much closer to men building a tower for the famous land-dive ritual, while she was forbidden to go, because as a local woman her presence would threaten the stability of the tower and thus endanger men’s lives (Jolly 1994: 9).

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short, in public. If they do so outside their hamlet they are heavily criticised and have to pay a fine. Women who wear trousers are sometimes seen as whores. Some men even argue it is an invitation to rape. What seems at issue here is once again the exposure of the space or gap between the legs. It is the women’s responsibility to ensure that men are not exposed to this danger. Strathern’s distinction between agency and cause might be helpful here. She writes: ‘The separation between agent and the person who is the cause of his or her acts is systemic, and governs the Melanesian perception of action. … Given that persons are reified as two kinds, through the aesthetics of gender women consequently appear as the cause of men’s actions, and men as the cause of women’s (Strathern 1988: 273). However, the cause for the strong disapproval men voice may also lie in the danger they perceive from a female intrusion into male space, or identity. Bolton (2003a) argues that gender as well as status is demonstrated through clothes. Women wearing trousers are seen to, and seek to, appropriate male status symbols and claim male practice.7 Bolton notes that ‘the opposition to traosis has developed over the period when urban-based women’s organizations have increasingly advocated woman’s rights, when women have started to seek election to Parliament, and when some women are achieving employment in government and business at higher levels’ (Bolton 2003a: 136). What is at stake at the village level, though, where there are no highly paid jobs for either men or women? Today, women’s rights are increasingly advocated at village level, for example through organised workshops on domestic violence. There is a local representative of the Vanuatu Women’s Centre whose job it is to help victims of rape. In the past, clothing and decoration have been an important marker of gender-specific ranks and also of differences of rank between men and women. Women had different traditional clothes and decorations from men, which varied from place to place. Wearing European-style clothing, introduced by missionaries, was a sign of conversion (Bolton 2003a: 127). At the same time clothes, especially the cumbersome dresses for women, could have affected a new possibility for gender inequality, based on the conviction of a physical female inferiority in European nineteenth-century thinking. Wearing trousers may at first sight seem an issue of gender only, but in urban as well as rural Vanuatu women wearing trousers can be perceived to threaten men’s rank and their presumptions of power as well as their gender. Strathern treats the body in her analysis largely as a location, a physical host for a person, an agent, a cause or a relationship. The body in this view is a conceptual one, which can be imaginatively dissected into gendered parts, transacted in the form of gendered partible gifts, or transmitted through the replication of substance. The actual lived body as ‘memory pad’ for 7  When asked, most women would say that wearing trousers is simply more practical on long walks, climbing a ship and so on.

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gendered embodied knowledge suggests an additional dimension. Gender and social distance are defining dimensions of different relationships; they are learnt and inscribed in a person’s habitus as embodied knowledge.

Dividual, individual or what? Strathern is to be commended for setting out the total extent of the dividual aspects of Melanesian personhood (cf. LiPuma 1998: 74). Persons as dividuals she defines as ‘frequently constructed as the plural and composite site of the relationships that produce them. The singular person can be imagined as a social microcosm’ (Strathern 1988: 13). Roy Wagner, thinking along the same lines, introduces the term fractal person, which has basically the same characteristics as the term dividual: ‘A fractal person is never a unit standing in relation to an aggregate [read individual to society or group], or an aggregate standing in relation to a unit, but always an entity with relationship integrally implied’ (Wagner 1991: 163). Strathern’s ‘generalized sociality within’ compares to Wagner’s fractality that ‘relates to, converts to and reproduces the whole’ and this is ‘something as different from a sum as it is from an individual part’ (Wagner 1991: 166) (see also Strathern 1991). The way to achieve an apt description of dividuality/fractality is, as Strathern has done, to expand the terms singular and plural to describe both sociality and persons.

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More or less plural Dividuality and fractality are of course theoretical concepts and cannot be expected to correspond to people’s own self-descriptions. They do seem to me, though, to be apposite in relation to many aspects of Vanua Lava social life. Gender looms large in Strathern’s discussion of dividuality. On Vanua Lava the concepts of ‘sides’, and with this generations, seem equally if not more relevant dimensions of dividuality. Dividuality/fractality can be found in one-to-many relations (such as single person to matriline) as well as in dual relations (two single persons, or two groups). Its situational character will become apparent in the following examples. The most senior man of a vênê¼ represents the matriline and is thus an example of the one-to-many relations. If the mother’s brother as single human being is taken as an imaginary starting point for dividuality or fractality he can be understood to both expand (to groups) and contract (to parts of himself). If he is treated with disrespect, the whole vênê¼ is treated as such. When he acts as a representative of his vênê¼ at ceremonial exchanges he embodies the vênê¼. At other everyday occasions he is, like everybody else, only part of a vênê¼. While everybody belongs to a vênê¼, there are situations when a person and (parts of) their body can be seen as separate. This is the case when people injure themselves or others and blood is spilt. The blood is not the

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individual’s property, but is seen as belonging to the vênê¼ and therefore he or she has to pay a small fine, called sisdar, to the respective vênê¼. Two aspects are important here. First, there is no individual ‘ownership’ over one’s body (which, incidentally, coincides with the Christian prohibition against suicide). Second, in this context the plurality within a single person, for example other affiliations they have through their father’s vênê¼ (or through adoption), is eclipsed. Only the singular identification with their matrilineal vênê¼ remains. At a death ceremony the simultaneity of the person as singular and plural becomes visible in the performance of the transactions. Money is given from the children of the deceased to ‘the other side’ as part of the formal transfer of land rights and to acknowledge the people who helped feed the deceased. Both sides are at the same time a single entity, composed of singular persons as part of a plural person. Everyone on the giving side either touches the person about to hand over money or, if the group is too big, touches another person, thus creating a physical link to the representative giver. Only when everybody has become part of this single entity is the money formally handed over. At the receiver’s end one person (usually a man) accepts the money on behalf of a group; it is shared among all who belong to the nominated receiving unit. While close relatives, like immediate siblings, are given money individually, others, for example the nephew’s children (wotwot) are given money as a group. If the deceased is their father, the children pay his vênê¼, and all others he was associated with through adoption or friendship.8 In their view they are paying ‘the other side’. Their own vênê¼ is eclipsed at this moment as they acknowledge all affiliations the deceased had. However, if the deceased is their mother, principal payments are made to her brothers, to retain some usage rights of land and to acknowledge his support. In this case the payments remain on the ‘same side’ but they move to another generation.9 Dividuality, being situational rather than a permanent state, thus also has a fluid or processual character. Every person carries descent and inherited gendered substance from both mother and father. While the vênê¼ membership is inherited from the mother, the father and his vênê¼ is acknowledged as tavalvet (the other/same side stone). In marriage this internal duality is eclipsed and a man and woman can be seen as two halves becoming one. They have in this situation simultaneously done three things: (a) they effaced the respective opposite gender components from their mother and father; (b) the father’s ‘side’, that is the affiliation with his vênê¼ as tavalvet are not important in this context; and, (c) through merging their bodies in a sexual union, they create a new singular 8  In other areas of Melanesia where clans are patrifilative, payments are made to the deceased’s mother’s side (Strathern 1971: 234). 9  For a detailed description of a death ceremony see chapter three; for the transactions regarding land transmission see chapter four.

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entity, a house, a new singular dual in that their different vênê¼ make up the two sides of a new house. Dual relations can be of two kinds. They can be complementary ones, such as those of husband and wife, or they can be a relationship denoting the same kind, such as twins or same-sex siblings. One indication for the special value that dual relationships have in Vanuatu is the fact that all indigenous languages spoken in Vanuatu have a grammatical dual (Tryon: personal communication).10 In Vurës these are dôrôk (first person dual inclusive we two, us two), kômôrôk (first person dual exclusive we two, us two) and kômôrô¾ (second person dual, you two). By using the dual, as in ‘we two go to the garden’ a temporary bond of sameness is established through common activity. Also important is the term taval, which alone means ‘side’. Used in relation to something or someone, aspects of otherness as well as of sameness can be evoked; the word tavalgi can mean both, the same side or the other side. So, metaphorically, while the father is tavalvet, on the other side of the stone, he is still part of the same stone, and therefore part of oneself. The same can be said about namesakes, tavalsian, (the other/same side name). Through this bond of being the ‘other aspect of the same’ sociality can be seen as simultaneously within and without a person/body. Relationships within are to a certain extent given through substance but can also be highlighted or occluded depending on a specific situation. Relationships on the outside of the body are maintained through partible gifts. By giving/sharing, that is engaging in same and/or reciprocal activities, single human beings can be seen as fractal parts of a larger entity. While duality or plurality is acknowledged and valued, especially in sharing contexts, singularity is also aspired to. Bulbul, unity (sometimes also translated as friendship), is a concept that incorporates the simultaneity of being many and one at the same time. It is mostly talked about in the context of dispute meetings where the explicit aim is to restore peace (ta¼at), love (timtiam) and therefore unity (bulbul), which encompasses all. However, also at other meetings such as weddings and death ceremonies people show their support through their physical presence, which is voiced as ‘sit down strong’ (siag varge) with someone, and through this display of unity, give them power. To help (biri¾) someone in need is the requirement of relational sociality. Being united and therefore being able and willing to share is what enables people to be singular and plural at the same time.

Melanesian individuality Individuality and individual agency have been discussed in the Melanesian context, particularly with regard to forms of male leadership. Authors have 10  Whereas not all Austronesian languages have a dual (Pawley: personal communication).

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focused on conditions that make leaders successful, such as economic ambition for ritual exchange or inequality in knowledge (Sahlins 1963; Lindstrom 1981; Godelier and Strathern 1991). Leaders are deemed successful because of individual qualities: charismatic personality, oratorical skills, persuasive talents or magic to influence others (Allen 1981). Admiration for their individual skills and acceptance of their status is tied to their strategies for benefiting others. To achieve unity (bulbul) is one of a leader’s most valued abilities. A leader is admired not for his (selfish) individuality but for his ability to achieve singularity of the collective. The singularity of a group may be identified with the person of the leader, suggesting a kind of ‘fractal’ relation between them. The importance of achieving unity is visible in emplaced knowledge. A number of traditional sites I surveyed are seen to confer on a man the power to prevent fights and thus create peace and unity among people.11 While I have not found a single term in Vurës that distils all of a leader’s abilities, his capacities have been described to me in ways that are reminiscent of the concept of noman, found among the Melpa-speaking people in the Mount Hagen region of Papua New Guinea. It bridges, in a seemingly effortless way, what in traditional Western conceptions are the contradictions of individual and society: ‘In different contexts noman translates as individual capacity, will, intention, desire, motivation, understanding, social consciousness, and human sociality’ (Strathern 1981: 282). The first set of possible translations could be ascribed to a single ‘bounded’ individual; the second set clearly stresses the dividual qualities. Thus the inherent qualities of the noman are simultaneously individual and dividual. To have a ‘single’ ‘straight’ noman, that is unity and alignment both within oneself and with one’s relations, is strongly aspired to as a sign of a strong and successful person (Strathern 1981: 292). In view of the concept of noman Strathern and Stewart have created the term ‘relational-individual’ (2000: 63) in order to reconcile individual and dividual aspects of a person. A definition of Melanesian personhood in which elements of relationality and elements of individuality coexist seems to be a fitting compromise. However, this compromise does not deal with the possible emergence of individualism in recent times. As LiPuma notes: ‘The true irony is that overemphasis of the individual that was a hallmark (and error) of the original encounter between Western ethnographers and Melanesians has turned out to be an omen of things to come’ (1998: 76). Through ongoing relations with traders and missionaries, Western notions of the ‘individual’ can be assumed to have influenced the ideal notion of relationality, where even the individualistic actions of a leaders are, or should, ultimately benefit his relations. Changing land rights 11  Some of the sites I registered for the Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Site Survey are discussed in chapter four.

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throughout Vanuatu (Allen 1968; Van Trease 1987; Mitchell 2000), the emergence of a landless urban population in Port Vila and Luganville, and an increase in private ownership indicate a change towards a Westernstyle ‘possessive individualism’ as evoked by Locke, whose individualism has its roots in Christianity.12 Bronwen Douglas argues that in Vanuatu ‘Christian concepts of the individual as a moral agent in personal communication with God appropriated and indigenised by Melanesians are still the most pervasive “Western” version of the person encountered in Melanesia’ (1998: 2). Robbins (2004: 298ff) draws attention to the fact that Melanesians struggle with the Christian notion of individual salvation, which conflicts with their wish to be reunited with their social group in paradise.13 So are there signs of utilitarian or possessive individualism on Vanua Lava? Weiner (1992) has argued for the Trobriands that there is a paradox of ‘keeping-while-giving’ that is counterposed to the ‘norm of reciprocity’. Mosko (2000) argues that the paradox of keeping-while-giving is more appropriately seen as deriving from Western presuppositions of individual boundedness, subjectivity, possession and ownership. Either way, one may ask: is this another case where Western presuppositions may be an omen of things to come? People on Vanua Lava certainly have their strategies for keeping and hiding things they do not wish to share, but these are comparatively minor compared to the emerging inequalities regarding the possession of money and land by individuals. While there was always enough land for everybody to plant food and access building materials, the fact that land is a finite resource really became an important issue when it could be used to plant coconuts and thus to access and accumulate ‘Western’ money and goods. While people had active exchange relationships with neighbouring islands and access to shell money in the past, the gap between those who had more and those who had less became wider, possibly also due to contact with colonial traders, exposure to their entrepreneurial attitudes, and the introduction of money, which could be used for all kinds of exchanges, ranging from bridewealth to buying rice, therefore blurring the boundaries that previously existed between shell-money and other goods. Many disputes today are over an individual selling a communal asset, for example building materials, for his personal benefit. While everybody can use communal assets for their personal needs (e.g. building a house) earning money and not sharing it is heavily criticised. Present-day ownership of coconut plantations is another example of emerging possessive individualism. Rodman (1987) pointed out for Ambae 12  For an insightful discussion of Locke’s possessive individualism see Macpherson (1962). 13  For a detailed discussion of the Vanua Lavan conceptual solution to this problem see chapter six.

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that the customary land tenure system changed while appearing to remain the same. That is, a few men came to control a large percentage of land through apparently ‘traditional means’. This is also true for Vanua Lava, where a few men have accumulated large plantations and several cattle. People take great care not to show off their wealth, which is displayed not so much in their houses, but in the cleanliness of their plantations (Caillon: personal communication). Coming back to Douglas’ Christian ‘individual as a moral agent’ and the assumption – based on Leenhardt’s and Strathern’s stress on persons being composites of relationships – that Melanesians do not have an ‘inner core’, the question is: are there signs of Vanua Lavans developing an ‘inner core’ due to their engagement with modernity? Has or is the engagement with modernity, through interactions with missionaries, traders, tourists, even anthropologists, and their expectations that every person has an ‘inner core’, leading to its emergence? Modern identity, as Taylor (1989) shows, is connected to morality, what it means to be good.

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Being ‘good’ LiPuma suggests for the Maring of Papua New Guinea that people do not think of themselves as having inner states14 (that is being honest versus acting in an honest way) in contrast to the Western person (LiPuma 2000: 62). All qualities, like honesty, intelligence, empathy, can be said to be dependent on situation. This means that: (a) they are not permanent, and (b) they are not so much attached to an individual but rather to a relationship. How and to what extent does this correspond with the way the person is understood in Vanua Lava? Time and time again I heard expressions like: hem i gud (s/he is good), fasin blong hem i gud (her behaviour/actions are good). In Vurës this is expressed as mêtigwê (good fashion, generous). The opposite, which I heard just as often, is expressed as fasin blong hem i nogud, in Vurës as mêtigtisê (bad fashion, selfish). Simplified, this implies that not sharing, being selfish or being ‘singular’ is considered bad; being plural or dividual is considered ‘good’. This raises the question of whether Vanua Lavans think of being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ purely as relational, depending on the situation, as LiPuma posits, or whether these inner states are thought of as more permanent characteristics. People on Vanua Lava do not explicitly talk about what it means to be a ‘good’ person in the abstract. What people do talk about is appropriate behaviour. However, does talking about appropriate behaviour necessarily mean that being ‘good’ is only situational? In the absence of more abstract forms of expressions could talking about a specific incident of someone 14  LiPuma uses the term ‘inner state’ more in the sense of ‘inner core’, suggesting a relatively constant characteristic that accounts for why people do the things they do.

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being ‘good’ be a way to comment about a more permanent characteristic? In what follows I will lay out examples of ‘good’ behaviour, but unlike some ethnographers of the region, I would be more hesitant to say whether Vanua Lavans think of themselves as having or not having an ‘inner core’ that accounts for their permanent ‘goodness’ or other persisting qualities. Maybe the concept of the ‘inner core’ is yet another Western ideology like the idea of the Western individual (LiPuma 1998). In Western societies, as Goffman (1990) has shown, being ‘good’ can also be highly situational.

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Giving One of my fathers, who was selling tobacco, was making a loss because he gave endless credit and such generous amounts that his initial investment was not met by his income. He explained to me that he did not mind, because people would ‘love him more’ for it. Being generous and happy to give are crucial criteria for being perceived as a good person. It has to be pointed out, however, that people have an acute sense of whom they can ask and what is reasonable to ask. The customary correct way to go about this is that one would not risk asking if one fears being rejected because this would cause both parties to be ashamed of each other. Being ‘good’ is not only reflected in ‘giving’, ‘feeding’, ‘helping’ or sharing’; but in ‘asking’ or ‘taking’. Let me illustrate this. One day my sister Freda passed by, chatted with me and our mother, Joana, and left again. Later that day Joana told me that Freda had wanted to ask me for batteries for her torch because she wanted to go fishing at night. Freda had asked our mother whether she knew if I had some spare batteries. Because Joana did not know, my sister left again not wanting to embarrass me by possibly asking for something I could not or did not want to give. As it turned out I had spare batteries and when I met her next I offered them.15 What had happened here? Joana had acted as a mediator, giving me the option of deciding whether I could and wanted to help. If I had no batteries then Freda would have saved us both from being ashamed in relation to each other. If I had batteries and did not want to give them I was free not to do so, but I should probably feel ashamed for being so selfish. If, on the other hand, I had batteries I might be induced to feel sorry for my sister and help her by offering them. Both my classificatory father and my sister are ‘good’. They know how to ask and are happy to share. They have incorporated the localised definitions of what it means to be ‘good’. Being able to give also depends on people’s physical ability, their skill and especially their motivation to work: these are other important facets 15  The whole issue of asking is more complex, as sometimes people do ask for things to test one’s reaction, or on the off chance of receiving more than they could reasonably expect. Here I concentrate on the etiquette of asking, which reflects on being perceived as ‘good’.

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of ‘being good’. Idle behaviour is likened to that of plants and described as mekem flaoa nomo – to produce only flowers, not food. The emphasis on the ability and the motivation to work is connected with the production of food in powerful local proverbs:

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For men: For women:

Na qara¾ ni rev la tan nêk i gen sinag. If your penis pulls along the ground you will eat food. Na vese¾ ni wawa¾ la tan nêk i gengen sinag. If your vagina is open towards the ground you will eat food.

These expressions, I was told, refer mostly to the activity of weeding gardens. The use of words for genitals points to a potent expression of meaning that requires more elaboration. However, I was not able to gain any elaboration on these proverbs; they were seen as self-explanatory. So I can only speculate that the production of food and humans are seen as connected or alike. Engagement with the ground, the planting, weeding and harvest of crops, is likened to sexual reproduction.16 Engaging in both qualifies one as a ‘good person’ that is finally rewarded with the result, food and children – both essential to reproduce oneself. Being able to eat through one’s own work is an important step to becoming an adult. However, to be perceived as ‘good’ by others one has to create a surplus, be able to share, and feed others.17 These others in return will feel cared for and loved. Being considered a ‘good’ person revolves around situations and activities that foreground dividual aspects of relationality. The blurring of boundaries between individual bodies/persons speaks of a sociality within each person as well as between persons. From personal experience I would add that the ultimate sign of being ‘good’ is being able to anticipate the needs of the other and giving before the other asks or even thinks of asking. Thus, behaviour also entails emotions. Ability to feel empathy or shame in the right situations is a clear sign for Vanua Lavans that someone is ‘good’.

Sore In her description of children’s socialisation among the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, Schieffelin (1990) shows that feeling sorry for someone vulnerable or in need of help is an important part of their upbringing. Socialisation concentrates on being sympathetic and emphatic to other 16  Jolly argues that in many parts of the world sexual intercourse is equated with food consumption, and incest is likened to eating one’s own pigs, rather than exchanging them (Jolly 1991a: 52). 17  Creating a surplus is also crucial for ceremonial exchanges and status acquisition (see Allen 1984).

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people’s requests. On Vanua Lava stories with those kinds of moral messages are frequently told to children. The very first story I recorded was a story about two brothers, the elder of whom did not share food with the younger, who consequently died. The elder brother’s lack of empathy/ sympathy (marmarseg) with the hungry younger brother, and also his lack of shame (iamarge) for being so selfish can be seen to have caused the breakdown of this important relationship. Marmarseg, or sore in Bislama, is a key concept in ni-Vanuatu ideas about being human. This emotion is seen to arise in a wide range of situations and include being sorry for: someone who is leaving/dying, the effects on others of one’s own wrong action, the pain or misfortune of someone else or someone who is wanting something. These could be approximately glossed in English as grief, regret, compassion, sympathy and empathy. All feelings (including others like anger or pain), it seems, are felt in relation to someone or something else. Meyerhoff analyses the diverse meanings of the Bislama term sore (sorry) in different contexts in Vanuatu (Meyerhoff 1999). According to her, sore is used in three contexts: that of an apology (as in English), to express empathy, and when missing someone or something. About the social significance of empathy she writes:

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Empathy, being the projection of self onto the experience of another, satisfies both personal and social needs. By acknowledging that a sufferer’s situation is a plight that the community agrees to be both unfortunate and noteworthy, an expression of empathy enacts social cohesion. Empathy affirms group norms and common ground. However, an expression of empathy also satisfies interpersonal needs; it is intended somehow to minimize the unhappiness or pain being experienced by the subject of empathy. (Meyerhoff 1999: 232)

Empathy can take on many different expressions. Voicing being ‘sorry’ for someone is just one possibility. One can also be angry, ashamed or in pain on someone else’s behalf. The important issue is the identification with the emotions of the person with whom one feels empathy. These can be unhappy moments, like grieving with someone over the death of a beloved person, but also happy moments. For example, when I left the island, not only did we have a feast on my last night, but people told me that they would make another small feast on the day I left the country five days later. That day was compared to the fifth day of a mourning feast when the dead leave the living forever. In this way my family expressed their sore in view of my imminent departure. In their talk they anticipated missing me, feeling sorry for themselves, but at the same time feeling sorry for me, because they imagined how I must feel, missing them and their place. In this case the anticipated feeling of missing each other and empathy with each other can only be an analytical distinction. Lying in the kitchen at night talking about my future non-presence with my mother, the

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feeling of sadness and mutual empathy evoked a relationality that blurred the boundaries of emotions being experienced in separate bodies. Being able to feel marmarseg makes one a ‘good’ person because this feeling bridges the gap between individual (singular) persons. A good person can be said to be one that is dividual in the sense of being in the ‘other’ or having the other partly in oneself.

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Shame The feeling of shame (iamarge) also exists in the relationality between people rather than within an individual. ‘I feel shame’ is expressed as ‘my body is ashamed’ (na biêk ma marge),18 or more indirectly as ‘my body is cold’ (na biêk ma mamegin). These expressions imply that iamarge is felt inside a person’s body.19 However, talk about iamarge often involves talk about situations when someone is or should be feeling iamarge. It is thus a feeling that regulates and defines interaction between people. The feeling iamarge includes a variety of possible situations that are partially overlapping with marmarseg. People say they feel iamarge when: they have done something wrong, they are in a new place and everybody stares at them or when someone else is not happy about something. As one can see from these examples iamarge contains aspects of what in English may be glossed as shame, regret, being self-conscious and empathy or sympathy. In body language iamarge is expressed in a slack posture, making oneself small through bending down, avoidance of eye contact, not talking, almost crying or actually crying. As iamarge goes hand in hand with avoidance it could be argued that it is a feeling that is located in a space in between people, as well as inside a person’s body. Being iamarge and therefore having to avoid people is frequently expressed as ‘being afraid’ (qeneg) of each other. Thus social distance can be too little (disrespectful behaviour, intruding into someone’s space), correct (given the appropriate distance within the kin relations) or too big (implying avoidance, shame, fear). Like marmarseg the ability to feel iamarge is seen as a positive attribute of a person, but it is not restricted to humans alone. I was rather surprised to hear someone comment on the behaviour of a coconut crab ‘hem i gud, hem i save sem’ (it is good, it can [feel/express] shame). This referred to the coconut crab freezing then scuttling as if trying to hide when exposed to torch light. Feeling and expressing appropriate emotion/behaviour at a specific situation is a crucial part of being a ‘good’ dividual and mature person. The feeling of anger from parent to child, Eli explained to me, is only appropriate as a preventative action:20 ‘If you did something wrong I 18  Biêk is a shortened form of tarbiêk – my body. 19  Fear is also cold, but is said to be felt on the skin rather than inside the body. 20  Anger is only appropriate in very specific circumstances throughout the Pacific (cf. White and Kirkpatrick 1985; Watson-Gegeo and White 1990; White 1990).

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would feel sorry and ashamed for you. If I was angry with you, where would you go? Once the mistake is made, there is no room for anger’ (fieldnotes). The above discussion concentrated on what makes a person ‘good’, but in everyday life people are not always ‘good’. In fact, people comment regularly about other’s greed, jealousy or selfishness. These accusations, while they might be justified, are more a comment on the status of a relationship, where the complaining party expects to be receiving something or more than they have. These negative accusations, though, are just as likely a strategy to make the other give more than they initially wanted to give (Young 1971). One aspect of Melanesian persons that seems to coincide with Western notions of a ‘bounded individual’ is people’s sense of autonomy. It is generally accepted that a person’s thoughts/feelings cannot be known. At the same time a lot of people’s effort seems to go into influencing the actions of others through altering their thoughts/feelings and motivations. The next section explores aspects of permeability and autonomy. Are they tavalgi, two sides of the same thing, just like the individual and dividual in a relational way?

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Permeable but autonomous The video was broken. The owner double-checked all the usual technical possibilities, but no fault could be found. After some discussion with bystanders it was decided that a short healing ceremony had to be conducted. A man holding a metal mug filled with water walked slowly around the video four times while softly blowing across the surface of the water and singing (I was told; there was no sound) a secret song to extract the bad spirit. The whole ceremony took barely five minutes. The generator was started again, the video switched on, and without so much as a blink people continued to watch.

I describe this episode because I would like to emphasise that in Vanua Lavans’ understanding there is no significant difference between influencing people and things (see also Gell 1998: 17ff). A person, object or place is not thought of as a bounded impenetrable unit. People do, however, make a distinction between influences which are intentional (e.g. through magic/sorcery) and unintentional (becoming ill as a result of wandering in the wrong places). Persons, things and places can thus be described as permeable – they have the potential to influence and be influenced by others, places and things. Through this permeability someone’s actions, thoughts, motivations, well-being and emotions can be altered. The understanding that one’s own action could be influenced by possible external material causes affects how people explain their own and others’ actions. In what follows I will give some examples of permeability.

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In order to make inhabitants and visitors to a house feel welcome, relaxed and free of worries there are particular leaves buried below the main entrance of the house. Further, there are a number of kastom medicines that can cause tiredness, as well as give endless strength to continue working or walking long distances. Certain leaves can help the body of a baby to firm up and give it energy. Others make its body ‘light’ (me¾me¾) so that it can support its own weight and walk more quickly. Other leaves are used, either as an infusion or put under the pillow, to make a person ‘forget’ their lover. Making people lose their motivation can even be used to their advantage. A ‘good’ leader should make his followers tired of working in the garden when he knows that there are plenty of fish nearby. Then everybody will feel like going to the sea and will be able to catch fish. Passing by a ‘wrong’ place, eating the ‘wrong’ food, even inhaling the scent of the ‘wrong’ leaves might cause a person to behave ‘wrongly’. For example, the place of Wovol (the mythical figure that married his sister) may cause a person to have an incestuous relationship. While some people believe that the place influences innocent by-passers, others say it can only become active with special kastom performances. Bodily presence in places or incorporation of certain substances can have positive and negative effects. Particular (male) skills, like carving, can be learned but excellence in them is thought to be transmitted though inheritance or a gift from a spirit (vu). Consider for example Eli’s explanation of his excellent carving skills: My ancestors were good carvers. They drank plenty of leaves to enhance their skills and gain knowledge.21 They also paid for skills through kastom ceremonies at special places. The vu (spirits) of those places help to master the skills. Now the talent is in the blood and is transmitted to male and female descendants. The talent can take on different forms of expression, for example my sister’s son is a good painter. (Eli Field 16.12.2003)

As Eli’s explanation shows, a number of different factors have to be taken into account. First, there has to be a basic skill or talent. Second, this skill can then be enhanced with special substances (mostly extracts or infusions from leaves). By incorporating these local substances one also incorporates the powers of the place into one’s body. Third, through ceremonial payment to the vu of a magic place this skill is further enhanced by a supernatural being. Fourth, once incorporated, the skills can be passed on through blood. At this point Eli’s reasoning enters into an almost bio-genetic discourse derived from Western models.22 It is not 21  There are several ways to extract the liquid of leaves, some are cooked like infusions; others are mashed raw and mixed with water, like kava. 22  On the relationship between traditional and Western biomedical knowledge compare also Mallett (2002).

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possible to decide to what extent he has taken this knowledge from his Western education (which would have been apparent if he had spoken of genes instead of blood), or whether the concept of blood, as in the concept of gagêi discussed in the previous chapter, as a medium for the inheritance of skill/substance is an indigenous concept. Both explanations are possible, and both might be right. Suffice it to say that in this instance the two systems of thought come partly to the same conclusion, which is that skills may be passed on by biological kinship. The state of knowing how to do something is also connected to learning, not just to transmission of knowledge through substances, magic or blood. A person has to learn actively through verbal or visual instruction. Successful learning is phrased as ‘taking’ the knowledge that is offered: nêk me le, nêk mê gilal (you take it, you know). Taking the knowledge through learning is also a process of interiorisation of a particular skill into one’s body. As distinct from skill, motivation to work is a far more fleeting and unreliable capacity. Losing one’s motivation for a particular task is expressed in Bislama as mi les or mi lusum tingting. Mi les has a number of meanings ranging from ‘I am bored’, ‘I am fed up’, to ‘I lost interest’. Mi lusum tingting, (I lost interest, I lost my motivation) usually refers to a more definite task one has lost interest in pursuing. In Vurës the term iamrôn is used for someone who tries but does not succeed and then gives up. It is also used to mean being bored or fed up with someone or something, but people distinguish further between a person who cannot and does not want to work (mere¾, which literally means dry) and a person that can work but does not want to, someone who is just lazy (¼urës). Loss of motivation is felt inside one’s body as heaviness or drowsiness and is usually ascribed to outside forces. Thus, when my house was being built none of the helpers was allowed to eat or sleep in it until it was completed. If the rule had been violated the bodies of the builders would have become heavy and their interest in completing the house would have vanished. It took only three months to build my house, which is very quick by island standards. Towards the end of the building phase the rules against eating or sleeping were increasingly neglected and this was later mentioned as proof that the house was never completely finished; it had some minor details missing. All these examples leave the impression that a person is regarded as being quite vulnerable. Indeed, a person can be influenced in their actions, made ill or even die through magic, poison or bad spirits. Evil spirits cannot attack a person directly, though. They have to permeate a person by going through an animal (black lizard, dog, cat, etc.). These animals eat a person’s leftover food which makes them open to the spirit. Such permeability depends on people’s ideas of partibility, that objects which belonged to them or carry part of their body substance, like saliva, remain connected to them. Because leftover food is perceived to be part of a

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person, that person can be permeated through manipulation of the existing connection. Signs of engagement with modernity regarding ideas about permeability can occasionally be detected. A particular black butterfly is said to be especially poisonous; if it sits on a person’s food that food has to be thrown away as it is tainted. Anomalous animals are also perceived as dangerous: a lizard with two or three tails has to be killed immediately.23 These accounts were supplemented by one of my uncles with an explanation such as ‘animals like rats, flies and cockroaches eat faeces and crawl over food and make one sick’. He had acquired this Western medical knowledge during his time as a member of the public health committee. During 2002 members of the committee were in the process of implementing ventilated pit toilets and clearing the village’s potential malaria breeding areas. While people acknowledge the possibility of being influenced or influencing someone else they also acknowledge autonomy. Questions like ‘but why did he do this?’ are met with mi no save tingting blong hem (I don’t know his thoughts). Other expressions of autonomy are in the form of having an idea or being motivated to do something and claiming individual ownership through an expression like tingting blong mi nomo (it is entirely my idea). Rumsey and Merlan find that for the Nebilyer region of Highland Papua New Guinea autonomous motivation is ‘the most highly valued reason for action’ (Merlan and Rumsey 1991: 227). Here the individual, or singular, person’s agency is recognised as part of what Strathern reports for the Hagen concept of noman (A. Strathern 1981). At the same time, though, having a single noman is not a sign of an ‘inner core’, rather it ‘focuses on the relation between a person and a particular project which he or she has in mind … and is not especially reserved for description of persons as agents constant in their characteristics through time’ (Merlan and Rumsey 1991: 227). On Vanua Lava it is a sign of a maturity if a person’s thoughts and motivations remain obscure. Eli described this autonomy and lack of transparency as one of a leader’s qualities: if a leader’s thoughts are visible, like the bones of a fish through its skin, he is weak. At the same time, if he is powerful he has knowledge to influence others. Autonomy and the ability to influence others are valued but also bear the danger of criticism and accusation of bad intentions. Permeability is in some contexts deemed to be a weak trait. However, when people socialise they tell each other where they come from, where they are going and what their intentions are; in other words they make themselves transparent. Thus there is a correlation between levels of permeability and autonomy. These subtle connections, I argue, construct permeability and autonomy as related, like two sides of the same stone.

23  Mary Douglas explores the connection between people’s ideas of danger and pollution and anomalous animals in Purity and Danger (1966).

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The Vanua Lavan person Cecilia Busby distinguishes Melanesian and Indian understandings of the person. The Melanesian person she describes as internally divided and partible, the Indian person as internally whole, but with a fluid and permeable body boundary (Busby 1997: 269). She does not comment on the possibility of permeability of the Melanesian person. Looking at all the different aspects of what it can mean to be a person on Vanua Lava I come to the conclusion that people are simultaneously dividual and permeable. Their dividuality refers to aspects of their relationships. It is inscribed in their bodily knowledge and expressed in their habitus, but at the same time they have one singular body that is thought of as permeable. It can be influenced in its physicality, such as its health or well-being, and it can also be influenced in its mental states, like being motivated. The degree of permeability depends on factors such as maturity, incorporation of food or other substances, and on presence in places. The fact that place is an aspect of personhood, and the relevance of this to the question or permeability, is discussed more fully in the following chapters. In general it can be said then that Strathern’s model of the dividual (or her and Wagner’s notion of the fractal person) holds for Vanua Lava, and possibly for other parts of Vanuatu. Relationality or plurality in its expansions to groups and contractions to parts of a singular person is the ‘default’ way of being. Individuality or singularity is recognised in tastes and characteristics, but also in authorship of ideas, intentions and motivations. Engagement with capitalistic notions of possessive individualism seems to advance this particular kind of individualism more than the Christian idea of the individual as a moral being, who is accountable for their his or her deeds. This may have to do with people’s perduring notion that the cause of their action may lie outside their singular person (or body). Marilyn Strathern notes: ‘What deceives us perhaps … is the very fact that agents do not cause their own actions; they are not the authors of their own acts. They simply do them. Agency and cause are split’ (Strathern 1988: 273). While this is not always the case, as I have shown above, it may still be due to this understanding that Christian notions of individual accountability and notions about guilt have not been easily embraced, as they presuppose an ‘inner core’ which is a stable locus of agency and moral responsibility. One last point about the notion of autonomy: Maclean (1994) argues that in Melanesia freedom and autonomy are contradictory conditions. The notion of freedom is grounded in the complex impersonal interdependencies of the money economy and stands for an infinite horizon of possibility for the development of the self. Autonomy on the other hand is grounded in particular ties to place and people: The very land which gives a man autonomy from other members of his clan derives from his relationship to his father and fixes him as a member of that clan. A woman’s relationship with her brother provides her with a degree of

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autonomy from her husband and sons. Her relationship with her husband gives her autonomy from her brother and from other women. (Maclean 1994: 676)

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It becomes clear from this example that autonomy is relational: one is never completely free – and indeed this would be a scary thought for Vanua Lavans as it implies not having family or a place. For Vanua Lavans, as we shall see, even the dead have a place.

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• Chapter 3 •

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Life Cycles

Relations in Vanua Lava are constituted through exchanges between (singular and plural) persons as well as between persons and places. They find their most prominent expressions in the classical life-cycle rites of passage like birth, marriage and death. They also extend to the time before birth and after death. In this chapter I explore the connection people have with each other and with place as expressed in the life-cycle rituals of birth, marriage and death. In the previous chapter I introduced the notion that Melanesian persons have ‘sociality within’. If, as Strathern has argued, to Melanesians the conceptual opposition of individual and society is not relevant, then maybe this is also true for the distinction between person and place. Can place be thought about in the same way as ‘sociality’ being ‘within’ (Strathern 1988) or ‘integrally implied’ (Wagner 1991) in Melanesian understandings of persons? It has already been suggested that there is no significant distinction between people and places with regard to agency. The practice of life-cycle rituals and the nature of these exchange situations sheds light on people’s engagement with each other and with place. It also reflects on their concept of the person. Engagement with Western practices, for example births at local clinics or the combination of church and kastom weddings, provides an insight into people’s cultural logic and contemporary cosmology. As background for my discussion of life-cycle events, in which gift transactions constitute such an important part, I will first describe different forms of transactions. This necessarily entails a discussion of the debate around gifts and commodities.

A note on exchange In their discussions with me concerning exchange people used the Bislama term pem (pay or buy) for all transactions alike. So initially whenever people told me they were performing kastom I had the impression of commodity transaction because most times it involved ‘paying money’. However, as I found out, in Vurës paying something from the store (wöl) and paying kastom are seen as two distinct transactions. When people make kastom payments they talk about it as ‘making marriage’ (da lage) or

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‘making peace’ (da o ta¼at); the payment (faen) for the latter is literally called ‘restoring love’ (timtiam). Gregory (1982) argues for Papua New Guinea that people have few problems in distinguishing and switching between gift and commodity transactions. This is largely true for Vanua Lava too. All transactions that are kastom tie a person in an ongoing exchange relationship with the giver or receiver. Thus every gift received is a future debt, and conversely a debt is a future gift to be given (Battaglia 1992). By contrast, when buying something from the store no return gift is expected at a later stage; it is a once-off transaction, completed on the spot. It has to be noted though that a person would not buy something from the owner of a store if, for some reason, their relationship was disturbed. He or she would either do without or send someone else to purchase the needed item. Thus, while buying something from a store can be understood to be a commodity transaction there is another dimension that needs to be considered. Because, according to Strathern, persons are plurally constituted, this effects their exchange relations. Even by buying something from a store one detaches parts of oneself and attaches parts of the other person. Thus by sending someone else to complete this kind of transaction one avoids this kind of exchange. Although money is used both for commodity transactions and in the sphere of kastomary exchange, this does not mean that the introduction of money has had no effect upon the latter. Before turning to the specific exchange payments during life-cycle rituals I will briefly discuss some of the effects that money has had. Before European contact important transactions like bridewealth payments were made with shell money, söm. Söm was not needed for everyday exchanges and was therefore kept for important exchanges like life-cycle rituals. The word söm is now used as a general term for money, which is also called tiveg or selen. While tiveg is said to be ‘just another word for money’, selen originates from the British shilling; one selen is a 10 vatu coin. The use of shell money on Vanua Lava is very rare and today has been replaced with Vanuatu’s national currency, the vatu. The significant difference between the existence and exchange of söm in the past and money in the present is that today people use vatu for both, ritual as well as commodity payments. Goods at a store or sometimes even food from a neighbour can be bought with vatu.1 In the past there were no stores and food or other services needed from family or neighbours were managed through either barter or reciprocity based on kinship alliances of goods and labour. In Vurës there are a number of basic terms that can be used to indicate a payment: 1  This is the case when people explicitly declare certain food for sale, like bread or prawns. This is talked about as ‘making market’.

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wöl

once-off payment for an object.

gire

payment for the product of ordered (te) work, e.g. paying someone for making thatch fronds for one’s roof

gire wël/gire qalêg

payment for mutual name avoidance between the payer and the payee, who thus formally establish their in-law relationship

ruruse

payment for the labour rather than the product of someone’s work

Again, I would like to stress here that the translation of these exchanges as ‘payment’ may be misleading in that it suggests a stricter subject/object distinction than the indigenous term implies. All of these transactions have to be viewed in the light of exchange between partible parts of persons. People do not usually pay each other for produce from gardens or bush. For bush materials, like building material for houses, everybody has communal user rights for particular areas and one only has to inform other more senior users out of courtesy.2 Payments are rare and only made occasionally for material that does not currently grow in one’s area, for example people might be short of sago palm leaves for making thatch slabs. Food plants, such as taro from one’s garden or wild yam from one’s bush are sometimes sold as part of a fundraising activity, for example to cover expenses for the school, hospital or church. When people need a large quantity of taro for a ritual occasion like a wedding or death ceremony, they do not buy a bundle or basket of taro, but the taro of a whole irrigated garden unit (qel), which they harvest themselves and through this acquire all the produce. While people are familiar with a range of transactions ranging from gift to commodity, the use of modern money is starting to blur the boundary between special ritual occasions, everyday gift transactions and everyday commodity transactions. To illustrate how easily the delicate balances of exchange relations and transactions can be disturbed I would like to point to the recent implementation of a five-year master plan for economic development funded by AusAID called Torba REDI.3 As part of this economic development project a concrete market hall has been built in Sola. The aim was to give subsistence farmers a source of income while providing an increasing immigrant population from other islands to the provincial 2  People differentiate between trees that just grew in the bush, and those that someone has planted. The former can be harvested by all persons that have user rights, while for the latter the planter has the primary right to harvest, unless he or she has planted it in someone else’s name. 3  Torba stands for Torres and Banks Islands province. REDI stands for Rural Economic Development Initiative.

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capital with locally grown food. The 20-kilometre hike from Vêtuboso to Sola is a considerable distance to carry heavy root crops like taro. Some villagers, initially keen to sell some of their food gave up after not being able to sell everything and having to carry it home again. Now, they rely on personal networks again and take lighter, rarer foods like fresh-water prawns or watercress only when they are requested. The point I wish to make here is that through the implementation of this project the blurring of the boundaries of different kinds of payments in everyday transactions has increased. Before, only copra, cocoa and kava were cash crops. Now, basic foods that have previously been used to maintain relations through sharing and feasts are being sold for an individual’s profit. Along with this go accusations that people who sell watercress at the market may have stolen it from someone’s garden. So, while it is acceptable to consume food that someone else has planted, as long as permission is sought before or after, it is not acceptable to gain a personal profit from group-owned resources. The managing of resources and money becomes increasingly complex through the introduction of alternative forms of exchange mechanisms. Also, there are subtle signs that people are starting to confuse the difference between continuing exchanges and purchases of commodities. On Vanua Lava, younger generations increasingly use more Bislama than their parents. Especially children from inter-island marriages and from parents who for various reasons prefer to speak Bislama grow up with only very basic Vurës language skills. This trend continues in the urban centres where an increasing number of children grow up speaking Bislama as their first language. The loss of the vernacular language and its relatively richer set of terminological distinctions among kinds of exchange could possibly be one contributing factor (of many) in the blurring of boundaries between different kinds of exchanges. There are also moves to counteract this loss of knowledge and the associated blurring of people’s categories, though. At a recent kastom wedding between my brother Armstrong and my Australian colleague Catriona Hyslop, Eli felt obliged to explain publicly the enduring exchange relationships initiated through a bridewealth payment (Hyslop: personal communication). Because it is not customary to ‘pay’ bridewealth in Australia, it was generally recognised that Catriona came ‘free’ – that is without the obligation to pay her parents and brothers. The fact that Armstrong’s family still decided to pay Catriona’s mother, her mother’s brother and one of her brothers (who had all travelled to Vanua Lava for the occasion) shows continuing commitment to and recognition of the meaning of this kind of exchange relationship. Occasions like these can be seen as an indication of people’s ‘transformation of categories of knowledge’ (LiPuma 2000), but they are also powerful reminders of people’s active engagement with divergent introduced categories and their agency in accepting, rejecting or modifying them.

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I will now describe and discuss major life-cycle events with the following questions in mind: what does the particular exchange situation say about people’s understanding of themselves and their relationship with other persons, with the environment and with the spiritual world? Which aspects of understanding and practice are more and less affected by contemporary engagement with modernity?

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Permeability, dividuality and exchange before and after birth Birth can be seen as the starting point of a person’s life with regard to social relations and in terms of exchange. However, there are indications that a child’s being may be influenced even before it is born, and these influences suggest a relational view of the person. Several people have told me of incidents that connect a person to an animal prior to birth. A typical story would go like this: a man and his wife rest at a river. The man sees an eel and shoots it with a spear. He throws the dead eel on the shore but miraculously it disappears. Months later their child is born with a small indented area at the shoulder, which is then identified as the hole the spear made in the eel. Rivers (1914a: 151) describes similar beliefs for Mota, but in his account the disappearance of the animal is interpreted as the animal entering the woman, implying that the child being born is the animal transformed. On Vanua Lava today the animal is not seen as becoming the woman’s child, although no account was given as to where the animal disappears to. The child is not equated with the animal as such but is said to partake in its physical and mental character (mol ¼iar, sleep child, as I understand it expresses the idea that the animal is somehow present, ‘sleeps’, in the child). Thus, any unusual behaviour of a child might be attributed to this specific affinity. For example, one child was said to be akin to a shark because of marks behind its ears, thought to be indentations from the shark’s teeth. This explained the reason for the child’s unusual behaviour of chewing on a light bulb of a torch without hurting herself. A person remains intimately connected to this animal throughout his or her life. One man told me that his life is connected with that of a particular lizard. As long as the lizard is alive and well, he would remain alive and healthy. The particular place where the lizard lives is kept a secret, because he could be killed through the lizard. Codrington describes this as ‘likeness’ or in Mota tamaniu (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 251). These descriptions support an understanding of a person, depicted in the previous chapter, as permeable and partible, not just in relation to other persons but also in relation to non-human beings and places. The child’s future individual characteristics can be influenced by both parent’s actions. However, only women have to observe certain food

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taboos during pregnancy as these pertain directly to the birthing process, as shown in the table below:4

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Table 3.1: Food avoidance during pregnancy Food to be avoided

When eaten by a pregnant woman …

marê namarae eel

the baby will not be born swiftly. Like an eel it will look out of its hole and disappear again.

biliag nambiliak banded rail (Gallirallus philippensis)

the baby will be born feet first as the offspring of the bird come out of their eggs.

on nawita octopus

the baby will not be born quickly because something is holding it back like the suckers of an octopus.

wetewil nasese (Nerita spp.)

the baby will cling to the womb like the small shell clings to the rock and the birth will take a long time.

degetget (Pteris spp.)

this fern-like cabbage causes growth of hair on the foetus’ head and therefore makes the birth painful.

qërët flying fox

the baby will drink at its mother’s breast all the time (offspring of flying fox are breastfed until they can fly).

ôw turtle / bôgô shark

the skin of the child will be like that of the animal.

(Emely Rêli¾veg qiat, Joana Rô sôrôr söm 4.03.02)

The father has no special food restrictions but once the baby is born he has to ensure that he does not come home after dark. It is believed that he may bring some ‘rubbish spirit’ (vu rö¾rön) with him that would cause the baby to cry at night (¼iar ririar). Food taboos continue to apply up to one week after the birth of the child. During this period the child should not be touched by anyone who has eaten shark or turtle because it may still affect the skin of the child. Interestingly, all the foods avoided (except the wild growing fern-like cabbage) are meats,5 and most of those are from wild animals that might be seen as anomalous or perceived as dangerous 4  Similar food taboos are described by Jolly (1994: 144) for Pentecost, where a pregnant woman’s consumption of clam causes the baby to cling to the womb, octopus causes warts, turtle causes the baby to walk far too slowly, etc. 5  In the context of the composition of a meal, cabbage as complementary to tubers is also classified as ‘meat’.

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(Douglas 1996). These taboos show that the unborn or newly born baby is believed to be more permeable or vulnerable than other, older and more mature people. The pregnant mother is also vulnerable. Her food choice during pregnancy can impact on her own future behaviour. It is believed that if she eats megapode she will desert her child like the bird which leaves its eggs in the ground. These food and behaviour avoidances during and shortly after pregnancy bear the characteristic of sympathetic magic ‘where like produces like’ and contagious magic where ‘an effect resembles its cause’ as described by Frazer (1993 [1922]: 11). People know about these taboos and even if they have doubts about whether they are still really true or might forget to follow all of them, they are still reluctant to challenge the powers of the place by deliberately disrespecting them. Rivers (1914a: 144ff) describes the beliefs and practices pertaining to childbirth in the Banks Island in depth, devoting a whole chapter to this topic. Today, many such beliefs are no longer current, and even fewer of the associated practices persist. Children are mostly born in the local clinic. Traditional midwives have become obsolete. Rivers reports that the afterbirth was buried under the fireplace of the house. The child was kept in the house until it was strong because it was seen as still connected to the afterbirth, regarded as its previous house (Rivers 1914a: 144). Elsewhere in Melanesia and parts of the Pacific the afterbirth is buried on the father’s land (Strathern 1972; Jolly and Lukere 2002) or given to the fish in one’s reef-area to secure the child’s future rights of exchange with the sea (Battaglia 1990: 43). Practices vary with local descent and residency patterns, but all practices establish a special connection between person and place (land or sea). In Vêtuboso today, the afterbirth (wegen) is buried at the back of the clinic. In the past, a newborn baby was kept in the house for about 100 days; today it may only be a few days or weeks. The practices Rivers describes are not performed today, but they are remembered. As soon as a child is born it participates in exchange relations with others. The father’s sisters wash it and give it presents (e.g., baby powder, clothes). On the fifth day the parents prepare a feast and the father pays ruruse to all the people who helped to look after the newborn baby. He also pays his sisters gusuv ¼iar for washing the child. The brothers of the mother also have to be paid. These payments can be seen to establish the main exchange relations the child will engage in the future; they are also the formal beginning of becoming a person who is composed of relationships through the exchange of gifts that are not mere objects but partible parts of persons. Today, these ceremonies are rarely or only partially performed. This is explained by the fact that parents now have to pay the clinic for maternity care. Holding a ceremony as well would mean that the parents would have to pay twice, which seems pointless both from a conceptual and an economic point of view. The national health program, by charging money for maternity services, seems to have displaced this ritual. The coincidental

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similarity in service and the obligation to pay could be seen as fitting the existing cultural logic and therefore being able to replace the traditional payments to the relatives. It could be argued that some of the payments have more of a commodity character, in that they are completed with one transaction. However, future exchanges are most likely to occur between the same persons, and therefore it could equally be argued that they are one link in an ongoing series of exchanges. Despite the fact that the payments are made to the clinic, traditional links are maintained in that, for example, people other than the parents pay the maternity fees. The person who pays thereby creates an exchange relationship with the child that is frequently taken as the starting point of an adoption.6 When a baby is taken out of the house for the first time, leaves (domototak wild kava, Piper wichmanii) are placed on the path, especially at intersections, to clear the way and prevent malevolent spirits from following the child. It is believed that when a person goes to a place for the first time (even as an adult) he or she will get sick because of indwelling ancestral spirits of the place. This will not be a severe sickness but may be an upset stomach or a headache. The explanation given is usually that the dead people buried in this area caused the sickness (timiat bël). This sickness can be prevented if one is accompanied by a person that belongs to the place and is the rightful custodian of the place, because they can appease the dead so they will not harm the newcomer. These practices also evince the centrality of place and of relations in constituting a person. A couple’s firstborn child is especially important. The very first pregnancy of a woman is celebrated with a feast around her seventh month. There is also a particular payment for the firstborn (wöl matarag) to acknowledge this first being out of the couple’s union. The first birthday or the first tooth (gövut lew) of the child is also particularly celebrated with a family feast and presents for the child. Parents prepare a special dish, a soft taro pudding löt, which will be the child’s first food. Taro is first grated, then baked and then mashed into a paste and mixed either with dry native almond7 löt nemere¾ or green native almond löt neqar. Through the incorporation of this elaborate pudding, fashioned from locally produced crops, the child is now able to participate in feasts. This is a major step towards the participation in collective social events and through this in exchange relations, centred on their place. Today, all children are baptised, usually within their first year of life. They are formally given a name and through baptism in church enter into an exchange relationship with God. Again this event is marked with a family gathering and a feast. The child is given a kastom name and one or 6  For example, my brother Armstrong was thus adopted by a man who had only daughters. The man’s expectation for the future was that Armstrong would help look after him in his old age and in return be able eventually to inherit some of his land. 7  In Bislama: nangae (Canarium indicum).

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more Christian names.8 The names parents choose for their children often speak of a relationship with the outside world through personal contacts or shortwave radio. I have found people named Newton, Edison and Johnny Walker. My sisters have named their daughters after all the female researchers they have encountered. I heard of one child in a neighbouring village that is named Bin Laden. Kolshus (personal communication) reports that there is also a boy named Hitler on neighbouring Mota. Other events in a child’s life, for example starting and finishing school, are also commemorated with a feast. As the incorporation and exchange of food looms large in such events and exchange relations in general I will briefly outline the main patterns of food in relation to place.

Photo 3.1: Meat distribution

Food: Managing relations and consuming places Food, the display, exchange and consumption thereof holds centre stage in Vanua Lavan life-cycle rituals. As illustrated by the examples above, the incorporation of food affects people’s wellbeing and behaviour from a very early age. Food does several things at once. First, through incorporation of specific foods a person can acquire an individual identity (individual skills, idiosyncratic behaviour). Second, a person also constitutes a dividual identity by sharing and consuming food with others. Third, the 8  People having several names allows for flexibility in address and correct identification by others who may be prohibited from saying one of their names due to an avoidance relationship.

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Photo 3.2: Distribution of food: taro, meat parcels and rice by village

Photo 3.3: Further distribution of food by household

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planting, preparing, exchanging and consuming of food, particularly at life-cycle rituals, establishes or reaffirms relationships between people (sides, vênê¼, etc.) and between people and places (for example at rituals concerning the change of land rights). I will now outline the main ideas about food and how it relates to concepts about person and place.

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Approaches to food ‘Just when we think the Seltaman are talking about food, they turn out to be talking about social relationships; and vice versa’ (Whitehead 2000: 50). Whitehead’s experience with the Seltaman of Papua New Guinea seems familiar. Food becomes part of a person through incorporation and, the person being relational, therefore is part of what comprises those relations. Whitehead criticises the tendency she finds in Melanesian ethnography for food to be discussed largely as a metaphor for social relations (Young 1971; Schieffelin 1976; Meigs 1984; Kahn 1986; Schieffelin 1990; Whitehead 2000), highlighting that the corporeal threat of hunger is sometimes neglected in preference to symbolic preoccupations in anthropological analyses of food. When I learned that one of my five-year-old daughters refused to go to sleep without clutching a piece of taro in each hand for fear of being hungry when she awoke, the reality of hunger was no longer a hypothetical possibility or a theoretical concept, it had a face. Although food shortages through drought are extremely rare on Vanua Lava, they do happen occasionally.9 More often, however, shortages of food are due to a temporary breakdown of social relations such as a husband temporarily abandoning his duty to provide for his family. Talk about hunger is often understood as criticism of neglected social relations (Kahn 1986) but in some places it is also an experienced reality (Young 1971).10 So, while thinking about different theoretical approaches to food I would like to remind the ‘first-world-readers’ of this book, who may not have experienced hunger personally, that food sustains the body – as well as social relations. No matter how limited the options are for choosing one food over another, people make choices and have preferences. These choices can be understood from different perspectives, and there is substantial anthropological literature that looks at choices of food, what is edible or 9  A powerful reminder is the site mar, which I surveyed for the VCHSS. A big black stone that vaguely resembles a woman crouched over in hunger is the site where one could cause a famine through drought. There is also the danger of cyclones, though, and on other islands of the archipelago the possibility of ash clouds from volcanic activity, both of which can destroy crops. 10  There is not necessarily a contradiction here, but Kahn explicitly states that at her fieldsite people had enough to eat, whereas Young observed severe food shortages.

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not, hierarchies of food, composition of meals, and the question of identity and incorporation of food, as in the saying ‘you are what you eat’11 (Leach 1964; Douglas 1975, 1996; Harris 1977; Fischler 1988; Barthes 1997 [1961]). Arguments about the cultural specificity of dietary preferences range from cultural materialist (animals are good to eat) to functionalist (animals are good to forbid) to structuralist (animals are good to think). While each approach taken by itself is reductionist, a combination of them and an acknowledgement of the larger historical transformations in gastronomic values (Elias 1997 [1939]) can shed some light on people’s ideas about food. The most striking difference between a conventional Western and niVanuatu composition of a meal lies in its structure. On Vanua Lava meals are ideally composed of two components: a staple (taro, rice, sweet potato, yam, wild yam, manioc, breadfruit) which is referred to by the general term ‘food’ (kakae, gengen) and comprises the larger part of the meal; and a complementary ‘meat’. This could be meat in the sense of animal protein (pork, beef, chicken, fish, crab, prawns, eggs, etc.) but could also refer to varieties of indigenous greens – thus it might be better described as ‘relish’. In contrast to this, the ideal, now somewhat old-fashioned, Western meal, as described by Mary Douglas, has three components: meat and two veggies (Douglas 1975). The importance of eating and what one eats can be detected in the number of linguistically different words in Vurës used to express ‘to eat’: gengen

to eat (general)

bieg

to eat ‘meat’ with one’s ‘food’

¾al

to eat only ‘meat’

gengen mamas

to eat only staple (lit. food dry)

kur

to eat something hard (nut, biscuit, bone)

Young children are frequently reprimanded: ‘Nitog ¾al¾al’, ‘don’t just eat the meat’. While eating only meat is disapproved of, eating only staple food is sometimes pitied but often still acknowledged as daily reality. Cooking food over an open fire in aluminium pots imported from China is the most common way to prepare food. Some traditional techniques like cooking by adding a hot stone to food wrapped in leaves, or steaming food in a bamboo tube have become rare, whereas roasting and baking food are still common. Roasting is done as a precursor to baking, making use of already heated stones, or at informal occasions like picnics on the beach. Baking in an earth oven (qar¾is) is the approved technique for ritual occasions, although cooking in the village’s large community pots has become common for large feasts too. 11  The original saying goes back to the German philosopher Feuerbach: ‘Der Mensch ist was er ißt’ (Feuerbach 1911 [1862]).

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Baked taro, parcels of grated and baked manioc or any other tuber (laplap) wrapped in leaves, and variations of the famous pudding (löt), made from boiled and mashed tubers, are used as foods at special occasions ranging from life-cycle rituals to Sunday dinners. The availability of meat, especially pork, is essential for ritual occasions, but increasingly beef is used. Like taro, meat is best when slow baked. In general it can be said that the more labour and cooking time goes into the preparation of food the more highly valued it is.12

Photo 3.4: Preparing löt

Incorporation and identity Food is certainly the most obvious medium through which partibility, dividuality and permeability can be demonstrated in the relation between people and place. Through planting and incorporating food, a place becomes part of a person and a person becomes part of the place. By being incorporated food literally becomes part of a person, and can be seen as connected to a person’s identity, present and anticipated. Towards the end of my fieldwork I was told that I had become a ta¾sar ta la vônô (person of the place). This was attributed to, and articulated through, the fact that I 12  Raw foods, like fruit, are valued but are not classified as food. Thus when people spend all day in the garden eating only papayas or oranges they insist that they have not eaten all day.

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was eating locally grown food. What was also implicit in these comments was that my family played an active part in this through ‘feeding’ me. I not only became part of the place through incorporation of locally grown food but I also became part of people because they kept investing in me by giving part of themselves in the form of time, care and the products of their physical engagement with the place.13 Yet, at the same time no day went by where I was not reminded that I was different – white. Being ‘white’ (waet, qagqag) was not just a comment about phenotype, rather everything that was different about me was distilled in the term ‘white’. The food that I incorporated to make me ‘different’ had a lot to do with this. It comes as no surprise then that people took great interest in my imported foods and my cooking techniques. While everybody was eager to try, only some found pasta or olives to their taste. However, there was no one who did not like imported but already familiar foods like rice, tinned fish or sweets. The tasting experience of the ‘new’ oscillates between curiosity and disgust (Fischler 1988). By consuming non-local store-bought foods people can connect to and experience the outside world. Through consumption of food that is produced by others (i.e. Westerners) in other places one can access the other, one may even be able to incorporate some of those Western qualities. Through this embodiment one’s identity and one’s status can change. This may be attributed to people’s understanding of what human nature is. LiPuma observes for the Maring of Papua New Guinea: ‘A critical aspect to the Maring image of “human nature” was that the social capacities of people were inseparable from their physical being. The ability of whites–to “pull” all manner of goods ... were taken to be part of their physical state ... What Westerners could and could not do were associated with their physiognomy’ (2000: 63). What people eat as individuals and as a collective affects their understanding of who they are, to what degree they are a person of the place, or how far they see themselves as participating in a modern lifestyle.14 ‘Mama, I want to eat rice’ Iudicas, my two-year-old brother demanded frequently. Children are very outspoken about their love for rice, while many adults hold back because it is not aelan kakae (island food), which, according to public discourse, should be more highly valued than food from elsewhere. The superior nutritional value of aelan kakae is promoted by the government and aid agencies on posters, in schools and on Radio Vanuatu. However, when the stores are about to run out of rice, it is the talk of the village: prices go up, and the next ship is eagerly awaited. Rice is comparatively easy to prepare and fast to cook. Its texture is softer than tubers, which is a valued quality, 13  My increasing knowledge, reflected in correct behaviour, language skills, and so on, were seen as evidence of my becoming a person of the place. 14  Similar arguments could be made for clothing. Even if women wore local island dresses, wearing coloured hairpins was enough for them to be criticised as aeland misis (island white woman), that is pretending to be white or modern.

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and it is not only children and elderly people without teeth who prefer it for this reason. People like the fact that rice is white, a colour which is attributed a positive value. It is connected to cleanliness, and a Western lifestyle (rather than linked with its Asian origins). The fact that one has to pay for rice with money, rather than grow it is frequently complained about, but this fact also adds to its symbolic value as a sign of modernity. To be seen buying or eating rice increases one’s prestige.15

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Memory The topic of food functions as aid to memory for specific events, people and places. Events are not remembered by their date, but the food exchanged or consumed evokes the memory of the occasion, the participants and the location. ‘We cannot organise Kali’s wedding while you are still here; we do not have enough taro’, I was told, upon my request to record my brother’s kastom wedding. Without taro no kastom wedding is conceivable as it is an essential part of the bridewealth payments. The event would not only be ‘wrong’ according to kastom, it would also not be memorable, because of the lack of food. Other events that require large public feasts, like the ‘remembering the dead’ days at the 5th, 50th, and 100th day after death also depend on the availability of taro, which is distributed baked, alongside other cooked food and cooked or baked meat. Initially the death requires a cow (in old days a pig), that is distributed uncooked in five pieces (four legs and the head) to the deceased’s side. Other occasions, like disputes about land, women or murder, depending on the severity of the case, may require a pig alongside some money to appease the wronged party. At some occasions the pig has to be trampled to death and its intestines buried to symbolise the burial of the argument (wil qô). Food can be said to be even more important than money in formal exchange relations. The exchange of cooked and uncooked food is, of course, part of people’s informal exchange relations on a daily basis. In larger exchange rituals raw foods are the initial gift (the return being a wife, or land). Cooked food is provided either to all guests (e.g. at a church wedding), or the two ‘sides’ feed their own ‘side’ separately. Sharing or exchanging food is crucial to becoming a partible dividual. The most outstanding example in the connection of food, person and memory is the kastom of fasting, refraining from a particular food that connected one to a person that has just died. Missing the deceased is expressed in remembering specific foods one shared. At the day of death a fasting rope (ga nar) is tied around the mourner’s neck and worn for one year as a symbol of their relationship, expressed in the food they shared. Missing someone on more mundane occasions is expressed through 15  The same is true for other imported foods. Tinned fish is often preferred to fresh fish, as a change in taste but also, ‘because one can eat everything’ – there are no bones.

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expressions like ‘remember when we hiked to the waterfall with so-andso and we ate watermelon’. The now absent person, the shared activity and the place are recalled through a particular food. Food’s function as cue to memory is actively used in almost any situation Vanua Lavans wish to remember. Moreover, remembering of the social situation through food (common to many cultures) cannot be separated from place. For every formal feast or casual occasion of sharing food, there is perforce a location. Food is the medium through which places are incorporated into persons, into their body as well as their mind. The major life-cycle rituals of marriage and death create formal ties of persons (singular and plural) to particular places. Food also figures centrally in people’s expression of feelings that in English might be glossed as homesickness. When people talk about missing Vanua Lava, it is phrased as ‘hem i krae from taro blong ples’, he or she weeps because of the taro of the place. They feel a longing for the taste of the local speciality, taro from the irrigated gardens, which also implies the wish to be home, or in place, in order to have access to this food. Finally, despite its propensity to enhance relations, experiences and knowledge, food also poses a potential danger. In the past, sorcery against a person was practised by using their leftover food. Traditional medicine, consisting often of a pressed or cooked extract of leaves can heal or kill, and can also alter skills or motivation. What a person eats becomes especially important when they are seen as particularly vulnerable, as demonstrated by the large number of food prohibitions for pregnant women. Bearing in mind the main features of food – its ability to permeate persons, its identity-creating character, its partible and dividual potential and its centrality in memory – I now turn to two major life-cycle rituals, marriage and death.

Two weddings When people on Vanua Lava get married they have two wedding ceremonies, a kastom and church wedding. Both are seen as important and neither can replace the other. In short, the kastom wedding is an exchange ritual concerning singular and plural persons and places; the church wedding manifests the exchange relationship with God. Kastom marriage as a life-cycle ritual is foremost a social contract between two singular persons as well as two vênê¼. When I discussed transmission of customary land rights with Eli, he glossed marriage and death as the ‘lock’ and ‘key’.16 Accordingly, I understood marriage as ‘lock’ and death as ‘key’ to land, but in one of his public kastom speeches some weeks later he used the terms the other way round. It emerged he thought of lock and key as relative, or situational, according to which side one is on at a particular point in time. Marriage, or the giving of a daughter as a 16  These terms seem to be his invention to visualise his argument.

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bride, starts or continues an exchange relationship between two vênê¼. Through marriage some people can access new land, and others are cut off from it. Death and subsequent rituals again effect an alternation of the custodianship and access to land. This process, while continuing into a future generation, is still referred to as ‘change back’, meaning return to the vênê¼ which previously held the land.17 As already discussed in chapter one, marriage alliances between the vênê¼ today are not ideal for managing land transmission; in such a case the land does not ‘change back’, but is conceptualised as moving sideways, still with the possibility of ‘coming back’ in the following generation. While the ideal pattern of land transmission is remembered as true kastom, the ideal choice of marriage partner is talked about ambivalently; ‘change back’ is acknowledged as an ideal rule but at the same time as unrealistic in practice. In the past, marriages were arranged between the parents of the boy and girl according to the ideal of alternating custodianship of land. This social contract between the two vênê¼ is understood to engage or continue larger exchange relationships. They begin (or continue) with bride giving and receiving, and include other transactions like food exchange, labour exchange, or rearing each other’s children. If one partner decides to break the arrangement before marriage, some kind of compensation has to be paid. The parents of a boy could reserve a girl for him by giving the parents of the girl two coconuts that were tied together by their husks. They would choose someone who had been born roughly at the same time as the boy. If the boy was older, the reservation was made with coconuts that were already germinating. As a sign of the contract, two tied up coconuts would be planted. If one of the two trees died before their marriage it was believed that one of the two people would also die before marriage. Again, food and grounding in place play a central role in connecting singular and plural persons. Coconut palms with a lifespan of approximately 70 years, akin to long-lived people, may be especially apt to use in this particular context. Vanua Lava conceptions often suggest a parallel between human and crop reproduction, a topic that will be discussed more fully in the following chapter. Today, reserving a girl or woman is still common although it is often done at a later stage in a person’s life. It is referred to as blokem woman or qalêg gor (lit. in-law block) and is done by giving money (the amount is variable and entirely up to the groom’s side). This amount, however high, is not counted towards the 40,000 vatu of the required bridewealth payment.18 A girl is old enough to get married when ‘her breasts fall down’. 17  The notion that, ideally, land alternates between two sides is discussed in detail in chapter four. 18  I was also told of an old kastom where a young girl, the future bride, is brought up in the household of her future husband (¼iar lage child marriage). The boy sleeps with his father in the men’s house, while the girl is brought up by her future mother-in-law. The similar upbringing of the two spouses was believed to

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She is then said to be ¼al¼al (¼al – female pig). A boy is old enough to get married when his facial hair grows (lômegev). Christian missions curbed kastom practices, including bridewealth payments and payments for land at a person’s death, although with limited success in the past.19 Still, contemporary engagement with Christianity and other Western ideas continues to influence and reshape people’s ideas and expectations about their lives and futures. Increasingly, young people tend to choose their marriage partner through other criteria such as ‘free choice’ of the individual (male and female) and ‘romantic love’ (also only concerning two individuals but with an element of fate), while at the same time still acknowledging theoretically the importance of marrying to ‘the other side’. In general parents seldom force their daughter to marry someone to whom she does not wish to be married, although it does still happen.20 A common strategy for an unmarried couple whose parents are opposed to the alliance seems to be to run away together for a while. When they return, since their sexual union is now public, the parents usually desist from interfering. The ideal is said to be that a couple should be married first before living together.21 However, couples often live together for a long time before getting married. This is mainly due to the fact that the bride price has been fixed by the chiefs at 40,000 vatu. The kastom marriage takes place when the groom and his family can raise that sum and have enough ripe taro, the other major component of the bridewealth. There is no rule as to which ceremony, kastom or church, should happen first; it depends on the individual circumstances of the parties involved. While kastom weddings happen individually, church weddings are often done for several couples at the same time. If there is only one wedding, both the church ceremony and the kastom ceremony happen on the same day. If there are several church weddings, the kastom weddings are done on other days. Some of the couples might already be married by kastom, some might not. People seem to agree though that the church wedding should be after the kastom wedding, since after the union is blessed by God the

result in a harmonious future marriage. However, this practice stands in contrast to ideas about relatedness through being fed by the same parents and ‘eating out of one basket’, quoted today as a reason for why some couples cannot marry even though they are not related by ‘blood’. 19  Even the Seventh Day Adventists who renounce all kastom have today come to accept the ritual payments at death because otherwise land rights could not be passed on. 20  Eli estimated that 95 per cent of marriages today are by free choice, 4 per cent are arranged and 1 per cent are forced. Pressure on sons to marry only seems to occur when they have made a woman pregnant. 21  It is questionable to what extent this was the case before Christianisation. There was and is no concern about virginity.

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incentive to pay the bridewealth diminishes – and the bride might thus be a ‘free gift’. I now present a specific kastom wedding as a case study. Rather than describing a generic ideal-typical event I believe that the unfolding of this specific event – the exchanges, speeches, multiple layers of agency and the specific context – serve well to bring out the key features that make a kastom wedding. In addition to this, a detailed description of the speeches will demonstrate another level of exchange relations. Such exchanges allude to a higher level of discourse, concerning historical time and locality – the engagement that people have with their past, present and future, and with local and global agendas at a specific point in history. Life-cycle rituals or more generally the performance of rituals in public give agents a chance to renegotiate, confirm or change their relationships with each other, with place and with larger values like kastom.

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Kali’s kastom wedding In January 2004 I had the chance to witness my brother Kali’s kastom wedding. In fact, my family had delayed the celebrations upon my request, so that I could record a ‘proper’ kastom wedding, record all preparations, speeches and exchanges. I had returned six weeks earlier for my last fieldwork phase with a basic draft of my thesis and had spent the time leading up to the wedding mostly with Eli discussing specific aspects of the thesis. The wedding, while surely ‘authentic’ in the sense that Kali really got married, was also a masterpiece of performance, a model kastom wedding that Eli, as father of the groom, kastom chief and fieldworker, organised in full knowledge that it would go into ‘the book’. While I was aware and prepared for the fact that my presence and that of my tape recorder would influence the performance of the wedding, maybe making it especially ‘typical’, or ‘correct’ kastom, I only realised the wider implications of my engagement when transcribing Eli’s speech. Our discussions about the relationship between kastom and church, the formal structures of meetings and forms of gift exchange had found their way into his speech. As such this wedding can also be read as an exchange relationship between kastom and modernity.22 LiPuma talks about such modernity as ‘all those processes by which society reshapes itself as a consequence of being inexorably encompassed within a state (first colonial and then national) and inundated by Western capitalism, Christianity, and commercially driven mass culture’ (LiPuma 2000: 5). While engagement with modernity is often described through big abstract terms like Western capitalism or Christianity, in everyday life people’s engagement with modernity is mediated through personal contact with specific persons: anthropologists, priests, aid workers, tourists, politicians and government 22  It is also an ongoing dialog between the foreign anthropologist and the indigenous filwoka.

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officials. For the time of my stay I became the canonical representative of the modern. My particular mode of interaction, of speculating about ideas, and asking questions was a ‘new’ way of engaging. Of course this was no ‘first contact’, but I was the first white person in the recent past who lived with people for more than two weeks and who took time to learn how to ask questions (Briggs 1986). Questions I raised during my fieldwork were often irrelevant, the wrong questions or taken as criticisms, but even wrong questions are new questions evincing new possibilities, previously unimagined courses of action or even potential inventions or change. We will see all this in my discussion of the performed speeches and transformations of present practices in the preparations and events of Kali’s wedding. Preparations The preparation for Kali’s wedding started a year before, with taro being planted in fertile areas especially for the bridewealth. When I arrived in December, the approximate time of the wedding was decided upon (January 2004) and relatives were informed, so they would have enough time to raise some money for their contribution. The exact date, 12 January, was decided upon approximately two weeks before the event. Word was spread again, inviting people to attend. One week before the wedding, contributions of specific items that the immediate family of the groom lacked, such as baskets or bananas, were organised through the wider exchange networks. Three days before, firewood was cut, as the first contributions towards the bridewealth were starting to arrive. This continued until the morning of the actual ceremony. All contributions – money, food, planting material, and so on – were recorded in an exercise book by Eli. The bridewealth was displayed on the public meeting ground and the ‘two sides’ gathered, the family of the groom behind the bridewealth, the family of the bride in front, facing it. The couple, not dressed up, sat on a bench in front of the accumulated bridewealth. Speeches The speeches given at a kastom wedding, it can be argued, are just as important in the performance of the wedding as the actual giving of the bridewealth. The main speeches are usually made by the mother’s brothers or mother’s mother’s brother (MB, MMB) of the groom and the bride. This requirement was met by the bride’s side. However, none of Kali’s uncles was willing or able to talk, so Eli had to talk. The whole ceremony took about one and a half hours. There were a number of introductions before the main speeches. Eli started off by announcing that there would be no prayer before this ceremony. This caused a moment of astonished silence in the audience because it was a departure from the usual format: 006

I¾ke o legleg ta le sele es na mogunên si o kastom na mögunên.

This is a wedding according to our way of life or our kastom.

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007

No min no, no me dödöm vita nên mi ta tatar.

As for me, I think that we should not pray.

008

Nên mi ta tatar wor o vo genak.

We shall not pray over this.

009

Ri dödm viteg min no si intrest namogo¾ nêk gö dôdôm vita nên ga tatar sur.

You all forgive me if you interested in praying or you expected to pray over this.

010

Ba min no, no go dödöm vita legleg ta la kastom nên ga da savsav la kastom viles.

But for me, I think at a kastom wedding we should make everything in kastom only.

011

Sur la masaure nên a van rôw me le gövur la tatar e nên mi ta da le o kastom le mete gövur tatar.

Because when we go to the house of prayer we do not make kastom before the door of the house of prayer.

012

Nên a van tenênêg gëm.

We just go straight in.

In public speeches asserting kastom is a common strategy. What is new, however, is the departure from the established convention: a prayer before and after each meeting or ceremony. In my thesis draft I had pointed out this formal structure in the discussion of a land dispute meeting (see chapter five) and had mentioned my observations to Eli in our discussions. I do not know whether, as promoter of kastom, he felt criticised through my observations or whether they made him see this as a logical inconsistency.23 It could equally be argued that my way of questioning engaged him in my cultural logic, a Western academic logic, that is preoccupied with binaries and where inconsistencies have a negative connotation and contradictions diminish truth. Wilfred, another kastom chief, then officially opened the ceremony and addressed Eli as master of the ceremony as well as chief of kastom. Eli offered the chief of the nasara a small payment (netu tiveg) for the use of public space, which was handed over by Kali’s MB. Then, in his main speech of about 50 minutes, Eli positioned himself not primarily as kastom chief or fielwoka, but instead, for this particular speech, said that he would assume a position in between father and uncle. Eli’s dilemma here is that, in order to make correct kastom, an uncle, that is, a man of the same vênê¼ should speak. As father, being of the ‘other side’, it is inappropriate to give his son the full teaching on married life, which includes talking about sex – a privilege of the relationship between uncle and nephew. By declaring this invented intermediate position publicly he shows that he knows the

23  Such apparent logical inconsistency is only one according to formal Western logic. Other forms of cultural logic ‘do not uniformly conform to the syllogistic “law” of noncontradiction’ (Fischer 1999: 477).

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right way to perform kastom, and that he is only willing to compromise so that the ceremony can be performed at all. He then gave a teaching to the general public on how kastom weddings should be conducted, especially the monetary transactions. He went into details about prices. Rates are now 40,000 vatu for a woman (approximately A$ 470). If the alliance is considered a rabis marred (not according to kinship rules) an extra 5,000 vatu had to be paid. For a widow who can still bear children the rate is 25,000 vatu. For a widow past child-bearing age the rate is 20,000 vatu. Even though he said that he would speak as father/ uncle he clearly felt the need to make these general pronouncements in keeping with his ascribed position as chief. Before turning to his next topic he also included some criticism (about incorrect past performances and inflated rates) and hinted that not everybody follows these rules, even though they should know better.24 He then started to explain an old exchange system which seemed to have been almost forgotten, that of mataq qar (the first wound) and sêri beni (giving hand). All payments that people make to help in paying the bridewealth are either a first payment, mataq qar, which either he or Kali would have to return (sêri beni) in the future, or they are a return payment for some contribution in the past. Eli had explained this system to me when I had quizzed him on traditional forms of gift exchange and strategies of investment and savings. He argued that people still know about this old system but that the practice has fallen into disuse with people’s focus on cash. At this ceremony, which was his first chance to speak publicly since our discussions, he took the chance to revive this kastom by applying it to the contributions people made towards Kali’s bridewealth. He compared it to the Western credit system: 146

Nên a êlêl et min rege waet man vita namogor o lon aê.

We look to the white man, they have loans.

147

Ba nên rege körkör o gersele ge tutuque ta la ga da min nên.

But we black people have plenty of different ways to make it.

148

O lon e.

This is a loan!

149

Nêk ge le o söm mi te ser min nêk garqe.

You give money but you will not receive it back today.

Again, I may have triggered Eli’s memory through my questions, but the reason he gave in his speech for reintroducing this form of delayed payment that can expand across generations is that, at one particular marriage in the past, money from the bridewealth was used to pay people for their help and contribution on the same day. This should not happen.

24  This comment was directed at another chief.

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The people who helped contribute to the bridewealth should not expect to receive anything immediately. 176

Ira se me bibiri¾ si wo nêk go soksösögöt vita ira mam ge te gire, nêk o kaon ine ge es.

Whoever has been helping, if you find out that all fathers have not paid you, your account is alive.

177

Noto¾, tase¾, toga¾, totoa¾ ni leg, kêl me van kêl me sur nêk i siag.

Your children, your younger brother, your older brother, your sister gets married, come back, come back and sit down.*

178

No ga mamar kêmi vita nên a da o dödömia ine ni es.

I appeal to you let us make this alive again.

179

Sur le völ legleg vitia nên a soksösögöt vita ta van me la dalage takle a qaq tek ren vita ‘ao’ sökögöt vita o reqe me wöl o atmên.

Because after the marriage is finished [the bridewealth is paid] we find out that when some talk about the marriage that ‘ao’ the woman has paid for the man.

* The kin terms denoting same-sex or opposite-sex siblings are translated as brother and sister

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from a male speaker’s perspective. The expression ‘come and sit down’ implies asking for support, as in a situation where one would make a special journey to someone’s house and sit down and talk about future plans and possible contributions.

Especially noteworthy were Eli’s use of the two different words for payment. Gire (176) refers to reimbursing someone for their work or help. Money used for this should come from a separate source. When he referred to the incident of the bridewealth being used to pay the helpers he used wöl (179), a term usually used for commodity transactions, implying that by using the bridewealth for these payments the woman’s side actually reversed the direction of the bridewealth, thereby in effect paying for the man.25 Next, Eli thanked sögön Kali, that is Kali’s matrilineal and patrilineal relatives, for all the work and gifts they had contributed. Here he used the word gamgam, a term that encompasses the totality of material gifts (money, baskets, plants, etc.) as well as people’s work and time involved. In addition to this Eli stressed that people’s presence is the most important contribution. Without people’s presence a marriage cannot be properly performed. Eli went on to speak about several issues related to conduct within a marriage, explaining the meaning of some items that were part of the 25  This was not commented on any further during my stay, but seems to tie in with a nation-wide concern about the shift in gender relations, as visible, for example, in men teasing other men in Port Vila suggesting they are ‘housegirls’ for their wives, who have jobs as ‘housegirls’ with foreign residents (Craig Lind: personal communication).

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bridewealth.26 He drew attention to mistakes, such as putting a kava plant among the bridewealth. Kava is traditionally a plant to be used by men only in the nakamal, therefore it has no place in an exchange ceremony that concerns women too. He had also added a new item, a stick and rope, items with which one brings back food from the garden. These, according to his father, were part of bridewealth in the past, and reminded people not to steal. Eli also took this opportunity to talk at length about why people should not steal. At last, he made it clear that he gave his full approval to the union, but also critically examined the bride’s and groom’s past behaviour, even though in his role as ‘uncle’ he should really only comment on Kali’s behaviour. Then, briefly, one of the bride’s MB’s spoke. He thanked all for their contributions and Eli as chief for his teaching, and also reminded his niece to improve her conduct. Then, another, more senior, ‘uncle’ of the bride (MMFBS), John, also talked about the exchange system mataq qar and sêri beni. By repeating much of what was said by Eli he showed that he too knows about it, thereby establishing himself as a ‘big’ man. By discussing the details again he also indicated that this is important kastom knowledge worth reviving, because, as he said, many people know about it but plenty do not know how it works. Prior to the start of the ceremony the bride’s side had asked to see the list of people and their contribution as recorded by Eli, so they would have an idea of whom they have to gire in return. The idea behind this is that by looking at all the people named on the list one can be sure not to forget anyone who will be in some kind of in-law relationship with the bride. Today, John argued, it is difficult to know whom one should pay and whom one does not have to pay, because it is not clear anymore who is on which side. People have become mixed up (qereg).27 At the same time there is also the danger that people that are not considered sögö may contribute. He says: 637

O dalage vag loqtag o ta¾sar ni van me vita ‘na na van’.

At weddings, many times people say ‘I go’.

638

I¾ko nên ma da o vo timiak o bisnes e.

Now we make it as if it were a business!

639

No ta van i¾ke na biri¾ wol no ge gis bulök e.

I will go, I help because I will receive money.**

640

Mi ta av wun nê te gis bolan ine go to sogon.

But it is wrong if he who receives money is not family.

** The term bulök (and in the next line the third person singular bolan) are not actual terms for 26  For example: ‘when your wife starts picking cabbage in the garden it means that she is hungry and wants to go home’. 27  qereg = to mix up, to flatten nalöt, to make one level.

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money but possessive markers that are used with a value that one has worked for, a pig one fed, or food one grew.

His use of the Bislama term bisnes indicated first his disapproval and second a commodity transaction out of place. John drew attention to the fact that only those people who are family (sögö, sogon third person singular) either of the bride or the groom should go and contribute. Any other person could be accused of just being interested in business – cash – because no matter what their contribution, the gire payments are made in vatu. After all the speeches and before the actual giving of the bridewealth another kastom ceremony was performed: gëv nag ‘to straighten the face’. This is done in the case of a ‘wrong’ marriage, in order to clarify whom they address with the in-law avoidance terms. In this particular case it was performed not because bride and groom belonged to the same vênê¼, but because they could be perceived as brother and sister due to their mothers having for a while grown up together in the same house, sharing the same food. Sharing food, even if it is only over a period of one school term, creates a common relation that creates a quasi-sibling relationship. A wild cane with 1,500 vatu was presented by Kali and his MB to John to be shared among all of the bride’s MBs to ‘straighten the face’ in order for the marriage to go ahead. The speeches that preceded the actual giving of the bridewealth show that there are multiple exchanges going on. As well as referring to present exchanges they refer to past discourses, conflicts and practices. They were thus communicating between the past and the present. Eli’s speech in particular evoked past exchanges, what went wrong, what should be changed, or maintained. General teachings or specific criticism were articulated even if hidden in truncated half sentence. In a wider, historical sense, the relationship between kastom and church was on this occasion still in the process of being redefined. Similarly, both speakers offered an evaluation and positioning of their own kastom against the introduction of a cash economy. While kastom might offer an equivalent to the concept of loan from a Western banking system, though, a bridewealth payment, according to kastom, is not a commodity transaction. It is in these kinds of engagement, where a self-imposed competitiveness between ‘white’ and ‘black’ ways is deployed, that categories of knowledge, that is gift and commodity, can potentially become blurred. Bridewealth Bridewealth contributions had accumulated a few days before the ceremony, and had been stored in Kali’s uncle’s house. They were counted, recorded and finally stacked up (wos) against a wooden frame on the nasara. The 40,000 vatu, in bills, were carefully divided up and slid like little flags into split wild cane tied together and stuck into the ground in front of the other contributions, together with an unopened helicona leaf also tied to a wild cane. The bridewealth could be divided into the following general categories: planting material; items for the house; uncooked food, that may

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only be consumed by people already married; an unopened helicona leaf (wismat) tied to a stick of wild cane,28 a sign of peace and good relations between the two vênê¼; and 40,000 vatu in varying bank notes, displayed on three sticks of wild cane.

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Photo 3.5: Bridewealth at kastom wedding: Kali, Nesta and their son Gavin

Bridewealth gifts may vary in quantity, and the money might be distributed in different amounts, depending on specific situations and family constellations. To suggest the scale, items in this particular bridewealth are given in detail in table 7. The groom and his MB first gave the helicona leaf, then one of the wild cane sticks with money to the bride’s father (17,500 vatu). The second stick with money was given to the bride’s mother (17,500 vatu), the third to her brothers (5,000 vatu). They were told to distribute the rest of the bridewealth amongst themselves. Next the groom paid a future classificatory mother-in-law. She had been sitting a short distance away from the main action of the ceremony, hiding under an umbrella leaf with a red flower behind her ear. Kali took away both flower and leaf and gave her the money. She was the first to receive the in-law payment (girê qalêg). As soon as she received the money she turned to the crowd and shouted: ‘Here is the money I have 28  The use of wild cane is a male privilege that has to be bought from someone who already possesses the right to use it.

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been waiting for’. This is usually a time for laughter at the ceremony. One could speculate that everybody is eagerly awaiting payment and therefore that someone has to be ritually the first, so others do not get jealous about the order of acknowledgement. This is entirely my speculation, though; no explanation was offered to me about this part of the ritual. Table 3.2: Bridewealth Item*

Amount

taro (full plant) to plant and eat sugarcane to plant and eat coconuts to plant coconuts to drink banana to plant banana to eat cabbage to plant dövöl¾ö bamboo to plant sago palm to plant breadfruit to plant nangae (Canarium indicum) to plant navel (Barringtonia edulis) to plant dênên (Helicona indica) to plant dagare (Cordyline terminalis) to plant garden basket weget basket to store food matqet tongue and stones (for oven) gabal, vet firewood coconut-leaf mat dö¾ stick and rope wet, ga

52 12 25 73 10 6 bundles 12 1 6 3 1 4 1 1 4 6 2/4 1 roll 2 1/1

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*  Note the absence of manioc, yam and sweet potato.

This was the end of the more formal part of the ceremony performed for a wider audience, but the exchanges were not over, even though some people got up to walk around and started talking amongst each other. The vênê¼ of the bride paid a small amount of money to the vênê¼ of the husband so as not to ‘lose’ her completely – this return payment lag¾ôr nögö lagê (come towards face of marriage) was made to retain some rights to her person in case of conflict with the husband and/or his vênê¼. Sometimes the money is paid in one lump sum and the receivers have to sort out the distribution, but the more correct way is for the bride to distribute smaller amounts to her in-laws (gire wël/gire qalêg) to establish avoidance relationships with the other side. For example, at another wedding I was given 20 vatu by a bride whom I would address as mother as she is my MMBD. Now I continue to call her mother, but her husband became qëlgëk, my father-in-law. When Kali, my brother, married I received a small payment (girê wël) from his wife, my sister-inlaw, to create a mutual respect and name avoidance relationship. Now I also have to address her sister as wölus. While I have been addressing my brother’s wife with the appropriate avoidance term ever since she lived

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with my brother, her sister and I had called each other by name. Public payments manifested the nature of the avoidance relationship, in the wider classificatory sense, between the two vênê¼. Life-cycle rituals are moreover a meaningful moment to give and return gifts only indirectly related to the actual event. The timespan between receiving and returning gifts as part of life-cycle transitions can be very long. For example, when a particular mother received her share of the bridewealth payments at her daughter’s wedding she gave part of the money to the priest who had, some 23 years earlier, prayed for her to help her to become pregnant with this daughter. I am sure she could have returned the prestation sooner, but she chose her daughter’s wedding as an especially appropriate moment. I turn now to church weddings. I have only witnessed weddings in the Anglican Church. Contrary to kastom weddings, that involve only the relatives of bride and groom, church weddings are a more public affair, often held as part of the Sunday service, and therefore involving the whole religious community. Belonging to a particular church can, in this respect, create a wider family-like network. People will attend weddings where they have no direct family links, therefore blurring the boundaries between kinship-based and Christian families, created through congregational community.

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Church wedding Several months can pass between a kastom wedding and a church wedding. The local priest strongly encourages couples ‘just living together’ to get married in church, as only a marriage in church is blessed by God. Prior to the wedding a couple is instructed by the priest about their married life (e.g. couples should not argue with each other more than once a day). I witnessed weddings in two villages, Vêtuboso and Wasag. Each time seven to eight couples were wed in the same service. The couples with their best men and women queued up in one long line down the aisle of the church awaiting their turn. Once one couple had exchanged rings they and their witnesses stepped to one side to make room for the next group.29 After the service the whole congregation stepped outside the church to join in a kastom dance reception. Musicians, playing traditional instruments, were eventually surrounded by the crowd moving slowly anticlockwise around them. As one can see from this description, kastom can conjoin with church rituals, although the kastom happens outside and after the service. It is perhaps more a form of entertainment rather than ‘serious’ kastom. Then, the couples with their marriage attendants lined up and everybody queued up, walked slowly past and congratulated them, shaking their hands. Closer relatives kissed them on the cheeks, spraying perfume or pouring baby powder over them. Brides and grooms and especially their mothers 29  I have only seen the women receive rings.

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cried a lot because now the young couples were definitely leaving home, setting up their own household. Mats were laid out in front of the couples for people to bestow presents. Presents typically included introduced goods like money (10–200 vatu), soap, matches, calico, plates, etc. Whereas the bridewealth payments, apart from the money, consisted of local products and went entirely to the bride’s side, these presents were for the couple to keep. Next each couple publicly cut a Western-style wedding cake, the morsels of which were distributed among the guests and relatives. After this a communal feast was held. Food at church weddings can vary from boiled rice and beef to traditionally prepared staples and meat. When non-traditional food is offered (rice, boiled meat and tea) people are required to bring their own plates, spoons and cups. After the feast there might be an entertainment program, ranging from kastom dances to enacted comedy (konsert). The last stage of the marriage consists of the family of the bride (usually accompanied by a ‘string band’) taking her to the house of the husband. Here she is formally handed over, even if they have been living together before. Again, this is accompanied by speeches of fathers and uncles emphasising the union of the two sides and also pleading that the husband treat her well.

Photo 3.6: Anglican wedding of Webster and Bridley

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Discussion

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Several themes emerge from the two forms of weddings, all concerning different aspects of exchange. First, there is the overarching exchange between kastom and church. This also entails the relationship between the local community and the nation state because the wedded couples are formally registered at the end of the ceremony. Neither ceremony can be said to be just kastom or just church because at either ceremony, elements of the other are usually present. This is consistent with the Christian majority’s argument throughout Vanuatu that being Christian now is part of kastom. There is nothing inconsistent or illogical about this. That Eli insisted on not praying at Kali’s wedding was an exception due to my presence that will most likely not set a precedent for the future. At church weddings, there is no kastom before going into church, but there is a kastom dance reception as people come out of the church service. Significantly, the big communal feast as part of the kastom wedding has now shifted to the church wedding. This gives the church wedding more weight than it might otherwise have. Second, in both ceremonies there is an exchange of payments. These, however, are fundamentally different from each other. At the kastom wedding all payments are connected to place and are aimed at creating connections between plural persons, or sides; even the money can be seen as grounded through the wild cane. They stand in a direct reciprocal relationship to each other. The bridewealth starts or continues social relations and mutual obligation. It is the wife-takers’ acknowledgement of the nurturing of the bride by the wife-givers up to this point in her life. From now on her productive and reproductive power will mostly benefit her husband. Further, in his speech Eli stressed several times that all the goods displayed in the bridewealth represent the essence of life on Vanua Lava. The bridewealth is thus a display of the value of married life: 328

… o tere savsav döl nêr mo tog oko nê go wortiar o usu famili nitiwial lölölö o gövur.

… all these things that are here represent the life of one family inside a house.

According to Mauss, one of the defining features of a gift is its inalienability from its owner. What a gift transactor desires is the personal relationship that the exchange of gifts creates (Mauss 1974). So a wife cannot be sold on, she can only be returned. With the counter gift, lag¾ôr nögö lagê, the bride’s side retains part of her person; she is not only inalienable but remains a dividual person. Mauss’ distinction between class-based economies, where there is private property and a person has alienable rights over things he or she owns, and clan-based economies where there is no private property and people therefore do not have alienable rights over things (1974: 31) runs parallel to Strathern’s distinction between the Western individual and the Melanesian dividual. This distinction along the we/they axis for analytical purposes only indicates two ends of a spectrum.

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Vanua Lavans, like other Melanesians, do have private property, but the conceptual difference lies in the division of persons and things. In the Melanesian scheme, a singular person’s private property becomes part of their person. The fact that cash has replaced shell money, and presumably pigs,30 does not make the bridewealth a commodity transaction. It has to be said though that within the power relations of a marriage the transaction is sometimes depicted as an economic one, where a husband might tell his wife ‘I have paid for you’ as a means to make her obey his orders and as an excuse for domestic violence. The fact that ‘white man’s money’, which can be used for gift as well as commodity transactions, is used in the da lage might contribute to these kinds of expressions. The expression in Bislama pem woman (buy the woman), used in everyday speech is explicitly counterposed at every wedding, where people stress that the bridewealth can never be equivalent to the worth of a woman. One may ask why people need to emphasise that the da lage is not a commodity transaction. Has engagement with Western forms of capitalism blurred the categories? Maybe, but as Valeri (1994) argues for the Huaulu, Eastern Indonesia, while one may talk about buying a woman, one does not sell a sister or daughter; and therefore the transaction cannot be defined either as ‘gift’ or as ‘commodity’ exchange in an absolute detemporalised sense. On Vanua Lava too, the delayed return payment (lag¾ôr nögô lage) from the wife-giver’s side to the wife-taker’s side could be seen to reconfigure a potential commodity transaction into a gift exchange. At the church wedding the exchanges taking place are of a different kind. First, the couple, as singular persons, form a union with each other and with God. Second, the gifts are of a different kind and for a different purpose. Money or store-bought goods, rather than local goods, are given to the couple as single persons or as a pair. There is reciprocity only insofar as the guests are fed by the families of the couple. The formalised way in which people pass by the couple to congratulate and give small gifts bears a resemblance to the semi-compulsory donations in church prior to receiving communion.

Death As elsewhere in Melanesia the ritual activity around death is the most elaborate (Damon and Wagner 1989). Death, the other ‘lock’ or ‘key’ to exchanges, and especially to the transmission of land, is again concerned with several different kinds of exchange relations. From the point of view of the deceased there are the relationships he or she had with other persons, with God and/or with the local ancestral spirits; and there is also his or 30  I attended a wedding on the island of Gaua, in Biam, where a pig was part of the bridewealth, although the groom handed over only the rope of the pig, which was promised to be given later. As the Banks Islands are generally seen as a culturally similar area I presume that pigs were part of the bridewealth payments on Vanua Lava in the past.

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her relationship with place. Death is often described as the ending of the exchange relationships with the community. With the appropriate rituals the deceased is ‘finished’ (Foster 1995). He or she is also ‘deconceived’ (Mosko 1983) from multiple alliances to his or her vênê¼ membership. While the deceased might be ‘finished’, the performance of the ritual allows exchanges to continue by changing their direction. The ritual also allows people to show their respect for the deceased and express their sorrow through various mourning practices. The following account of a death mixes a description of an ideal sequence of what should happen with what actually happened, in the death of Mary-Etel. When Mary-Etel, an old woman in the neighbouring village Vatrata had died her relatives were sent out as messengers to people living further away.31 People living within hearing distance knew by the wailing of her family about her death. Her body had been washed by her same-sex siblings or by same-sex children. The grave was dug by men of her vênê¼ or by men whose father was of that vênê¼. They would also later carry the body and receive a small payment (wöl) for their service. Until then she was laid out on mats on the ground in an emptied house and completely covered with store-bought calico. The mourning continued until every relative had arrived. In her case it took several days because one of her sons had to make his way home from another island.

Photo 3.7: Mourning for Mary-Etel 31  The first choice of whom to send would be the children of the deceased, the second choice people of the same vênê¼.

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The following items were laid out on top of her body: a 500 vatu note,32 a rope (wëvër),33 and a shell for cutting to make fasting ropes for the mourners. Some of the mourners had cut ropes (ga nar) for themselves to wear as a necklace – a sign that they would abstain from a particular food for one year to remember the deceased. Women sat or lay close to the body wailing. Men tended to keep more distant, crouching with their hands before their eyes. Every time new mourners arrived one could hear them wailing before they entered the house, taking their shoes off as they did so. The closest relatives were sitting around the head of Mary-Etel. After a while the men gathered outside, while the women tended to stay with the body comforting each other and talking about other things. Every time new mourners arrived people started to cry again, sharing their grief. The sister of Mary-Etel even started to scold and hit her daughter for not coming to see her while she was ill. Grief seems to allow the possibility of expressing anger. When Wilson, the husband of Mary-Etel arrived, some women held his hand, offering words of comfort. By late morning most people had arrived and soon after were summoned outside with a slit gong. The husband and brother of the deceased gave short speeches. Eli Field was asked by the local chief to talk about the significance of death. The speech he gave was the usual combination of education, critique of former practices and a kind of guideline for ‘good’ kastom practices in the future. Death, being the opposite of birth, is a time of sadness, but it is also a chance to gain something. When someone gets married, the land and trees he or she owns get ‘locked’. When some one dies these become available again; death thus functions like a ‘key’. He told people that when someone died the family of the deceased should not give money or soap to the husband. This symbolic compensation for the care of the spouse (soap for washing one’s hands) was an introduced kastom from the Solomon Islands. If the sons of a man wanted to make a kastom ceremony to get control over land, but the man has not died yet, they would have to present his ‘side’ with a live pig on a rope and some money. It is important that the giving party does not eat any of the meat. Eli Field reminded people that one pig or cow and some money is enough to make ‘good’ kastom; it is not an opportunity to display wealth or compete against each other. He encouraged people to feed pigs, because this is what they should be giving. A small pig is worth more than a large cow. Finally, Wilson’s vênê¼ gave a slaughtered cow to the vênê¼ of his deceased wife in order to gain rights to gardens and trees. The son of the deceased carried out the formal act – touching the head of the animal with a stick. Then he presented the sister of the deceased with money, one part 32  The money was placed there to pay out a fruit tree or garden. This, according to kastom, is a ritual mistake, as the payments for rights to land and trees are made publicly either shortly before or after the burial. 33  The bark of cottonwood or beach hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus), burao in Bislama.

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displayed and another part hidden in an envelope. She took the money and cried again. The head of the cow was for her; other parts of the animal were given to other lines of the deceased’s relatives who also need to be compensated for the land. The receiving party should kill a cow to feed the visitors that do not belong to the giving party. At Mary-Etel’s funeral there was no extra cow and the head and one leg of the received cow were used. A second cow was used because two daughters of Mary-Etel had to make kastom. When their father had died they were too small to pay; now they had to pay for the land from their mother.34 Once all the children of the deceased had arrived, to perform their kastom payments for land or trees, the body could be buried. Today people are buried in a coffin, if available, or if not, they are wrapped in pandanus mats, as in the past. After a short church service the body is usually taken to the village’s graveyard or to the deceased’s own land. The congregation follows the coffin to the grave where the priest prays again. Before lowering the coffin into the grave its walls are brushed with a branch of nanggalat, to ensure that there are no bad spirits entering the grave with the deceased.35 The following table lists the ideal sequence of kastom activities at death, which is generally followed, although some stages might be left out or merged. The stages gon ga nar, tuleg ununseg/lelebule, gôr ga and gen¼öt form the core and are always performed. Today, the stages vusaror (setting free the soul) and ununseg (assuming control over land) are usually combined by killing only one pig or cow. Eli criticises this practice because the former should happen before and the latter after the burial.

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Table 3.3: Sequence of kastom activities at death vusveslivmat

‘killim blong eye i slip’. A pig is killed as a sign of respect; it dies with the person.

gon ga nar

‘tie fasting rope’. A fasting rope made from the bark of burao is tied around the mourner’s neck that is only removed at the last feast for the dead.*

(le)leverser

Gift and returned gift within the vênê¼ of the deceased. The receiving person has to return more than they have been given. If someone has no money they have to give something else, for example a tree or garden. This kastom is said to be performed in respect of the past life of the deceased.

vusaror

‘lego spirit blong hem i go’. A pig (or cow) is killed by the son of the deceased. With the death of the pig, the soul (ete) leaves the body. At the same time the family has to cry. The stick with which the pig was killed and the pig’s head is given to the brother of the deceased (if there is no brother, to the sister; if there is no sister to a nephew). He is responsible for the distribution of the remaining meat.

34  Presumably they were children from a previous marriage. 35  Beliefs about life after death are dealt with in chapter six; a detailed discussion of land transmission can be found in the following chapter.

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tuleg ununseg/ lelebule

This ceremony to assume control over land or trees usually happens on the same day as the burial. The son or daughter gives money to the brothers and sisters of the deceased to take over a particular piece of land or a tree.

qi¾imatê/ qërësmatê

‘The days of the dead.’ The soul of the deceased is believed to be in the vicinity of the body for up to five days. Food is cooked for the mourners continuously for at least five days. Food is also placed next to the grave, as the deceased still retains their human quality of needing food for five days. On the 5th, 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 100th day there will be a special feast. In the past the last feast would be held after 1,000 days, but today approximately one year is common.

vônô ¼ôlô

(lit. place open) ‘the house is empty’. This part is usually only performed for highly respected people as part of their memorial. At sunset, property like houses, gardens and trees of the deceased is destroyed by a group of men that have acquired the rights to participate. No woman or uninitiated person is allowed to see the men; they must hide in their houses.

rësrësde¾e

A dance that is performed only by the initiated men, starting close to midnight of the fourth day until the dawn of the fifth day. This is the time when the spirit (timiat) of the deceased is leaving the vicinity of its body and joins the other spirits. The dance is only performed when it is ordered (qil) by the relatives of the deceased. A man from the same vênê¼ as the deceased is entrusted with the preparations. It is the last chance to dance with the dead before they follow the other timiat to their places.

gôr ga

(lit. cut rope) In the morning on the day before the last feast the fasting ropes ga nar are cut. The person who tied a particular rope has to cut it and present the person fasting with the respective food. They receive a small payment in return. All the ropes are burned with coconut husks accompanied by the last public crying for the deceased. The whole day is taken up by food preparation for the big feast of the following day. This is also the very last chance to make kastom payments for land.

gen¼öt

‘kakae laswan’. This is the last feast after approximately one year to remember the dead. Traditionally, baked food is distributed to all that came to remember the deceased. The widow or widower cannot remarry before this last feast.

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* The word gon refers to a kind of tying that is stronger than tying a rope to a pig’s leg; it is as tight as a fishing hook caught on the reef.

Mourning practices on Vanua Lava are quite elaborate. They reveal the exchange relations a mourner had with the deceased. This extends far beyond the remembering of shared food, the substance that united them as partible persons. It includes all aspects of common experiences, feelings, memories, journeys, time spent together and places of co-presence. Mourning starts with communal crying over the dead body. Then, in some cases the house of a dead person can be declared by his or her brother as a taboo area for ten days after his or her death. Only after this period are people allowed to enter again. All occasions of mourning include: feasts at frequent intervals, bodily signs (mourners neglect their appearance), avoidance of food or places (signalled by fasting ropes), and the destruction of some of the deceased’s property (this ceremony is called ¼isiak).36 36  ½isiak is also the term used for a coconut mat with only one side woven, indicating that it is incomplete.

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Depending on the closeness of relationship, the mourning can be severe. If a man’s father dies he will neglect his appearance, not shave and let his hair grow. In contrast, if a woman mourns for her father or husband she might shave her head, in order to make herself unattractive to other men. In the past it was common for women to stay in the house and hide their faces when going outside. Close relatives and other people who have been close to the deceased will get someone from the vênê¼ of the deceased to tie a fasting rope ga nar around their neck. This should not be taken off until the last feast for the deceased, after about one year. The food one abstains from is usually chosen for its symbolic connection linking the deceased and the mourner. One fasts from a food or activity that one used to share with the other. For example, if one’s father, mother or spouse dies the main staple, taro, is often chosen as taboo. The maximum number of fasting ropes is said to be ten, but the foods can also be more narrowly defined according to: species or subgroups of species (certain kinds of taro, banana, fish); cooking techniques (baked, mashed); hunting techniques (fish caught with a net) and Western goods (sugar, biscuits, rice).

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Photo 3.8: Mourner with fasting ropes

Some men might also refrain from kava or smoking. People might further refrain from going to places where the deceased frequently went. For example, when a man died his wife would avoid the hamlet of her brother, because her husband was spending a lot of time there with his brother-inlaw. At another death, the wife of the deceased tied a rope around her neck and under her armpit to indicate that she would not change her clothes or wash for four days. Some people may choose to fast from something for a period shorter than one year. Then after approximately one year the last feast to remember the deceased is held. In the early morning, the fasting rope is cut with a shell by the same person whom the mourner had asked to tie it around their neck a year before. The cutter has to present the mourner with the very food that the mourner has abstained from for the year. The mourner has to

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pay the cutter a small amount of money in return.37 Then all the ropes are burned with the husks of coconuts and people cry one last time. Other personal items of the deceased, such as his or her sleeping mat or walking stick may also be burned separately at this stage. In the afternoon a feast is held. This is the last chance for anyone to make a kastom payment for land or trees. The grave is left to become overgrown. People clear the area around but not on top of the actual place where the person has been buried. Before the Christian missions initiated cemeteries every person was buried on their vênê¼’s land. Important chiefs would take a kind of ‘medicine’ or magic to the grave in order to distract people from disturbing them. If someone stepped over the grave they could expect to fall ill or even die. The power would cause a non-healing sore, which would surely lead to death. With this final feast – the last public memorial of the dead – the time of forgetting can begin. Widows or widowers are allowed to remarry now. In refilling the deceased’s position in the community his or her rights to particular trees and gardens are taken over by the following generation, or siblings next in line. Thus a person might die but the social system, the kin groups and succession of property rights continues – and with these the crucial exchanges, alternating over generations. Of all the life-cycle events, the rituals at death seem to bear the least signs of engagement with modernity. While the burial is a Christian one, and people believe in life after death, which combines God’s paradise with local places (discussed in chapter six), it is very much tangential to the ritual. The significant ritual moments concern exchange relations which the deceased had with those still living, who are or were part of the same plural person. The death rituals can be seen as a process of decomposition; the deceased is no longer part of the plural person in the way he or she was. This is not to say that the dead do not influence the living anymore. The worldly exchange relationships with a person may finish with their death, but because they become a timiat, they are still believed to be present and can affect living people’s wellbeing or impart knowledge by sending people dreams. Thus they remain in place and their relationship with place is completed only in the sense that they no longer work and exchange material goods. However, their spiritual power continues to influence the living and to enhance or diminish their material efficacy in the visible world. For those left behind the process of detaching parts of the dead person is also a gradual process. The mourning practices, particularly the abstinence from foods and activities that constituted the common dividual, also last until the last feast. At either the day of the burial or the last feast, land of the deceased is transmitted to others that can be seen to be part of the 37  If the mourner breaks the taboo sometime before the promised time is up they have to pay a small fine to the person who tied the rope.

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same plural person (mainly his or her children). At the same time others (usually siblings), that are also part of his or her plural person are explicitly excluded from the land, but are being compensated through the tuleg ununseg/lelebule payments. Land can thus be seen not as a property of a plural person but as a partible part of them, moving on to a transformed plural person. In summary, life-cycle rituals manifest and transform people’s dividual and partible relationships with each other and with place. Place is central to people’s understanding of themselves and their relationships. A person cannot be thought of without a place, even when dead. Places have dividual or fractal qualities just like persons. A singular person can have several places as partible parts within. This becomes especially apparent with the ideas around the incorporation of food. By consuming foreign food one can acquire qualities of foreign places such as particular skills or even just a ‘modern identity’. The engagement with modernity, in the form of cash or notions of ‘free choice’ is effecting a move to a more individualistic understanding of personhood in some areas. However, at the same time, the embodied situational morality of giving, of relational emotions and some conscious efforts to counteract a blurring of categories, for now, keep the Vanua Lavan person mostly on dividual ground.

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• Chapter 4 • Being in Place

Anthropological literature suggests that there is a distinct difference between Western and Melanesian perceptions of place (Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995; Feld and Basso 1996). In his introduction to The Anthropology of Landscape (Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995) Hirsch argues that the Western understanding of landscape can be traced back to Dutch landscape paintings, which have as their defining feature a distinction of foreground versus background. In the past, ‘landscape’ in anthropology has been seen either from an outsider’s perspective as ‘setting’ or from an insider’s perspective of ‘what the locals see’. Hirsch uses two examples to illustrate this point. The first is Malinowski’s famous ‘Imagine yourself suddenly set down ... alone on a tropical beach’ (Malinowski 1922: 4). The second is Keesing’s description of Kwaio landscape:

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The landscape of the Kwaio interior appears, to the alien eye, as a sea of green, a dense forest broken periodically by gardens and recent secondary growth, and an occasional tiny settlement … To the Kwaio eye, this landscape is not only divided by invisible lines into named land tracts and settlement sites, it is seen as structured by history. (Keesing 1982c: 76)

Both of those examples resonate with my own initial and subsequent experience of Vanua Lavan landscape. I take Keesing’s and Hirsch’s argument – that there are basically two terrains, one we initially see and a second which we come to understand throughout the course of our fieldwork – as my point of departure for understanding place. By describing my own (awkward) and local people’s (effortless) movement in this terrain, and comparing the two, I hope to reveal something of their habitus in relation to their habitat. As I moved through the Vanua Lavan countryside the ‘Western’ frame of foreground and background only emerged when I was taking photographs. In everyday life, though, people were very much in the picture, not as a ‘foreground’ but as engaging with place and creating culture and history through place. People and place (as terrain, or environment) need to be viewed as interdependent (Ingold 1992). Scholars have long discarded environmental determinism and it is now accepted that people change their environment by the way they live in it; but reciprocally the environment influences how people live in it (Ellen 1982). 105

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Vanua Lavan engagement with place is evinced primarily in their concern about connections, that is, how a person stands in relation to specific places. As a newcomer I was introduced to places just as I was to people. The similarity to being introduced to unfamiliar people with the respective kin terms is striking: ‘This person you call father because …’, ‘you can come to this place because your mother …’. This way of relating can be seen as another aspect of expressing dividuality. One could argue that a (Western) visual preoccupation with foreground versus background is just as inapplicable as the concern with individual versus society in the context of person. The relevant distinction seems to be more an inclusive versus exclusive distinction: how and to what degree are person and place implied in each other? In this chapter I will attempt to show degrees of dividuality by outlining people’s ideas about place(s) and by investigating people’s engagement with place in everyday life. I will start with a description of the path from the sea to the village, and describe the village and the area around it. An account of a family’s working routine will give insight into people’s relation to land, how they structure their day, and how they move through place. I will also explore people’s conceptual categories of place, such as village, garden and bush. Another way to explore people’s concepts of place is by looking at the rules and practice of land rights, degrees of ownership, custodianship and rights of access. In chapter four I discuss people’s practice of them in view of debates about emerging possessive individualism. Overall, by looking at people’s varying ways of engagement with place the relationship between their habitus and their habitat, as postulated by Bourdieu (1977), should emerge. This, I hope, will further advance my argument about place and person as integrally implied in each other.

Habitat I arrived for the very first time on the black sand beach of Vureas Bay by boat one hot and sticky afternoon in November 1999, after having been stuck due to massive rainfalls in Sola for three days. I got off the boat with the other passengers and together with the people awaiting us and numerous children we slowly made our way up the hot black sand. My luggage was distributed, leaving me only a small daypack to carry up the hill. As we went up, the black sand was increasingly covered with groundcovering creepers, giving way to a profusion of lush green shrubs and trees. The compacted reddish soil was speckled with coral as well as black volcanic stones. I could see that it must rain a lot on this side of the island. The narrow washed out path turned suddenly into a steep climb. Children were overtaking me, the toes of their bare feet comfortably gripping the ground. They make it look so easy, knowing every step, stone and tree root on the way, having run up and down here a million times. I, on the other hand, needed all my concentration and balance to keep up, sliding

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and stumbling up the hill, my eyes fixed to the ground, measuring every step. People offered to take my bag. The path widened and we crossed the school’s soccer field. I looked up and saw another treacherous climb, this time up a wide slippery slope. The moss growing on the eroded soil like an old carpet gave the newcomer a false sense of non-slippery security. When I stopped for a moment to catch my breath I noticed that the path had turned into a green tunnel. A canopy of big trees was filtering the sunlight into a warm green and golden glow. We had arrived at Eli’s hamlet which lies to the right of the wide path. From there it is only an easy ten minutes further, though still uphill, to the main village. To take a small motor boat from Sola around the island to Vureas Bay is one of two ways to get to Vêtuboso. The other way is by truck to the end of the road at Mosina. Then one follows a footpath, meandering along the coast, through bush and coconut plantations, across the big river, bê lav, at Kêrêbêtia, through gardens, across two more streams and across a black palm bridge. A narrow gate marks the last coconut plantation before one reaches the village. The first houses start to appear. The path leads diagonally across a football field into the main village area. This journey takes about three hours of leisurely walking in good weather conditions, including a cooling bath along the way. People usually come into the village this way. On the following day I asked Eli to give me a tour of the village. From his hamlet the path continues horizontal and wide for a little while, framed by some old overgrown coconut plantations. Further up the path narrows again but remains at a moderate ascent. We pass the local dispensary, set back from the path and surrounded by neatly mowed grass. Some houses further up the path indicate the beginning of the main village site. Vêtuboso lies at around 100 metres above sea level. Within the village the land is mostly cleared and covered in grass. People have only minor gardens with few vegetables or ornamental plants directly around their house. For example, once my house in the village was established, I had a patch, 5 x 7 metres of sweet potatoes and five cabbage plants. The largest building in the centre of the village is the Anglican Church, made from concrete and covered with a corrugated iron roof. The second largest, right next to it, is the former church building, made from traditional materials, which is now used as a town hall. Houses are scattered in a large circle around it with plenty of large mango trees that give shade during the day, and form more informal local meeting and resting places, in addition to the main space, the village nasara, just outside the church. Each house or group of houses that belong together (for example a kitchen and one or more sleeping houses) are visually marked off from the next group. This demarcation could be some bushes, stones or just a difference in levels of weeding. Fences are only used in plantations where cattle have to be kept in. Outside the village, the land can roughly be divided into coconut plantations, dry gardens, irrigated taro gardens, secondary forest and deep

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bush. The different irrigated taro gardens range in altitude between 40 and 200 metres above sea level (Caillon 2005). Major staple crops include several varieties of taro, yam, banana, manioc, sweet potato, breadfruit and some wild tubers. As accompanying ‘greens’ people use several varieties of cabbage, beans, gourds, pumpkin, sugar cane, pawpaw, pineapple and water melon. Besides coconut three other nut trees are important: native almond nangae (Canarium indicum), Tahitian chestnut namambe (Inocarpus fagiferus) and bush nut navel (Barringtonia edulis). Cattle, chicken and pig husbandry is also practised. In addition to this people engage in gathering, fishing and hunting (bush cabbage, bush crab, coconut crab, shellfish, fresh water prawns, eel, various saltwater species and various birds). There is also a kind of controlled gathering or bush management. For example, people gather wild yam, replanting the vines every time they harvest, or they feed a coconut crab in a hidden corner of the bush (thereby making it stay in the vicinity) until it is big enough to be eaten. Germinated seedlings of nut trees and planting material for other cultivars, such as sago palm or medicinal plants, are frequently brought back from journeys into the bush and replanted in one’s area for easy access. When Eli Field showed me around the village he answered everybody’s calls of ‘where are you two going’ (kômôrôn ma van avê?), explaining awkwardly that we had no aim and were just wandering to have a look. I remember pondering over his embarrassment at the time. ‘Where are you going’ can be seen as functioning like the English greeting ‘how are you’, but it is much more. Unlike in the English context, where people may or may not be interested in how one is, in Vanua Lava people are always very much interested in where one is going. It is not merely a greeting but an integral part of social mapping. Everybody has a mental map of where everybody else is or should be, and where they said they would be. Eli told me later that it is actually impolite to ask ‘where are you going’. This is too direct and it may put someone on a secret mission in an awkward position. It is more appropriate to guess where someone is going, either by something he or she carries (a basket, a fishing line) and the general direction, towards the gardens or the sea. If the aim is not obvious then one has still the option to ask ‘you walkabout east?’ (nêk i vanvan wôl ko). Then the person can agree, clarify where they are going, or give a vague answer. This usually ends the conversation; one is not supposed to ask further. Greetings also reveal people’s relationship with place. Nowadays, ‘good morning’ (vorog gôwê) and ‘good night’ (qö¾ gôwê) are common greetings used upon arrival and departure. These, I was told, are back-translations from English or Bislama. They are increasingly used alongside the more traditional and more specific greetings which focus on movement in place, not time of day. The traditional forms of greetings follow a particular etiquette, and, especially upon departure allow for a specific situation. When arriving at someone’s house one may not enter without being invited in (kal me, ‘Come inside’) or asking permission to come inside (na kal

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et, ‘May I come in?’). Upon departure the greetings differ according to whether the person is leaving and expected to return, leaving and spending the night before returning or leaving forever: Môl môl gôwê

The person staying behind wishes the departing one ‘Home good’. The departing person could either return to their home or go somewhere else, but sleeps at least one night in that place.

Kêl kêl gôwê

‘Return good’, when the departing person is returning to their home.

Van van gôwê

‘Go go good’, implying that the person leaving is expected to return and not to stay overnight at their destination.

Tog tog gôwê ti

The departing person wishes the one staying behind to ‘Just stay good’.

Also important is that the visitor has to leave the house through the same door they entered, or explicitly ask permission to leave through the other door. If he or she violates this rule it indicates to the owners that he or she has taken something from the house, not in a material sense, but some kind of spiritual vitality or life force; at worst one of the household members may die. The house, in this light, stands not only for the completion of two sides, two persons, or the extension of the person of the ‘uncle’ as described previously. As a lived-in social and physical space a house is imbued with the inhabitants’ living vitality.1

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Time and place ‘Respect for collective rhythms implies respect for the rhythm that is appropriate to each action – neither excessive haste nor sluggishness’ (Bourdieu 1977: 162).

Moving along paths and through the village I noticed several things. First, people walk fast on paths and slow in the village. Second, people walk single file, even when the path is wide enough to walk next to each other. Third, people always seem to have an aim of where they are going and can 1  I am reluctant to use a term like ‘vital essence’, like Newman (1965) does because for me the English term essence implies something ‘boiled down’, concentrated and reduced to its essence. The Vanua Lavan idea seems to be contrary to this – this kind of life force spreads to every thing, person and place a living person comes into contact with. This does not mean, though, that it is diluted by way of spreading; it merely expands. Compare also Keesing’s (1985) discussion of mana as efficacy.

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readily provide an answer when asked. In all three cases I was painfully out of step. I could not walk as fast as others on the slippery uneven paths through the bush. Once in the village where I could finally keep up I was too fast; people slow down to almost a crawl to give others the chance to see them and talk to them. On longer walks when I tried to catch up on the wide sections of paths to make conversation easier people thought I wanted to overtake and let me pass, reinstalling the single file mode. Lastly, because everything was new to me I just wanted to wander around and explore and not just move directly from A to B. This was met with disapproval. How important and different timing can be when engaging with places becomes apparent when one is ‘out of place’. How fast one walks where and which questions to ask, and when the best moment to ask them is, are skills one does not contemplate in one’s own place, because in one’s habitat one is in tune with ‘how things are done’. I not only had to adjust to local ways of doing things but also to the right rhythm or pace of the action. In this context people made jokes about ‘island time’ as opposed to ‘white-man time’. Their remarks seem to be a mixture of a slight feeling of inferiority about not being able to keep to ‘objective time’ versus ‘subjective time’, together with some defiance – meetings start when everybody has arrived, feasts start when the food is ready. This may coincide with the announced objective time, but allowances are made. Of course, I was expected to keep to ‘white-man-time’ and was criticised if I arrived late. People have an acute sense of how much time a particular activity should take. I often heard the expression ‘wasting time’ used in situations perceived as unnecessary or too time consuming, like prolonged meetings. Time on Vanua Lava is intrinsically social; it is a partible gift a person can offer. It is a gift that is included in relational activities such as ‘helping’, ‘feeding’ or ‘sitting down with someone’, but it is also implied in place. In many languages there is ‘condensation of the temporal and the spatial’, a ‘talking together’ of time and place (Jolly 1999; see also Munn 1986). In Vurës this became apparent when Eli and I transcribed conversations and he struggled to decide how to translate the term masawre. This term can be translated either in a temporal sense or as location: at the time we met/at the place we met. Time cannot be separated from place, or place from time. Not only in a sentence, but in people’s thought time and place occupy the same space. Often it seemed that there was no point in trying to distinguish them. This may be because the word masawre, rather than implying a specific point in time, (like 5.30 am yesterday) or a specific place (marked most accurately by GPS) in conversation indicates both a time span and a place, when and where interactions occurred. Time spans, rather than specific points in time, are what concerns people when it comes to seasons. When is it cyclone season? When is it good to burn the gardens? When is it time to harvest breadfruit? While taro can be planted and harvested all year round, other foods, such as yam, breadfruit

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and various nuts, are seasonal. The Vanua Lavan seasonal calendar is based primarily on rar, a wild cane (Indian coral tree Erythrina spp.), and to a lesser extent on yam (Diascorea spp.). Table 4.1: Seasonal calendar (Caillon and Field 2002)

Cyclone risk

Season

Môgôt

Môgôt (February)

Rêstektaqan (March)

- the rope Rartan blossoms

No cyclone risk

Rar (winter)

- women are cold

Rartur: - the Narara blossoms

When…

It is time to…

The wild cane is ‘pregnant’ but it is not visible

Eat yams

Vuserer (April)

Seservulb´t (May)

The wild cane is ‘pregnant’ but it is not visible

Eat yams

The wild cane’s flowers come out

Eat yams

The wild cane’s flowers blossom, releasing the pollen due to wind

Eat yams

Uvsial (June)

The wind blows through Burn gardens the wild cane dry flowers

Lamsegdordor (July)

The wild cane’s flowers fall. The wind blows through its spiklets

La¼eser (August)

The wild cane’s spikelets are broken as the wind is very strong

- men are cold

Dodo (spring)

Kalvôlôvôl (September) Vôrôrmal (October)

Cyclone risk

Sêlêgdëm (November) Mësëwëw (summer)

Eat breadfruits Weed gardens

Rarwulog: - Narara flowers dry and fruits bend

Eat breadfruits if no cyclone Eat bush nuts

(autumn)

Rartan:

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Month

Burn gardens

Plant gardens Plant yam Eat native almonds Eat bush nuts

Yam grows as high as their stakes Yam goes down off their stakes Yam leaves are darkening If no cyclone, it is time of abundance. If cyclone, the food is scarce

Eat native almonds

Mësëwëw (December)

Sortan (January)

The wild cane has no flowers; the stem is smooth

Eat breadfruits if no cyclone

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As one can see in the calendar, women and men are said to be ‘cold’ in different seasons. This may seem a small detail, but it strengthens arguments that ‘spatial and temporal transformations are gendered in intricate ways’ (Jolly 1999). Sophie Caillon worked on this calendar with Eli in my presence. While Eli was explaining the seasons to us with the help of a blackboard he said that he had given this information to the Cultural Centre already, and that he had made the months (from the Gregorian calendar) match the named time intervals in Vurës.2 This, however, is not entirely correct as they can be shorter or longer by approximately two weeks. When the specific indicators from the wild cane change, then it is the next ‘month’. He assured us that he could have easily named fourteen, instead of twelve ‘months’, but he decided that in order for this knowledge to be passed down effectively and be easily remembered by school children he made it twelve. This incident can be seen as another example of ‘engagement with modernity’. Eli consciously adapted local knowledge to fit in with Western categories, counting his losses, but saving the core of the knowledge. What is interesting, perhaps symptomatic, is that yet again a more fluid notion, this time of seasons or time, is boxed into a more rigid way of thinking. Oral knowledge that allows for flexibility or ‘breathing spaces’ is once more fixated into written kastom; seasonal variations are squeezed into an absolute calendar, paradoxically, in order to retain knowledge about it.

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A day’s working routine In the evening before or even on the same day over breakfast, families discuss what work needs to be done. Is there enough food? If not someone needs to go to the garden. What about ‘meat’? Is someone going fishing or will we eat cabbage? People may have individual plans but usually the priorities of the household are considered. During my stay Eli’s household had the following members: Joana, his wife, and four sons, Iudicas (2 years), Preden (10 years), Armstrong (17 years), and Hilton (20 years). The three oldest children, two girls and one boy, had moved out and had their own families to look after. A typical daily schedule might look like this: Joana would drop off Iudicas with her mother in the main village, so she and I could go to the garden to do some weeding and bring home some taro and island cabbage. Eli had arranged to join with a group of men to help build a new house to store dried copra by the sea. Preden would go to school, and Armstrong and Hilton would go fishing. The weather or other unforeseen events, like spontaneous meetings, can change the plans. Requirements regarding social relations are always more important than other plans. For example, men often came from the main village early in the morning to catch Eli before he went to work to talk about 2  The Vurës generic term for month is wôl, meaning also moon.

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some dispute that needed mediating. Then Eli would change his plans and spend as long as it took helping to resolve the conflict. Or Hilton could not go fishing because he had injured his leg the day before playing soccer and decided to rest. Plans are always changed and adjusted to accommodate the altered situation. Unless there is a pressing task that needs finishing (making copra before the ship arrives, building houses for expected guests) people generally change their working tasks each day, so that everybody has some variety. Sometimes people might not even have a plan for the next day; they just wake up in the morning and decide on the spot what they feel like doing. They may walk along the path towards their garden and meet a friend who proposes to go gathering nuts, and the weeding is postponed to another day. There are few explicit gender divisions in what people are allowed and not allowed to do. One is that women are not allowed to climb on the roof of a house to fix thatch fronds. Gender divisions for specific work are expressed mostly through subtle habits and conventions: men go fishing with a canoe or net; women take a fishing rod and remain on the shore. Men seem to do most of the clearing of new gardens and planting, while women weed more. In carrying taro, men use their digging stick (or a 25-kilogramme rice bag), while women use a basket. When building houses men dominate the use of tools, while both men and women prepare thatch fronds. The village is deserted during the day; only those building a new house, or who are looking after small children, are around. Many families have a second house or shelter closer to their gardens, which can be up to forty minutes walk away, some even further. When land needs to be prepared for planting, through slashing and burning, and many hours of labour are required, people often stay overnight. Whereas in the past the missionaries made people move from dispersed inland hamlets down to the coast to live in bigger villages nowadays the chiefs encourage people to make homes on their land again and move out (temporarily) from the village. Only this way, they argue, can people properly ‘develop’ their land. Again, just like being a dividual by helping someone through one’s presence in a dispute meeting, people’s physical presence in place is emphasised. By engaging physically with the land in subsistence activity the relationship between person and place is maintained through the dimensions of presence, time and exchange. These are the same dimensions through which relationality between people is maintained. In the course of gardening and other subsistence activities, people’s social relationships bear on their spatial movements. If there has been conflict a good way to avoid someone is to attend to a distant garden. Subsistence and social matters are thus interlinked. Relationships can set limits on mobility. Some people have never been to particular areas. For example, one of my brothers had never in his life been to an area I went to with Emely, my mother’s mother, because neither he nor his father had any gardens there. He is not forbidden to go, but rather he has no reason to go, and it is a general rule that on a first visit one follows someone who is allowed/has rights to go. Even Emely was a little reluctant to take

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me without Lilian, another woman, who is the proper descendant of this place. She feared that I would get sick because she could not introduce me to the spirits (ërër) of this place properly. I only learned about her concern because she refused to take me to the water-lily pond at the bottom of the irrigated gardens, where the spirits are said to live. People’s engagement with place, the areas they frequent and those they potentially have access to, and the daily routines they perform, can be seen as mirroring their social relations. The household they contribute to, and the garden or bush they work in, are integrally connected, indeed mutually constituted. Each singular person is part of a plural person – in this case the household.3 Because this household has access to multiple places it can be seen as belonging to, or being equivalent to a place. However, because others may also have rights of access, belonging to or being part of a place (or places) has to be understood here in a dividual or partial sense, not to the exclusion of others.

Photo 4.1: Joana harvesting taro 3  Here I depart from Strathern’s and Wagner’s notion of the ‘fractal’ which does not allow for a part-whole relationship (Strathern 1991; Wagner 1991).

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Categories: Tan, vônô, rot In order to understand people’s relationship with place further it is useful to clarify the distinctions they make when referring to different kinds of places. In Vurës there are several terms for different categories of places. The term tan is the most general word for land. Everything is tan before it is something else. Tan is also used in the sense of earth, ground or soil.4 The aspect mostly emphasised about tan is its potentiality as resource to grow (food, building materials, medicinal plants, cash crops ...) (see also Patterson in press). Tan is the essence of livelihood for past, present and especially for future generations. The term vônô is used to mean island or place, as in the Vurës term for Vanua Lava, vônô lav: big (is)land/big place.5 On a smaller scale vônô also means settled place – village – and is used when referring to inhabited areas or places of earlier but now abandoned settlements. Other terms referring to specific kinds of land are: rot (irrigated taro garden), tuqê (garden), qötumet (reef), ¼öt (bush). All these places are sources of livelihood for people but most disputes focus on gardens or hamlet sites rather than on uncultivated land. Land generically is not something to fight over, but lived-in space can always be contested (Rodman 1995: 87). It has long been observed that Western and Melanesian understandings of ownership and property rights differ (Van Trease 1987; Ward and Kingdon 1995; Rawlings 2002).6 Early settlers buying land in Vanuatu understood their transactions to result in freehold – meaning that they as individuals owned the land ‘forever’ and could pass it on to their heirs. Ni-Vanuatu, however, understood the transaction to be like a lease for the lifetime of the buyer; after this period the land reverts back to the collective customary owners (Larmour 1984). At the core of these different approaches to ownership and land, one could speculate, might lie the issue of individual versus dividual notions of personhood. If person and place are integrally implied in each other, place too has an inherent plurality. Therefore, a continuing and exclusive, individual or singular ownership is unthinkable. The use of the term ‘rights’, with its Western legal connotations might itself be misleading. In Bislama, raet, the direct translation from the English term is used. When someone says mi gat raet (I have rights), though, it is meant in the sense of mi tu mi gat insaed (I too am inside/am included). As Margaret Rodman (1984, 1987, 1995) points out, the idea of landlessness is a cultural impossibility. To ni-Vanuatu, having a place is as natural and inevitable as having a father and a mother. Belonging to a 4  In Bislama graon refers to ground, soil or dirt, whereas ples refers to place (Crowley 1995). 5  The term ‘vanua’ was also chosen to create the Nation’s name ‘Vanuatu’, because it means ‘land, home, state, origin’ (Vanuatu 1990: 27). 6  Note, though, that within the Western understandings there were also differences, between the British and the French in Vanuatu, for example (Van Trease 1987).

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place ‘by definition means having land rights; individual and collective identity is grounded in place. Land is inalienable in that the right to have some is inalienable’ (Rodman 1995: 88).7 While the right to land is inalienable in principle, the claim to any particular piece of land can be won or lost through one’s actions. In this light, rights to land are not statutory rights but are a possibility, depending on people’s actions or non-action. Acquiring and maintaining rights to land depends on three factors: getting to know one’s territory, investing labour in land and participating in funerary ceremonies. It is important here to distinguish rights of access from ownership. Gardens under cultivation are individually owned by the planter(s) for the duration of the ongoing investment of labour in it. When talking about someone’s garden, the term tuqê is embedded in the grammatical form of inalienable things such as body parts: tuqê, na tuqian (garden, his or her garden). In this form the noun is preceded by na, then modified to match the vowel harmony and suffixed with the third person singular marker n. With regard to land in general and unplanted gardens, a man is not usually the only person to exercise rights. ‘He is rather the pre-eminent rightholder for the time being, the tallest tree in a forest of growing competitors’ (Rodman 1987: 39). In this respect, it is more correct to speak of the person with more rights to land vis-à-vis someone else as the custodian, rather than the owner. In Vurës this is expressed as ta¾sar ta la tan, man/person of the land. Custodianship also carries with it responsibility to manage the resource correctly, for example erecting a taboo sign for reef fishing when there are signs of depletion. The generic term for land, tan, is grammatically not treated like a personal possession or body part, unlike garden (tuqê, na tuqian – garden, his or her garden). Because tan is inherently inalienable it can by definition not belong to a single person; it is inherently dividual, just like persons. Depending on the particular situation, tan is grammatically embedded in a variety of forms, which situates it in contexts of ownership/custodianship, rights of access or food. That is, people use specific possessive markers depending on the emphasis they intend to make: tan ta (vênê¼ ta) ...

land of (the clan) ...

tan möguk

my land (to hold)

tan nagök

my land (to eat)

tan kômôrô¾

land you two

In Vurës there are six relational possessive classifiers; each indicates the function that the item has for the possessor: food, drink, transport,

7  Rodman notes a few cases of landlessness, but these involved people that were regarded as not belonging to the place, namely migrants from other islands.

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domesticated plants and animals, clothing and a general default category.8 However, only in the second and third examples in the above table are two of the relational classifiers used. The first example uses a different sentence structure to express group ownership. The second example uses the default category usually used for alienable objects (e.g. a knife). This form is used when talking about specific individually owned areas inside a clan-owned area. The third example uses the classifier used with food. This highly emotionally charged form of speaking about land is employed when subsistence matters are at stake and fears about losing access to land are running high. The last example equates the land with persons, namely the two custodians. All examples were taken from speeches of a dispute meeting, where a particular area of land was discussed by two different parties. One party wanted the area to plant coconuts there, the other to use it as a garden. The examples occurred in the order they appear in above. First, it was established which vênê¼’s land it was. Then ownership claims were made. Concern about subsistence of future generations was discussed. Lastly, it was established that the two senior men who are the acknowledged custodians of the clan’s land, had to make a decision on who was allowed to work where, as these men are said to be the land.9 Ownership/custodianship of inhabited places (vônô) is relatively straightforward. People only start building a house or a larger settlement on land where their right is uncontested. With a larger area such as the village Vêtuboso the case is more complex. In the past the area belonged to a specific vênê¼. Today, it is partly community land, but partly owned by different vênê¼, who decided to secure their particular area through ceremonies. In general, whoever wants to build a new house in the village has to get permission from the chiefs and the consent of future neighbours. The Anglican Church was given the space in the centre of the village. The areas of the clinic and the school are leased by the government. Verification of land leases is based on public knowledge. If there are written documents, which no one mentioned, they are kept by the government or the Church, as frequent cyclones and bad climate would surely have destroyed these if kept in the village. I would now like to turn to the irrigated taro gardens, called rot, as they have a significant place in the classification and valorisation of land. Taro gardens are perceived to be a ‘special place of life’. They can almost be 8  The respective first person singular forms would be as follows: nagëk (food), namëk (drink), nakëk (transport), bulëk (plant or animal), namölök (clothing), möguk (general default). For nouns that are inalienably possessed such as kin terms, body parts and intimate possessions, the possessor is marked directly on the noun as a suffix. 9  Bonnemaison notes: ‘In Vanuatu custom land is not only the site of production but it is the mainstay of a vision of the world … The clan is its land, just as the clan is its ancestors’ (1984: 1).

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seen as a third category. If one thinks of tan as largely uninhabited place and vônô as inhabited place, rot occupy a place in-between. In people’s everyday conversations the term tan is applied to a variety of terrain, such as dry gardens, coconut plantations and bush. The irrigated taro gardens are never referred to by the term tan. This might be explained by their intermediate position between inhabited and uninhabited place, which is hinted at in the story of their mythological beginning due to the actions of the cultural hero Lakakeris.10

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Lakakeris lived at a place called Beut. When his brothers stole his wife he decided to leave Beut and wander around Vanua Lava (clockwise). He carried with him what was needed to install irrigated taro gardens such as taros, water and the actual garden plots rot themselves. Up to then people were living on tubers growing wild from the bush. He visited several places, but only where the women of the place agreed to have sex with him did he install gardens. The largest area, encompassing the irrigated gardens above Vêtuboso, was created out of the union between Lakakeris and Ro Vônôlav11 (John-Elizabeth Kökör 27.03.2002).

According to this story taro emerged out of a sexual union.12 The gardens and their crops assume human-like qualities in several respects. Taro gardens are maintained by both male and female labour, but only men are allowed to go near the water source that feeds the gardens. Couples are not allowed to have sex in the taro gardens, nor any other gardens for that matter. It is said that the smell (bune) of the sexual union causes the plants to wither away.13 The 96 different kinds of taro14 that are currently planted can all be classified as male or female according to their growth. The female ones tend to have lots of branches and a more round shaped tuber, whereas the male ones grow one single strong branch and have more long shaped tubers (Caillon and Field 2002). Taro as the major staple is also the valued 10  This story is restricted, so only a paraphrased version can be printed here. 11  Ro is the female name prefix. 12  Only the taro garden area named Ôt is said to be created by a mythological hero, the other gardens are man made. 13  The smell of menstruation, I was told, only affects the growth of yam, not that of taro. Yam is not as important as taro on Vanua Lava. On Pentecost yam is more valorised, though not eaten as often as taro. It is perceived as more masculine, which would explain why it is more affected by female ‘pollution’, and hence requires a stricter division of labour (Jolly 1994: 67). On Vanua Lava the smell of sex, however, is dangerous to all gardens. 14  The general term for taro in Vurës is qiat but all of the 96 different kinds have individually specific names. The names vary from mythologically related themes to names of persons, place names, other indigenous plants or animals, to imported hybrid-varieties with Bislama names (Caillon and Field 2002).

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staple to be used in ritual activities. Whereas elsewhere taro is the major staple and yam is valued for ritual activities (Jolly 1994), on Vanua Lava the choice is made between kinds of taro. In ritual activities it is mainly two of the female varieties (rov and lantar) that are used, as they are said to have the greatest value.15 Irrigated taro gardens might be seen as distinctive because they are ambiguous. They are not inhabited by humans but by taro. Although taro is propagated by replanting the tops rather than through pollination – that is by parthenogenesis rather than sexual reproduction – it has human-like aspects. Having originated mythologically from a sexual union, taro have a gender, and their bodies can be transformed and consumed. The special relationship between taro and humans can be found in everyday profane expressions. Numerous times I have heard ‘the taro is eating me; first it eats me then I eat it’, which is a reference to the irritating quality of taro skin, especially when peeling it with wet hands or when it is undercooked.

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Names All areas, whether they are inhabited or not, carry names. Referring to inhabited areas, vônô, the name of the settlement one is referring to is added, such as vônô ta Qakê. Often villages are named after trees, geographical features or already existing places. Vêtuboso for example is named after a kind of tree that grew prolifically where the village is now. Vêra’a means ‘small area of flat land’ and refers to where Vêra’a (Vatrata) was before the village relocated after a landslide. Qakê bears the same name as the little island off Sola, (currently spelt as Kwakea), on the eastern side of Vanua Lava. The vênê¼ qakê is said to have come from Mota via Kwakea and retained the name of the stopover-place on the journey. Sometimes men have the same name as the place they are living at, and it is difficult to say which came first, a person naming a place, or a place name that was later given to a person.16 Naming places as well as having a name that connects one to a place can sometimes be seen as a strategy to claim rights to that place. It is a statement of identity; it unites person and place into a singular entity. Lindstrom reports for Tanna that travellers often rename a piece of their land after some overseas location 15  Both taros are valued for their taste and texture rather than their ‘gender’. Rov is the preferred taro to make nalöt, the traditional pudding. It has once been described to me as ‘the island style wedding cake’. As it is also used at other ceremonies besides weddings I take this comment to emphasise the importance of the occasion only. Lantar is named after a man who had passed through many grades in the graded society and one day found this taro in his garden (Caillon and Field 2002). 16  Women are not named after places but often carry valued terms, like söm (shell money) or qiat (taro) as part of their traditional name, as distinct from their Christian name.

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or event they have experienced. Thus, naming places, or persons, can be seen as a strategy to gain public recognition of their movement as well as custodial authority (Lindstrom 1990: 92). Place names are also conveniently used in name-avoidance situations. For example, Eli is referred to by his son-in-law, Bridley, as ‘father-in-law from under-the-poison-wood-tree’. By adding the place name he ensures that Eli, rather than his brother, is associated with the reference, because he would also refer to Eli’s brother as father-in-law. Sometimes place names cannot be translated, as they have no other known meaning except as place names; sometimes people have a vague recollection of a meaning but have to admit that they do not know it. Among the place names I collected which do have clear etymologies, these tend to be of certain recurrent sorts. Some of the main ones are as follows: a) Words denoting features of the environment: stone (e.g. vet movor, split stone), water (e.g. bê lav), hole (e.g. qere¾ vusö, hole of the black-blotched moray), hill (e.g. tow vetam, hill weaving mat), garden (e.g. letuqê, at the garden) b) Words that describe places with respect to their physical features or perceptible attributes: deep (e.g. nalam, deep place), high (e.g. ro¾e vut, high place), flat (e.g. larat, flat place), big (e.g. qëqërë, big ear), cold (e.g. mat mamegin, cold water-taro garden), noise (e.g. vet ôlôl, singing/shouting stone; reur, noise of two woods rubbing together) c) Words signifying animals or plants associated with the place: eel (sevir, stingray), bat (e.g. bagbag lo, place of bats), pig (e.g. vet qôqô, stone of pig), fowl (e.g. mat ne tô, taro garden of fowl), tree (e.g. labak, at the banyan tree) d) Words marking actions of people: wander (e.g. tel qö¾, wander till dark), spread (e.g. viër, spread out), hunt (e.g. vôrmolo, place to hunt scrub-duck), sleep (e.g. movot, sleep) e) Words associating a person with the place (e.g. tewun Wöduwduw, hill of Wöduwduw) f) Words evoking another place (e.g. Koimaram, Kohimarama is the location of the Bishop Patteson Theological College in the Solomon Islands, which was probably named after the Bishop’s initial residence at Kohimarama in Auckland, New Zealand. The name means ‘the gathering in of light’ (Montgomery 1904: 5) g) Words describing features of the environment are sometimes combined with expressions like: end/edge of (e.g. ¾ere lôôn end/edge of beach), at (e.g. lovônô, at village), under (e.g. lal¾e vut, under fish-poisontree). Place names frequently include the word tan (e.g. tan lav, land big) or vônô (e.g. taval vônô, other side village; this names the place where the village was before). There is one area which curiously combines both terms: it is named tan vônô. This place is of particular mythological interest. It lies at

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the coast, about halfway between the villages Vêtuboso and Vatrata, and is said to be the landing place of the very first people to arrive on the island, who were of the vênê¼ ta lo.17 They are said to have arrived in a large canoe and slept the first night at the shore below a pandanus mat folded into ten parts before moving inland the next morning.18 Both the canoe and the mat turned into stone and can be seen today. These black stones at the shore are powerful reminders of early movements of people; oral history is verified through their presence in the landscape.

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Photo 4.2: Tan vônô, the canoe of vênê¼ ta Lo

If we analyse place names most features can be distilled into two components: people and place. People’s names, movements and perceptions are reflected on one side and the natural environment on the other. Some names of places have significant meaning only to some people; other place names are common knowledge. 17  Some say they arrived from the Torres Islands, and indeed there is a namesimilarity to an island called Loh. This would make sense as, for example, the people vênê¼ ta mot are said to come from Mota. Eli Field could not agree, though, insisting that ‘all we know is that people came from the West’. He explained that he referred to what he had learned at a fieldworker’s workshop about migration into the Pacific and mixed this knowledge with the mythological oral history of his island. 18  Common pandanus mats have only two parts, or sides, with a connecting ‘spine’ in the middle (cf. Bolton 2003b).

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Knowledge about places is acquired when going to those places. By going to new places one widens spatial knowledge, since one will know the way next time, but by knowing a named place one may also be invited to learn about a particular magic or mythological story attached to that place. At the same time the relationship with the person, with whom one now shares this knowledge about the new place, is intensified. By sharing this knowledge the owner and the receiver of the knowledge become partibly related to each other; and the receiver also becomes part of the place. The effect of sharing knowledge can be compared to sharing food; persons become part of each other. A story grounded in place will be remembered more easily and will be recalled when passing by that place next time. Thus, place names function as mnemonic devices that help people to recall stories, specific events or emotions (cf. Schieffelin 1976). Importantly, knowing the name of a place often confers some rights of access, on which a claim can be built when the custodian of that place dies. The fact that he or she has taken a person to that place can be testimony and the capacity to tell the linked story (or song) is further proof of knowledge.

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Land transmission The basics The change of custodianship of land and fruit trees19 usually happens at death. Land transmission on Vanua Lava combines a matrilineal descent system with mostly patrilineal inheritance of land. It has been argued that the practice of inheriting land has changed from a matrilineal system, where land was passed on from a man to his sister’s sons, to a patrilineal one (Deacon and Wedgwood 1934; Layard 1942; Allen 1968; Rodman 1984). To what extent the influence on this region from the Anglican Mission and colonial traders, their combined bias towards a male-centred social organisation of family life and ownership and their emphasis on the nuclear family, caused or merely reinforced earlier indigenous transformations is open to speculation. However, patrilineal inheritance can also be seen as one of the alternative moments in an infinite exchange between the two ‘sides’. Van Trease notes for Fila Island (off Efate) that the ‘fact that ideally males sought wives from the line of their father could indicate a system in which the male members of two intermarrying kin groups acted as custodians in alternate generations for the land of their sons, which they inherited from their fathers’ (Van Trease 1987: 7). A good visualisation of this can be found in a diagram by Layard; he managed to portray the patriline as well as the matriline in one diagram. 19  Among valuable trees to be inherited are: breadfruit, coconut, native almond nangae (Canarium indicum), Tahitian chestnut namambe (Inocarpus fagiferus), bush nut navel (Barringtonia edulis).

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The matrilineal moiety remains on one side, while the land ownership alternates with the male descendants (Layard 1942: 108). This diagram is shown in figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Layard’s diagram of moieties as alternating sides

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As shown by Layard’s diagram, with every transaction between father and son the land changes ‘sides’; it is then ‘owned’ by a different vênê¼. It can only be regained by the previous vênê¼ if the son(s) chooses a marriage partner from his father’s vênê¼. Thus, marriage and death are the two crucial events in the movement of and access to ownership of land. Depending on one’s perspective marriage opens or closes access to land, as does death. One can only imagine the complications that emerge due to today’s changing marriage preferences, which I have described in chapter one. Because people cannot rely upon the fact that land will eventually alternate back to their ‘side’ there is a trend increasingly to individualised inheritance of land. This is most apparent in the inheritance of coconut plantations, which are almost exclusively passed from father to son. At this point it is useful to look at the different terms in Vurës that are used to describe the ownership status of land. These are shown in table 4.2.

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Table 4.2: Land titles tan vênê¼

This term is used when talking about uncleared land (reserve land), that belongs to a particular vênê¼ for their future use. The oldest man or men are the custodians.

tan ununseg/ lelebule

Refers to a specific area of land that has been planted and is taken over usually at the owner’s death. Payments can also be made during someone’s lifetime. The term is also used to indicate that it has been paid for by previous generations, and is therefore distinguishable from tan vênê¼, even though it may be lying fallow. Ownership/custodianship is tied to the lifetime of a person. The title of the land changes to the payer’s vênê¼, although rights of access are tied to his more direct relatives, not others that may carry the same vênê¼ membership name.

tan tutuleg

This is like tan ununseg but refers to trees or a smaller area within a larger area that will belong to someone else.

tan tun

Tun means ‘to roast’ (tutun hot).* A particularly high payment (money and pig) is made for land that prevents it from reverting back to another vênê¼. Thus from then on it remains in matrilineal ownership.

tan gëvëv

Land that is paid as compensation for the death of a man to his vênê¼. This land also remains in the vênê¼’s hands.

tan ulul

Land that is ‘leased’, where the title of the land remains with another vênê¼, for example in cases of tan tun or tan gëvgëv.

(tan) lev

Refers to ownership of perennial trees, but not necessarily to the land they grow on.

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tan qul gô sôw

Refers to rights of land or trees being passed down and divided (gô sôw) like the paddle (qul) of a coconut of one man to (his wife), his children and their children (reckoned over three generations in total).

tan sögö

Basically the same as tan qul gô sôw, but it refers to rights of access on the basis of kin relations during the owner’s lifetime.

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*  Implied here is that the roasting makes the ground ‘dead’. Someone may negotiate rights of access, but when he dies the land goes back to the vênê¼ that paid for it. This ceremony has been described to me as very elaborate with high payments and pig killing. It is quite rare and cannot be performed against the will of the prospective giver.

In 1996 the men’s fieldworker workshop of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre had as its topic Fasin blong holem graon (ways to hold land) in which Eli Field identified five customary ways to gain ownership/custodianship rights to land on Vanua Lava (Batick and Tryon 1996: 24-27). The following description is a summary of his contribution. First, men inherit the land of their father. Their sisters get married and live on the land of their husband. If the sister’s husband does not have enough land or there is a constant dispute because of land on the husband’s side then her brothers can give her some. Second, there is also a (smaller) possibility of inheriting land from one’s mother’s side. For example, if the mother’s brother has no children then the mother can give the land of her and her brother (and his father) to her children. Whether one inherits land from one’s father or one’s mother, in both cases one has to make a kastom ceremony to all the people that share potential or actual ownership/custodianship of the land in question. Third, it is also possible according to kastom to buy land. If there is someone who has not inherited enough land from his parents, or has come from another island he may buy some. This is a difficult situation because land is seen as the source of life and therefore is not usually sold. The man who wants to buy land cannot insist on buying, rather he has to ‘negotiate’. When the amount of pigs and shell money are agreed upon there will be a ceremony where all the pigs are tied up, and given with the money and some food. The land is then his, and his to pass on to his children. Fourth, if a man is ill but his children do not look after him, he can give the land to someone who does look after him. Fifth, land can be given as part of paying a fine. For example, if a man kills another man and the payment of pigs and shell money is not deemed sufficient by his vênê¼, then land can be given. The third case is interesting because it claims that land can be bought according to kastom. However, right at the end of the negotiations between the prospective buyer and his, presumably adopted, family, when they have agreed on the amount and the transaction in the form of the ceremonial paying is about to take place, an interesting shift occurs: ‘Hem i no pem se hem i go olsem wan famle graon, hem I brava graon bong hem nao.’ [He is not

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buying it, it is going like family land, it is truly his land now’ (Eli Field in Batick and Tryon 1996: 26)]. What has happened here? First, Eli assures us that it is possible to buy land according to kastom, but he immediately qualifies the situation under which a man can buy land – if he is in need of it to sustain his livelihood. The implication here is that otherwise nobody would agree to sell parts of their land anyway. Then, at the time of the transaction he redefines the situation. What starts out to be a commodity transaction with negotiation about availability and price is later redefined as a gift exchange. The buyer is transformed from an outsider to being part of the family almost by definition through the act of taking over some land. This transformation prevents the land from being alienated because now it remains in the family. The singular buyer has become part of the plural person and place. Acquisition of land occurs in practice throughout a person’s lifetime and is only finalised at one’s parent’s death. Ownership of trees and animals especially begins early in a person’s life. When a new tree is planted, or a sow has piglets, a child is often nominated as the owner by the owner of the sow or the planter of the tree. Eli explained to me the grammatical subtleties of planting (or feeding): ‘If I plant a tree, carrying my son on my back and I say na no¾ o ¾e (your nangae tree) I am saying I plant this for you, whereas if I say na bulëk o ¾e (my nangae tree) I plant it for myself.’ The use of different relational classifiers (na no … versus na bul …) determines what relation the tree has to a person. Eli’s son would later refer to the tree that Eli planted for him as na nök o ¾e, in contrast to one that he may have planted himself. This difference becomes crucial in the event of Eli’s death. If he has planted the tree for a specific child then his other children cannot claim joint ownership, whereas if he planted it for himself, then all his children (and his wife) will be able to claim rights. The practicalities of land transmission become clear when one looks at who actually receives payments at someone’s death. The singular and plural persons that receive payments are dividual parts of the deceased. They have some rights to the land that may have been individually owned by the deceased or that they have rights to together with the deceased. They have to be compensated in order to relinquish those rights to those who wish to assume them. Throughout Island Melanesia mortuary practices are important, elaborate and bear some similarity to those on Vanua Lava (Damon and Wagner 1989; Battaglia 1990; Foster 1995). However, most authors treat death mainly in relation to personhood. While place is mentioned in this connection (land rights are passed on), it is generally not investigated in its relational or dividual aspects alongside with person. Place as a fractal or dividual part of a person figures in the transaction as a partible gift. If Eli died, for example, his children would have to make payments to the following people: His brother and sisters (and their children) – that is vênê¼ ta sêbêr and wot ta sêbêr

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The descendants of his father’s brothers – his gagêi The children of his FZSs – his wotwot His adopted mother – vênê¼ vë¼ölö vênê¼ vë¼ölö and vênê¼ wudrow, because mythologically they share the same origin with sêbêr His friend, bulsal. .

If Eli’s siblings would like to gain rights they would have to make payments to their father’s brothers. If an outsider (for example a school teacher from another island) wanted to gain rights to some of Eli’s land he would not only have to pay all the people mentioned above but also Eli’s children, who would have first rights to the land. Generally speaking, the amount to be paid is not fixed and cannot be determined by the receiving party. It is common to make a small payment at the day of death/burial with whatever cash one can organise, and make a higher payment either after 100 days or the gengen¼öt celebration after one year. It is entirely up to the giver to choose the appropriate amount. However, the amount of the final payment is usually as much as one can raise, in order to prevent disputes in the future.

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The practicalities of working the land In practice people access land through a wide variety of channels. To illustrate this, I will now describe what places a certain couple access to work and how they gained rights of access or ownership/custodianship. Edgar and Jane20 live about 30 minutes walk outside the main village with their three sons and one daughter. Edgar has planted two coconut plantations. For one he paid ununseg to his father at his death, who had paid ununseg to his mother at her death. The other also came through ununseg to his father but he had paid it to a classificatory uncle (sögö). He has also rights of access to two plantations that his half-brother (same father, different mother) has planted. Rights to both plantations were again gained through ununseg at their father’s death. However, one of the plantations his father had paid out (also ununseg) from his bulsal during his lifetime. Jane has not inherited any plantations. At her father’s death all the plantations went to her brothers, but she retains the right to plant food on their land. She does however have rights to land that her great-

20  The names are changed hopefully to avoid possible future disputes on land. The aim here is to show the variety of ways to access land, not to establish truths about who owns what. However, there are no guarantees on how this thesis will be used in the future, as Curtis shows for Malakula with Deakon’s book (Curtis 2002: 210ff).

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great-grandparents paid with a tun ceremony. As the land stays forever in the name of her matriline she did not have to pay at her mother’s death. With respect to rights of access, there are two brothers of Jane currently working on Edgar’s plantation. All of Edgar’s brothers and sisters have rights of access too. Anyone who asks permission, who may or may not be directly related, can gain access. In past generations, in this particular family, land seems to have been transmitted more frequently through the matriline. Coconut plantations in particular seem to pass down in the male line of descent. Edgar’s father had paid for his mother’s land and for the land of a classificatory MB, whereas Edgar only paid for his father’s land. However, the elaborate ununseg payments point to a tradition of alternating custodianship over land between two ‘sides’. While Jane has rights of access to the land of her father, her brothers are the official custodians. Both Edgar and Jane also have adopted parents. When they die they will help to pay ununseg, which will allow them to access land. Adoption benefits both sides: the parents have extra help in old age and in times of sickness and need. In return the children have the option of gaining access to resources of both sets of parents. Edgar has one brother, who has three sons and three daughters. He estimates that the land will be sufficient for them and his own children. However, his grandchildren might face the problem of land shortage. With this future problem in mind Edgar and Jane were contemplating whether to resurrect claims to an area of land on the other side of the island, currently occupied by a man from Mota Lava. This land belonged to a man who had adopted Edgar’s mother. This illustrates that in times of perceived need, dormant connections are traced along paths of cognatic relations in the widest sense. According to Eli, in order to make a claim one has to know ones vênê¼, one’s family history and know whether ununseg payments have been made all the way down the line, as descent does not automatically ensure rights to land. So, if Edgar’s mother has contributed ununseg payments at her adopted father’s death, and Edgar has done the same for his mother, then they could succeed with their claim. Problems with the transmission of land or land rights can have several causes.21 First, there can be a genuine misunderstanding about the demarcations when transmission is negotiated. Second, a custodian may grant rights of access but the person who asked interprets this as being given individual custodianship over a particular area. Conflicts over land are particularly fierce when coconut plantations or other cash crops are involved. On Vanua Lava as on other islands of the archipelago, for example Ambae, as discussed by Rodman ‘A coconut palm was a tree like any other in the days before cash cropping. It belonged to the person who planted it, and to those among that person’s heirs 21  One example of a dispute is discussed in the following chapter.

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who knew of it and claimed the right to use it. With cash cropping, however, coconut palms became inseparable in terms of ownership from the ground in which they grew, for they took it out of circulation not for three to seven years, as a garden did, but for about seventy-five. The land holder, not the planter, became the owner. The fact of having planted palms no longer established an individual’s right to land, rather it was evidence that the person already had that right.’ (Rodman 1995: 92ff)

The inversion of this, where the planter becomes the owner, could also be imagined. People who had been given usufruct rights could secretly start planting coconuts. When the palms are finally discovered they may bear fruits already and the planter is in a strong position to argue that he was under the impression that the land belongs to him. If necessary he can ceremonially pay for the land that he has claimed already by stealth. The original custodian often has no other option but to accept the payment, but the land that was meant for his children is now going to benefit someone else. I would now like to turn to another aspect of being in place, that of places of cultural significance. Moving through the landscape, through plantations, gardens and bush with people, I was frequently told a story or sometimes just one sentence about the significance of a particular place. I was introduced to places and made familiar with them. Features in the landscape, I realised, were ‘memory pads’ of knowledge.

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Sacred places, knowledge and power Not just black stones When I started my fieldwork the VCC’s project ‘Vanuatu Cultural and Historical Site Survey’ (VCHSS) was already established. Being interested in stories about place for my thesis topic, this project was perfect: I could help record stories for the benefit of the people as well as for my thesis. During my time on Vanua Lava I recorded information on around 40 sites, with the help of the project’s standardised forms. Although I, as a woman, would not normally be allowed to see some of these places individual men agreed to take me because I had a legitimate purpose for visiting these places. Preserving this knowledge for future generations through the Cultural Centre’s VCHSS project was accepted to be a good cause. The places varied in age and significance – there were places of recent history, such as a baptising basin of the Anglican Church from around 1940. It is the only visible sign left after the old village site of Vurës was abandoned due to a landslide. Other places, just black stones to the unsuspecting outsider, are signs of ancestral activity, such as vênê¼ arriving on Vanua Lava, by canoe, shark or bamboo. Black stones further inland, for example in a shape of a pig’s head (like Veran or Na¼al), symbolise the ‘beginning’ of a new vênê¼, where a baby girl was found among the litter of a pig.

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Then there are sites/stones with magic power, which can be manipulated by people. One stone for example causes a woman that climbs over it to bear twins. Another stone, that has a little hole in the shape of a footprint, said to be from the cultural hero Wovol, can be used to make love magic. There are plenty of stones to create an abundance of food: fish, octopus, breadfruit, coconut, taro, and so on, but there is also a stone to cause famine; and one that enables one to steal unnoticed. Stones to gain power or to prevent a fight are sought after by aspiring chiefs. Other stones prevent competitors from surpassing a person. Most knowledge about stones is restricted to men. For some places the knowledge to activate them has been lost or deliberately destroyed by priests, while others, so my guides told me, can be activated at any time – although one should only do so when there is real need, not only to prove that it is still working. As it was not necessary for the sake of recording purposes, the sites were never activated in my presence. Because certain places are imbued with magical power and agency they need to be shown respect like a person. Young children are warned of their powers and are cautioned not to go too close, play next to them or even climb over them. If the stones are insulted in this way they may cause baldness, asthma or other illnesses. The general way to activate a stone is through a magic song, touching or placing leaves or sometimes shell money on the top. The leaves are either left to rot or the stone is rubbed with their juices. Then one has to wait for to five days. After the elapsed time one can see the result. The sea will be full of octopus, or a person will develop an open wound that does not heal. These effects are understood as signs that places have agency when interacting with people (cf. Curtis 2002).

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The politics of knowing When I began to collect this data I imagined these places to be part of a collective oral history, something that unites people’s knowledge and therefore can be read as common cultural knowledge. As I followed different guides, though, I began to realise that it is only certain persons, and perhaps one of their own sons or their sister’s sons that ‘know’. In one case the brother of one guide told me a different story about a particular place, implying that it is he who knows the true story. However, I never succeeded in recording his version for as soon as I mentioned that I already knew about that place, he refused to have his version recorded. Both brothers had been ‘given’ different places and stories by their father, only a few places overlapped, which is where the versions contradicted each other. While there was no problem about my going to these places as a woman, because I went for a legitimate purpose, I was also expected not to pass this information on to others or even take someone else there. While I was never explicitly told so I was still made aware, by the private nature of those trips and the vague information about the trips that my guides gave

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to others, that I was privileged to be given this knowledge. The power of the stones is still believed to be very strong.

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Photo 4.3: John Elizabeth Kökör, Footprint of Wovol

When I returned to the field in December 2004 Eli and I went through the list of magic places, he recalled the time when I had been to record information on the sites of love magic. He then told me that when he had found out what powerful places I had been to previously, he instructed his whole family to stay clear of me and my house. For about two weeks they avoided me. I recall having been very lonely at that time, and puzzled because Eli had gotten mad with me for apparently no reason and would disappear to avoid working with me. For him just being near the site poses a danger. However, my guide was of the opinion that nothing could happen because we had not activated the stone, and there was no water in the hole of the stone where both of our faces could have been mirrored. If this happens, I was told, the two people would stay together for the rest of their lives, despite the fact that they might be brother and sister, of the same sex, or married already to someone else. Eli remains convinced that I have absorbed some of the powers of the stones, merely by visiting them. He thought this was proven when some people were angry with me and their anger vanished as soon as they saw me. Some of the stones imbued with ‘chiefly’ power, he insisted, must have rubbed off on me. With the description ‘chiefly’ he summarised the permeable qualities through which a leader can influence other persons (like ability to prevent fights, calm anger, motivate, unite, etc.).22 What emerges from this data? The Vanua Lavan landscape is ‘alive’ and imbued with history. Some places function as mnemonic devices for ancestral movement; others, stones in particular, have agency.23 While 22  This is discussed further in chapter six. 23  The role of powerful stones throughout Vanuatu has been discussed widely (Layard 1942; Bonnemaison 1985; Curtis 2002). The famous anthropologist Deacon, according to local lore on Malakula, is suspected to have died because he visited a taboo place without permission and without being accompanied by a local person (Curtis 2002: 65).

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their agency may be present all the time it only becomes activated through interaction with people. This may happen unintentionally – by stumbling over a sacred place one can be hurt by it for disrespectful behaviour. Alternatively, one may go to a particular place intentionally. Important here is that a person has to be introduced to the place by someone who ‘knows’. Through this introduction positive relationality is achieved. By visiting a sacred place and by activating the magic through leaves, shell money or other ingredients (which could be seen as gifts to the place), a person can initiate an exchange relationship and receive in return part of that place’s power. This power then is somehow embodied by the person and becomes an inherent quality, a capacity for good or for evil. What to make of the mixed responses I got about my going to all those magic places? To my guides it was clear that we did not activate the sites but just paid a respectful visit with a purpose. Others suspected that some of the power of the places had affected my person, despite the cautions, just by my having been in the proximity of these places. Vanua Lavans’ belief in the latter possibility provides evidence of the notion of permeability of personhood. Because places are so much part of persons, and in terms of agency so much like people, it comes as no surprise that places can affect a person’s thoughts, actions and abilities. Mobility is seen as dangerous and attractive at the same time. Only by going to places can one expand one’s knowledge and rights to access. The crucial factors seem to be to move at the right time, in the right company, in the right manner and in the right place.

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Movement between places Mobility, rootedness, paths and ropes The dialectic relationship between mobility and rootedness in Vanuatu has and still is attracting attention from anthropologists (Bonnemaison 1985). In his book The Tree and the Canoe Bonnemaison (1994) argued for a gendered perspective which sees women as mobile, symbolised by a canoe, and men as rooted, symbolised by the tree (see also Jolly 1982, 1994; Lindstrom 1990). Although highlighting similar local metaphors of men as banyans and women as birds, Jolly draws attention to more complex and historically changing situations, where on a wider scale women are rooted and men are mobile (Jolly 1999). In addition to this there is also a racialised dialectic that sees ni-Vanuatu people as rooted and foreign people as floating (Jolly 1994). The common argument is that immobility is not simply privileged over mobility; rather, certain kinds of mobility – aimless wandering or enforced movement – are being devalued relative to others. Strategic or motivated movement is highly valued, although usually more so by men. Both rootedness and mobility are also manifested in the, now immobile, magic and historic sites discussed earlier. Some sites denote the arrival of people on the island; others mark the places where they originated on the

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island. The story about the creation of the Banks Islands itself attests to the value of mobility:24

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Before, all the Banks Islands were one landmass. One day Qet decided it was too big; it had too many hills and people were always late for the kolkol ceremonies. He asks two birds, biliag, to break it into smaller islands, together with the help of a fish, delut. They have to work at night, and they only have one night to accomplish the task. The two birds start digging from opposite sides. When they meet in the middle, the fish comes and pulls the dug out piece of land away into the sea: Merelava first, Merig second, Gaua next, then Mota, then Mota Lava, and after that Ureparapara. The last piece, what is today the large peninsula to the south, they try close to dawn. They dig but then the bird wogol starts to announce daylight. They two birds dig around the hill gere qon. The fish delut is starting to bring the sea in with it and reaches the middle of the peninsula. Then daylight breaks, the birds have to leave, the fish falls asleep, the sea retreats.

The gendered metaphors for rootedness and mobility, tree and canoe, still fit the marriage pattern throughout Vanuatu because by and large women leave their land and go and live with their husbands.25 Women have been compared to nanggalat, the stinging nettle tree, which has the ability to be uprooted and thrive anywhere: ‘whatever the ground you stick it in, it will grow’ (Bolton 1999: 43). Women marrying men from other islands are often also seen as making roads for new (trade) relationships between the two places. I agree with Bolton’s main argument that women relate to place differently to men. However, she suggests that, for example, a woman Tanna (woman of Tanna) will upon marriage with a man from Ambae become a woman Ambae (Bolton 1999: 54). This is not entirely consistent with my experience of Vanua Lava. While the children of a woman Tanna on Vanua Lava will indeed carry the father’s place-identity, she herself will always be referred to as woman Tanna, even though she may have been 24  This story was told by Roy Wutot Lemegev Kipe. I also recorded accounts of the site for the VCHSS with Chief Godfrey Manar. The accounts of the two men differ slightly. In one account the birds work together to detach a piece of land, in the other one works on the islands that are now east of Vanua Lava, the other on those that are now west. One suggests that the stone that has been stranded on the landmass is the fish, the other that the stone was carried there by the fish with the sea. 25  Jolly (1999) points out that during the periods of indentured labour and circular migration to local plantations men were more mobile than women. Circular male mobility was valued, whereas women’s mobility was devalued and efforts were made and are still being made by men to restrict it. Particularly women’s movement to town is perceived as entailing the risk of their sexual and maternal bodies being compromised, or lost to local men.

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adopted and lived on Vanua Lava for decades. If she were to visit another island, or even her former home Tanna, people there might regard her as a woman bangkis.26 Identity here is relational: Vanua Lavans keep the link to Tanna in mind, Tannese the one to Vanua Lava. As with the concept of ‘sides’, belonging depends on the specific situation and on the egocentric viewpoint of the speaker. Thus I would argue that women on Vanua Lava embody a dual, or plural, rather than a singular connection with place.27 The dialectical relationship between rootedness and mobility especially with regard to women becomes apparent in comments about the past, such as ‘women can make paths; they are the bearers of peace’. When men travelled, according to Eli, it was to fight, but when they brought women along it was to create alliances. In the past and today, mobility allows people to create networks with other people and their places. Through these connections one opens the possibility for access and maybe even temporary rootedness. As I have shown in chapter two, men and women have distinct gendered ways of moving, particularly in each other’s presence. There are also prescribed ways of moving that are not gender specific, though. For example, while moving through bush to gather or hunt one should not engage in lively conversation. In particular, conversation should not touch on the likely success or failure of the excursion and should be held in Vurës, as the language of the place (qaq ta ko) rather than Bislama, as this may offend local spirits of the place. As mentioned above, when walking through bush or plantations, people walk in single file rather than next to each other. This manner of walking is encouraged by the environment as the paths are seldom wide enough to do otherwise. As noted earlier, I had particularly noticed this on a broad stretch of the path when I tried to catch up with people to hear properly what was being said and to engage more fully in conversation. The person in question would immediately slow down and let me walk in front. The possible significance of this detail only occurred to me when my brother Armstrong came to visit Canberra. We went for a walk around the broad streets of the suburbs and he kept walking right behind me even though the street was wide enough. I kept slowing down for him to catch up with me so we could have a conversation while walking, but he kept falling behind into the single-file mode. I made fun of the situation at the time, saying that this was the fasin blong aelan and that in Australia people walk next to each other. I take this episode to be one incident where the relationship between habitus and habitat as Bourdieu described them became apparent (Bourdieu 1977, 1984). Walking next to each other seemed to be part of

26  Rather than using the cumbersome woman Vanua Lava, people use the term bangkis, for Banks Islands. 27  Even if they are originally from Vanua Lava, they still move to their husband’s place at marriage, and thus relate to two places.

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my habitus that was perceived as ‘out of place’ in the Vanua Lavan habitat. In my habitat Armstrong’s habitus seemed out of place. There is also a metaphoric dimension to walking or moving. ‘Following’ the ‘straight path’ is a common figure of speech to express the value of following the advice of a knowledgeable person. Following someone single file on a particular path is thus not just a habitual bodily practice but one which is valorised in statements about more metaphorical paths of practice or roads of life (see also Brunton 1981). A ‘straight path’ in the widest sense is one that has been approved by customary behaviour. Another example of a straight path, or the right way of doing something, is the etiquette of invitation. Through talk, that is the invitation, a path is prepared for another person. This is expressed in the saying ‘talk is like a rope that connects us’ (na telinên o lê). The talk/invitation (lê) is compared to ‘tying a rope (ga teli) to the leg of a pig’. Through the sent invitation one can pull the other party towards oneself. For feasts it is expected that one sends out invitations. If by mistake one forgets someone they would assume that they are not welcome. The forgotten party would not only not go, but take pains to go on some other errand, lest they are potentially embarrassed by people passing by their home on the way to the feast. Similarly, it is expected that when one intends to visit someone one has to let people know so they can prepare. Strong promoters of kastom criticise the Church for weakening this kastom of invitation by inviting all people to attend church services without special notice to individuals. One could speculate that this weakening of the etiquette of invitation has affected people’s awareness of who is and who is not ‘invited’ – and therefore is an acknowledged part of a plural person – to an event like a wedding, especially when the kastom and the church ceremonies are conducted on the same day. In such a situation the plural persons, the two moieties, are extended to the whole denomination. It is in these subtle ways that Christianity influences local concepts of personhood. Belief, or denominational affiliation, is in such situations expanding or even replacing relationality through kinship.

Moving and nostalgia Emotional attachment to place, nostalgia and homesickness have been discussed in Melanesian as well as Australian contexts (Schieffelin 1976; Myers 1986; Battaglia 1995; Beckett 1996; Feld and Basso 1996). On Vanua Lava people voice their emotional connection to places as part of remembering. People talk about places they have been to with others at particular points in time, much like we would recall something like: ‘remember when we walked along here with so-and-so and they fell in the water’. As I have described in chapter two, emotional attachment to persons and places is often expressed by remembering particular foods that were consumed at the time of co-presence with others. Without a doubt, the main food that is associated with Vanua Lava as a place that one calls

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‘home’ is taro. Food and activity are the most important media through which persons and places are remembered; and importantly, those four – person, place, food and activity – are always remembered together. From the outsider’s perspective, the black sand beaches and the irrigated taro fields come to mind as distinctive features of the south-western side of the island. Given the importance of taro one might speculate that the gardens are a significant site of emotional attachment. However, due to their location inland they cannot be seen when leaving or arriving on the island. What can be seen, though, is the local hill Gere qon (in the song Reqon). It features as a distinctive mark of the landscape in a nostalgic longing for the island in a song that is said to go back to the labour trade to Queensland (around 1880). The following song, ‘Mea van me’, is about a ship Mea that comes (van me) and takes mostly men away to the sugar field plantations of Queensland. It is sung by women, and usually danced to, on occasions such as Easter, Independence Day or ‘Bonne année’.

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‘Mea van me’ – sung by Kate Ruth Gëksigle, Hilda Sodu¾, Monika Sodu¾, Lydia Atkin, Marion Reqërug söm, 20 July 2002. Lea lea le Mea van me e vel wötödun sa¼ul me ga¾ tek rës row be kêre veno e

Lea lea le Mea comes and picks up ten men takes them far away to the end of the place

Lea lea le Mea van me e vel wötödun sa¼ul me ga¾ tek rës row be kêre veno e

Lea lea le Mea comes and picks up ten men takes them far away to the end of the place

Eiei

Eiei

Ero van i me na ve ôn riris row a le bed nanên kapten lö gövur nametur el a el we veno lav aviê nageug reqon wesus den na e na te¾te¾ lele wonwon welen merir wegna ak mega¾ turero¾ e mesial me e eris wevele men tele lam nê tas me le dererem me revrev weam me leg le we no wet man

Eh you come I lay down turning in the bed of the captain in the house I stand up and look for the island Vanua Lava the hill Reqon becomes small I cry so sorry wind takes me the ship runs slow it turns like the bird of the sea it glides along the wave pulls in the sail anchors at the place of the white man

E i ei

Eiei

Ero van i me na ve ôn riris row a le bed nanên kapten lö gövur nametur el a el we veno lav aviê nageug reqon wesus den na e na te¾te¾ lele wonwon welen merir wegna ak mega¾ turero¾ e mesial me e eris wevele men tele lam nê tas me le dererem me revrev weam me leg le we no wet man

Eh you come I lay down turning in the bed of the captain in the house I stand up and look for the island Vanua Lava the hill Reqon becomes small I cry so sorry wind takes me the ship runs slow it turns like the bird of the sea it glides along the wave pulls in the sail anchors at the place of the white man

E i ei

Eiei

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This song is the last song of a set of seven, and sung before everybody is ‘going home’ (mol mol ine). It attests to a feeling that in English might be glossed as ‘homesickness’. The fact that it is sung by women makes one wonder whether the ‘I’ in the song is female. The connotation of sleeping in the captain’s bed suggests it. Today’s generation is less mobile than people were in colonial or pre-colonial times. In pre-colonial times people had seaworthy canoes, and traded regularly with neighbouring islands (Huffman 1996). In the colonial times people’s independent movements were deliberately controlled or curbed. People moved mostly for education or labour trade. Today only a few parents can afford to send their children to secondary school on another island. People still travel for business, health and family reasons, but most inter-island travel seems to be undertaken for religious education, sponsored by the various churches or for kastom. For example, for the Melanesian Arts Festival, held in 2002 in Port Vila, groups from different islands were sponsored to travel to display dances, and other arts and crafts. The Vanuatu Cultural Centre is the main initiator and sponsor for these culture-related travels. How Vanua Lavans move in and relate to their habitat reveals their understanding of person and place as integrally implied in each other. Plurality of person translates into plurality of place. Identity, custodianship and knowledge about places follow the same principle of relationality, plurality and agency that has been shown for persons. Ways of talking about place, linguistic categories for place and different possessive makers, support notions of partibility, for example, where a garden can be seen as being like a body part of a single person, and the vênê¼’s land as part of a plural person. People’s engagement with place becomes most apparent in activities (anything from merely being present to gardening or just walking) and food (production, preparation, exchange, consumption). This condensation of person, place, food and activity is most apparent in the act of remembering. Neither a person nor a place can be thought of or spoken of without implying the other. It is in this respect that places can be understood to be part of persons. Just as a plural person includes other singular persons it also includes place. Changes towards a more individualistic notion of personhood are starting to emerge in some men’s efforts to accumulate custodianship of cash crop areas, such as coconut plantations, through customary payments. When these plantations are passed on to sons, they are usually divided up rather than used by the sons as a set of brothers, thus creating a more individualised notion of ‘ownership’. Individualism is also promoted by Christian ideas of an individual moral agent in relation with God. Through a discussion of a land dispute meeting in chapter five and a consideration of the relation of church and kastom in chapter six, I explore the changing concepts of persons and place and their mutual relation.

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• Chapter 5 •

Talking about Place

How people talk about place, and in particular how they argue about land, can reveal the relationship between person and place in a detailed and contextualised way. In this chapter I will analyse discourse from a land dispute meeting. How do people go about presenting themselves as the truthful ‘owner’? What kind of oratorical strategies do they employ? What is the relationship between speakers and audience? How does the chairman of the meeting mediate, and what strategies are at his disposal?

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Conflict management in Vanuatu In the past, conflicts or disturbed social relations were resolved either through violent encounter or through ‘sitting down together’. According to Larcom (1990), when people talked about kastom informal meetings were not treated as instances of it. Today the notion of kastom is actively used to stress the participatory ‘found’ public consensus that distinguishes it from adversarial Western legal systems, which entail decisions for someone and therefore also against someone (Dinnen et al. 2003). Island courts and local land councils are an integral part of today’s life. Apart from the politicisation of the term kastom there are other factors that determine the format of the meeting I will discuss here. The ‘cultural’ context has to be considered. Context here can be said to refer to a set of cultural rules, conditions and practices that govern how people talk. Who has the right to speak? What topics may be raised and by whom? What topics must be avoided? What strategies are available to speakers to create authority, truth, silence? What strategies can be used to discredit or ridicule other speakers? In his book Knowledge and Power in a South Pacific Society (1990) Lamont Lindstrom uses Foucault’s concepts of doctrines and disciplines. He writes: ‘Disciplinal organization of knowledge serves as a discursive control procedure that regulates both speakers and the statements they make. Disciplines confirm which statements are appropriately true, which are false, and which are inaudible’ (Lindstrom 1990: 46). A doctrine functions like a discipline in that it is also used to organise the social distribution of knowledge. It does so by binding individuals to certain types of enunciation which differentiates them from others and thus creates a bond between them. If a person makes a statement that a discipline defines 138

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as false, he or she is a fool; if his or her statement is deemed false within a doctrine he or she is a heretic (Lindstrom 1990: 50). For Tannese society doctrines are truths pertaining to Christianity, John Frum and kastom, whereas island disciplines include local knowledge about medicine, magic and geography. Lindstrom uses Foucault’s concept of ‘discipline’ as a discursive procedure that regulates what counts as true (Lindstrom 1990, 1992). Disputing speakers cue strategic local disciplines to create their own authority, and with this truth. The successful use of these island disciplines contextualises the truth of their statements, and thus the justness of their act of stating. While I found the discursive rules on Vanua Lava less strict than those described by Lindstrom for Tanna (where women are not allowed to speak in meetings) the principal disciplines are the same. These include geography, sex, medicine and kinship (Lindstrom 1992: 118). By taking a close look at one particular case from Vanua Lava it will be possible to see exactly which doctrines and disciplines are used and are effective. Are they the same as Lindstrom describes for Tanna, or are there differences and new inventions?

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A dispute meeting Not one week passed during my fieldwork where Eli had not gone to attend or chair a meeting about land issues. I attended numerous meetings myself and recorded one particular meeting that Eli thought would be worth recording. In the history of this ongoing dispute this meeting would be the first one that brought the two principal landowners together. In previous meetings and attempts to settle the dispute, the owner’s sons had acted on behalf of their fathers. The meeting was held predominantly in Vurës with some code switching into Bislama and English.1 Eli’s comments during the subsequent transcription process about his take on people’s intentions as well as his own mediating strategies as chairman give a good insight into people’s strategies and the juggling of presentations of selves. The meeting was held in the village of Qakê, at the village’s nasara or meeting place. An area just outside the church covered by corrugated iron was chosen for its shelter from the sun. People sat around on stools or mats at the edges in a large elongated circle. Eli Field, who chaired the meeting, sat with his back to the church’s entrance. Mostly men, but also a few women, form the direct participant’s circle. Women and children, who only came to listen, sat directly behind this circle or further away under mango trees sheltering from the sun. Whoever spoke stood up but 1  More often than not it is difficult to decide whether speakers use Bislama or English, as there is a continuum between the two. For discussion of this topic in a Papua New Guinea context see Mühlhäuser (1979). A few expressions of Mota language, the previous lingua franca of the Anglican church of the Banks area can also be found.

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remained at the rim of the circle. The meeting began around 10 am in the morning once everybody expected had arrived, and finished shortly after 1 pm. During the meeting 13 men and 3 women spoke. The main speakers were:2 Eli Field (chairman, kastom chief of West Vanua Lava), Alfred (land owner, vênê¼ veran), Martin (land owner, vênê¼ veran), Hosea (kastom chief of Vêtuboso, chairman of previous meeting), Michael (son of Alfred), Steven (son of Martin).

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Figure 5.1: Dispute setting

If one imagines everybody in the circle according to a clock then the positions of the main speakers were: Eli Field at a six o’clock, Hosea (the chief who mediated the previous meeting) at 9 o’clock, Alfred at 12 o’clock and Martin at 3 o’clock. The sons and other family members had gathered at various positions around the circle. I originally sat next to Eli but moved around with the microphone to whoever was speaking. The sons of the two principal landowners of the vênê¼ veran, Alfred and Martin, are fighting over a particular piece of land. Steven planted coconuts, Alfred’s sons cut them down.3 Each side claims rights to this particular area. Martin and his son Steven refer to a kastom ceremony through which they paid for exclusive rights to the area plus an additional agrimen that Martin claims he made with Alfred a long time ago. Alfred denies making this agreement but acknowledges the kastom ceremony. He claims, however, that the area in question was not covered by this ceremony. The conflict has been addressed several times in the past. People have lost track of exactly how many times, but three meetings prior to this one with different outcomes were discussed during this meeting. The first 2  The names and vênê¼s of the disputing parties are changed. 3  Both Martin and Alfred have three sons each.

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decision by the land council (around 1997) confirmed Alfred’s rights to the land and ordered Steven to take out his coconuts. He acted against the order and Alfred’s sons took him to court. The court could not decide on who the rightful owner of the land was and suggested that as it is a family matter within the same vênê¼ they should make a kastom ceremony (called tuntun) right there to pay out the already developed land; the unused land would go back to Alfred. The conflict came up again when it was discovered that Steven planted more coconuts in a previously undeveloped area, not visible from the road. These were only discovered when Alfred’s son Henry wanted to use the area as a garden, so he cut down the coconuts. The matter was put to the local land council (or land committee), who decided that Steven is the rightful user, taking into consideration the large tuntun ceremony4 and the – as then unquestioned – existence of the agreement. Steven received compensation for every cut down coconut tree. This present meeting was again initiated by Steven, who found his coconuts ripped out once more. The main purpose of the meeting was to find out whether an additional agreement between Martin and Alfred really exists (which Alfred denies) so that the rightful user of the land can be determined. Martin presents one of his other sons as a witness. It turns out that he saw the two men walking away together but did not go with them and therefore cannot comment on what was actually said. He admits that his father did not mention anything to him upon his return either, possibly because he was still a child then. Both sides make claims to truth, accusing each other of being liars but neither can present convincing proof. Both sides try hard to maintain their position but as no evidence can be found for or against the existence of the agreement, both positions become increasingly difficult to argue. Talk becomes highly emotional as pressure to find a consensus grows. Eventually the sons of both Martin and Alfred establish that the current dispute is their father’s fault, because they as custodians or owners of the land did not sufficiently clarify the situation. Eli as mediator insists that he cannot make a decision, as neither party can be found ‘guilty’ according to kastom. It is suggested therefore that a new agreement should be made at the current meeting. Alfred indicates he is willing to make a new agreement by admitting the possibility that he may have forgotten about making the previous agreement since it was a long time ago. Martin, however, does not want to make a new agreement, insisting on the legitimacy of the old one. Only through the pressure of several of their sons, a visiting classificatory brother and the emerging public consensus that it is their responsibility to come to an agreement are they finally forced to go away and talk. Eli suspends the meeting until the two old men have made a decision on who works where in the future. After thirty minutes pause the meeting resumes and the practical details are announced. 4  One cattle, one pig, taro, 12,000 vatu (approx. A$ 200).

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Doctrines: Christianity and kastom

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The meeting is framed, broadly speaking, by Christianity and kastom, the two topics (or doctrines) that people constantly juggle in their everyday life. The meeting begins and ends with prayer, thus the outer frame is Christianity. The next bracket or frame is kastom. Eli sets out the rules for the meeting (always let others finish their speech, address the ‘chairman’ [sic] before you speak, refrain from speaking when you know that what you want to say will hurt someone else). He proclaims that this is a kastom meeting with God’s blessing, thus acknowledging the outer frame, but also insists that it is distinct from a ‘white-man’s court’, thus creating a difference not between kastom and church but between kastom and Western judicial procedures. This is a recurring theme through the meeting, kastom being portrayed as the only way to create peace, by finding a consensus (agrimen) rather than making a court-like desision where one party wins and the other loses. Before the meeting ends with a final prayer he puts the previously suspended kastom chief of Qakê back into power, giving him his first task: to make the two old men shake hands. Thus the meeting ends with a successful kastom – only to be sanctioned by God. Not only does Christianity provide the outer frame of the meeting but it is heavily drawn upon as a doctrine within which different speakers seek to support their statements. Eli, in his position as the chairman of the meeting, sets the present discourses within kastom which is within Christianity, thus giving credibility not only to the use of these disciplines but also to himself, in his position of authority as chairman and kastom chief. This position is reflected by the spatial arrangement of the meeting; he sits with the church door behind his back. He announces: 063

We will hold it [the meeting], because, to tell you that in our meeting I shall ask you that there is peace from the beginning, like our Father expects, like our Father, I believe that our Father is already here with us in this meeting.

064

He was there before us.

065

He will lead us so the meeting is good.

066

No matter if we are kastom people that hold the meeting.

067

But our Father created us.

068

He is not only in the church.

069

(But in) every type of life. [...]

073

I belief that our Father is with us to look after us.

074

He helps me to think good to give advice that peace will come back today.

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By using the doctrine of kastom Eli establishes his ability, knowledge and right to lead the meeting. He further demonstrates this by making a case for kastom in contrast to the ways of the ‘white men’: 034

We all know that up there [in the white man’s court] is not the place of peace!

035

Up there is the place of division. Come back to our way!

036

The way of the meeting, how we meet, that it doesn’t go wrong and you cannot look at each other; it will not change unless we again make it work.

Throughout the meeting he returns to this distinction between kastom ways and white man’s ways and uses it as an incentive for the contestants to work towards an agreement. The kastom way is portrayed as superior because of its participatory nature in finding a consensus. The emotions of all participants are considered; no one should feel as if there has been a decision against him. Thus, when we transcribed the meeting Eli commented on his mediating strategy, that he let everyone have their say and vent their emotions of frustration and anger. When everybody was exhausted he led them to find peace among themselves. This strategy of venting private feelings in public, and by doing so transforming a situation that is marked by avoidance into one of good relations, can be found throughout the region (White and Watson-Gegeo 1990). By working through a conflict one can disentangle (ulul) the different story lines. Therefore, Eli as chairman deliberately avoids taking a desision. Decisions, he explains, are the way of the white man’s court and are not able to resolve a conflict permanently because one person wins and the other one loses; one person is happy, the other feels resentful, causing them not to obey the decision. This is why the court’s decision was not effective and they referred the case to the local land council or land committee. They then reversed the court’s ruling, causing the other party to be resentful. To enhance the importance of kastom, and of his own authority to mediate this meeting, he makes use of national political discourse on kastom, and demonstrates his awareness of the dangers of fixing oral knowledge in writing; which may have also been discussed in one of the fieldworkers’ workshops run by the Vanuatu Cultural Centre: 039

We did not write a policy of work of our ancestors but the oral policy of our ancestors worked.

040

The land is there, how we work with it.

041

In my opinion, if we wrote a policy today up to ten or twenty [rules], if we write it, it would be wrong because we would write according to different ideas.

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The underlined words mark his use of the English terms. This is also a good example of how a speaker uses deliberate code switching from Vurës to English to demonstrate his knowledge of the subject, of the outside world and of global development vocabulary. In fact Eli’s opinion echoes Walter Lini’s remark over the Island Courts Act from 1983 that local courts ‘did not need a formal law because they had existed for many years; if a law was drafted, it would interfere with custom’ (Lini, First Ordinary Session of Parliament, April 11, 1983, quoted in Larcom 1990). I do not know whether Eli knows about Lini’s comment, but he is a keen listener to Radio Vanuatu and may well have been exposed to these kinds of national debates. The second doctrine, Christianity, mainly in the form of Bible quotations, is heavily used by both sides to make authoritative statements. Alfred as well as his son refer to the passages about ‘paying taxes to Caesar’5 to argue that the land is theirs and that it should be given back to them: 401

No mo ro¾teg o rivriv lô vôrôg si le revrev ma qaq vita o savger na môgun God le kêl min God, na mögun Cesar le kêl min Cesar.

I heard a lesson in the morning or at supper that said what is God’s give back to God, what is Caesar’s give back to Caesar.

402

I Gavegle ni gagneg rôw no wo manene nên to togtog politik sur so tan e.

Gavegle [the priest] said it, I say this is the reason we continue to argue about land.

403

O tan wun no gê gis kêl.

The land I think I will hold it again.

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Alfred refers here to the fact that the planted garden might belong to Steven but the land is his. Alfred’s son Michael later repeats his father’s reference: 526

O qaqaq ma van me den o bibol qaqaq vita: sipos samting blong God givim bak long God, samting blong Cesar givim bak long Cesar.

A saying comes out of the Bible, the saying is: if something belongs to God, give it back to God, something belongs to Caesar give it back to Caesar.

527

Be sipos samting blong Alfred givim bak long Alfred.

But if something belongs to Alfred, give it back to Alfred.

528

Sipos samting blong Martin givim bak long Martin.

If something belongs to Martin give it back to Martin.

5  Mark 12: 13-17; Matthew 22: 15-22; Luke 20: 20-26.

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529

Mo soksösögöt vita kemem ma va le miting, i rege landkaonsel me le tôgôlgôl kêl min i olfala [Alfred].

I found out that we went to the meeting, the land counsel gave it straight back to the old man [Alfred].

530

So, no mo mörös referem kêl o qaqaq na mögun Steven qaqaq no ma qaq tiar o qaqaq ta lo bibol hemi stret nomo nao.

So I would like to refer back to Steven’s speech, the saying I mentioned from the Bible is exactly right now.

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The repetition enhances the force of the statement, giving it more weight and enhancing its truth. Interestingly, he uses much more Bislama than his father in making his point. This may have to do with an age difference; younger people generally use more Bislama in their everyday speech, but the argument can also be made that the use of pidgin is a linguistic means of emphasising the importance and the public nature of the discourse. However, the other side also quotes the Bible to emphasise their rightful claim. Martin’s son, Steven insists on the existence of the agreement prior to his beginning to work the land: 649

Bibol nê ma qaq, Sent John nê ma qaq, chapter wan nê ma qaq vita before the world was created the world was already existed.

The Bible says, Saint John says, chapter one says before the world was created the world [sic] already existed.

650

Bifo work i stat long ples ia world agriment hem i stap long ples ia finis.

Before work started at the place the word the agreement already existed at this place.

He repeats the word ‘world’ instead of saying ‘word’ – maybe being taken away with the general rhythm of repetition during the sentence (three times ‘… says’). His switch to English for the quote from the Bible, not just Bislama, can be seen as trying to make the argument even stronger because the Bible in Bislama is after all only a translation from the English version (which is a translation from Hebrew). After quoting the written word of God in English, which would have been understood only by some, he gives the interpretation for the public in Bislama. Despite his error, saying world instead of word, in the Bislama he gets the meaning right. Later on he refers to the quote ‘paying taxes to Caesar’, thereby claiming compensation for the planted garden.

Disciplines: Kinship, geography, sex Seniority is an important feature of the discipline of kinship. The oldest men of a vênê¼ are the custodians of the land; as I have pointed out in the previous chapter, they are even said to be the land. They need to be consulted whenever someone wants to use land that has not been previously claimed

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by individuals through special ceremony. Martin claims that Alfred as the more senior came to him one day and took him to divide the land between the two. This is what Martin insists throughout the meeting constitutes the agrimen. 225

So he said, this man: ‘I want you here, I mark the land now.’

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He insists that Alfred, by taking him and marking (he uses the Bislama makem), ‘told’ him land. Alfred on the other hand denies this but recalls that Martin once came to him and ‘asked’ permission to work in an overgrown plantation that Alfred and his wife had planted, to which he agreed. 251

The agreement for which you came to me the coconuts of Kiton’s family were planted by us two, by me and the old woman.

252

We two were smoke drying, you came and said ‘Hey man’, I said ‘ah’, I ‘what?’

253

‘May I clean the coconuts here?’

254

I say ‘ok, you may clean them again.’

255

So, I said, I told him, I said ‘you start at the row of your breadfruit trees, you go down to your Nangae tree, then you reach the Namele tree, you continue until you exactly reach down, go until you exactly reach down there.’

256

So, I gave you already.

The crucial difference apart from the divergent accounts of the events in terms of land rights seems to be whether ‘telling land’ (gagneg o tan) to someone implies handing over ownership. Giving permission to work, if someone ‘asks’ (vörus) for land and the other one ‘gives’ (le), refers rather to temporary usufruct rights. Establishing the direction of who ‘told’ and who ‘asked’ has to be viewed in the light of kinship and seniority. Moreover, who initiated the action seems important. Did Alfred take Martin to divide the land permanently or did Martin come to ask Alfred for temporary usufruct rights? Whatever the truth may be, if a person plants coconuts the temporary nature of the agreement becomes questionable. All speakers also use the discipline of geography to make claims to the land in question. They describe the borders of the area in question, displaying their knowledge. These descriptions typically include specific permanent markers (the sea, a waterhole) and semi-permanent markers (trees, houses). Listening to these descriptions, it becomes clear that they are only understandable by those who know the area already. The mere fact of knowing the area in an embodied, sensorial way creates an authoritative statement to the rightful claim to the area.

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At one stage Alfred mentions that he could address Steven, as mam, father, because Steven is of the same vênê¼ as Alfred’s father was. The term father is here used as a verb:

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837

Ira mam no ma mam min kêmi e.

All papa I papa at you!

The implicit argument is that sons should receive the land of their fathers. So Steven addresses Alfred as classificatory father but Alfred could also address Steven as father. Therefore he could reverse the inheritance direction and ask Steven for land. This kind of speech, as Eli explains later, is a powerful rhetorical device. Alfred apparently stops short of saying something like ‘and which testicle made you?’ Literally ‘the nangae6 from where formed me’ (o ¾e tavê me ti no)? There is no possible answer to this. One has lost the argument. This type of talk is described as ‘the female pig pisses in the face of the male pig’ (o ¼al gemem gôr o nögö wödurug), a very evocative way to describe the pain when hearing rude speech like this.7 The power of the above-mentioned talk is probably also due to the unmistakable reference to sex. Lindstrom (1990, 1992) mentions sex as an island discipline, which is highly restricted. It is a topic that should be avoided when the ‘other side’ is present, and also between men and women in public settings. Nonetheless, sex is alluded to in order to silence or shame people. In this meeting it is being used as a last resort to force a consensus. This is done in a roundabout way, first by emphasising kinship with its primary aim to be united, then by specifically reminding the fathers of their responsibility towards their children, followed by allusions to respect for the ‘other side’ and sex as the reason for the son’s existence. So everything seems to come back to kinship again. It seems that within the discipline of kinship there are disciplining strategies which deploy seniority, respect and emotions, which can be mobilised to make authoritative persuasive statements.

Claiming truth and discrediting speakers Power relations in the meeting can be discerned by looking at who has the right to speak and how long they hold the floor.8 Although on Vanua Lava women do have the right to speak in meetings, they do so to a much lesser extent than men and keep their comments brief. The three women that spoke in this meeting spoke less than three minutes in total. When they 6  Along with their skin, the nuts of the native almond tree (Canarium indicum) resemble human testicles in shape and size. 7  Apparently, when a female pig is pregnant she curbs further advances by pissing in the boar’s face. 8  Also note the power of silence, though, which can be used to control an agenda.

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got up to speak they apologised and publicly announced that the conflict did not concern them in person, but their brother/father. Thus, when the daughter of one of the landowners suggested that the disputants sit down together as family and find a solution she described herself as ‘a piece of wood to throw’, implying that she as a woman has no right to decide on her brother’s land (because she will ‘be thrown to’ – will move to – her husband’s land). Yet, possibly, her sons will have rights again, through the agency of her brothers. 966

Ba si kêmi mi van tiwial me nên me siag wareg sur.

But if we go one [unite] we sit down good because [of this].

967

I no nawon, no gatöqul. Ba rak siag ira tutuök wo ¾aes den nêr a gagneg min ira nenetuk nêr a work aê.

I am nothing, I am a wood to throw. But on top of this my brothers might sometime they will tell my children to work there.

This comment resonates with Bolton’s findings on Ambae, where women are compared to a branch of nanggalat, referred to earlier (Bolton 1999). Similarly, other people not directly involved in the conflict have to explain why they are speaking. This is most often done via the discipline of kinship. A man from the other side of the island apologises and identifies himself as the classificatory brother of the custodians in order to legitimate his advice. People who are clearly identifiable as rightful speakers – the principal custodians, their sons, the chairman and other chiefs who were involved in trying to solve this conflict in the past – do not need to state why they are speaking. These speakers use a range of strategies to make their statements powerful. So far I have discussed the use of doctrines and disciplines. Code switching, between Vurës and Bislama (or English), is used to repeat or interpret statements to create a more forceful public truth. So what do speakers do to discredit the other’s truth? Both Martin and Alfred claim that they speak the truth using their old age as proof. Martin: 234

No ge te ¼ir¼iar inko navuluk ma qag.

I am not a child, now my hair is white.

Not being a child and having white hair should be sufficient to give weight to his claim. But Alfred insists that he too is not a child: 267

Mamarseg Martin, no gê tê ¼ir¼iar, nêk bilê¾ nêk gê tê ¼ir¼iar. Timiak nêk ta gagagneg vita no me tek nêk.

Sorry Martin, I am not a child, you too you are not a child. Still you insist that I took you.

268

Mamarseg ren, no ge te tek nêk.

I’m very sorry, I did not take you.

269

Manene garqe nên ge tur la tan.

Because today we live off the land.

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O tan no ma da i rege ¼ir¼iar aê, o tan na gen nêr.

149

For the land I had the children, the land is their food.

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He acknowledges Martin’s age but gives a reason why he cannot be right by referring to his own obligation towards his children. Note here the emotionally charged way of speaking about land as his children’s food. Rodman noted that in Longana, Ambae, an important incentive to finding a consensus is that one works together to ensure that one’s offspring have enough land to live on (Rodman 1979: 159). Another way to discredit the other speaker is not to prove their statement to be false but to discredit them as a liar or at least someone that cannot be trusted. Alfred at one stage says: 460

No gê gilal ilêkê nê ma van rôw nê mö vörus sur kel rôw ke.

I know this, he went down he asked for the side that goes down.

461

Ba kêl sar, mamarseg, i no no ta¾sar.

But the side that goes up, sorry, I am a man [person].

462

Gê gilal wun den i Dol si ise me tur lo ni nê.

Don’t know, maybe Dol or whoever appeared to him.

Alfred insists that he is a real person, a human being, unlike Dol, a popular mythical figure that plays inhumane tricks on people. This local trickster is still reported to appear today.9 His tricks on humans are funny but often fatal. His defining feature is that people either do not recognise him or refuse to believe that they have been tricked. He can assume any shape, ranging from a stone to a real person. He is seen as the opposite to Qet.10 Alfred implies that Dol might have assumed his form and appeared to Martin. He thus discredits Martin’s statement very subtly. He takes care of not accusing Martin of being a liar but instead implies that Martin might have been misled in his vision of the true sequence of events. Both the speaker’s references to age and to Dol can be seen as deliberately directed towards the audience. Everybody can see for themselves that Martin and Alfred have white hair – proof of their age, experience and sincerity. The comment to Dol made some people in the audience laugh; no doubt because the mentioning of the tricksters name made them recall some of the stories. By making this insider joke Alfred created a link of common knowledge with some people in the audience. He may even evoke the memory of a particular common experience with some of his contemporaries.11 9  For stories about Dol see Appendix C. 10  Qet is sometimes compared to God, and Dol to Satan. 11  While these stories are not restricted it is possible that versions circulating in male-only groups are more explicit. Therefore women could be potentially excluded from sharing the same knowledge and experience.

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Talking about emotions is an effective oratorical device in dispute meetings (White and Watson-Gegeo 1990). Not surprisingly both sides make use of this strategy. Alfred addresses Eli on such occasions not as chairman but as bubu, grandson. He shifts from addressing Martin to addressing Eli to draw attention to his hurt feelings: 273

E timiak vita no gêl ge ti se min no, ah timiak vita si o tan na môgô¾, nêk i togtog den na van a wok aê nêk gôwê aê?

Like this, I see that it is not good for me, yes, like this, if you have land, you stay away, I work at it, are you (feeling) good?

274

Bubu, nêk i togtog a Lal¾e vut.

Grandson, you live at Lal¾e vut.

275

Nêk i togtog gen ba si na van lô me wôl, na na wok lô me wôl e, nêk gê tê gilal;nêk go rô¾teg gôwê?

You just live there but if I went round the back, I work round the back, you don’t know about it; do you feel good?

276

I¾ke na möguk question min nêk.

This is my question to you.

The expression rô¾teg is used for hearing and feeling the latter in the senses of bodily sensation, as in feeling cold, as well as in feeling emotions, like shame. When people express either of these feelings in Bislama they use harem. Because harem is derived from the English ‘to hear’, the different meanings seem collapsed. The meaning of the word ‘hearing’ in English can also be used in a broader sense of understanding. Hearing can refer to sounds heard from the outside, but also, as this example would suggest, hearing from the inside. A person’s feelings can be understood to be resonating inside his or her body. In the first sentence (273) Alfred leaves out the word rô¾teg altogether. This could be interpreted as a more permanent state of being, of feeling good or otherwise; whereas the second example (275) refers to the immediate experience of the feeling when discovering the trespass. The bad feeling that the trespass caused is also on occasion described as mëmës, feeling sore, like having a wound – outside or inside. Again both Alfred and Martin claim to feel mëmës. Alfred feels sore about the trespass, and being accused of trespassing on his own land. Martin feels hurt because he is denied the truth of the agreement. He uses his hurt feelings, the pain and disappointment that Alfred’s denial caused him as an excuse to ignore the emerging path to peace. Emotional discourses and discourses about emotions here are a public practice of social life and everyday politics rather than a window to the internal states of the speakers (Abu-Lughod and Lutz 1990). As the meeting went on and there seemed to be no solution – Eli refusing to make a decision and the two old men remaining stubborn – two other men, who had not spoken before started to speak of shame. Both are of the vênê¼ Veran, one Martin’s sister’s son, the other a man from the other side of the island who identifies himself as the brother of Martin and Alfred. They stress that it is a big shame, iamarge, to have made so

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many children (implying sexual activity) and then not look after them properly. As these sons are of the ‘other side’, they need to be respected. Leaving them with uncertain land rights and causing them, as brothers, to argue among each other – thus causing the vênê¼ Veran not to be in unity – should evoke shame. Such neglectful or disrespectful behaviour on the side of the fathers, one of them stresses, could even lead to them having to pay a fine to their sons. When talking about taboo topics, such as sex, shame, conflict (liliseg disagreement) or mistakes, people often use euphemisms. Thus instead of using words liliseg or rao, which would also carry some degree of personal intentionality, people would instead refer to it as problem, or as konfusion, usually using Bislama. Thus the conflict can be treated as something coming from outside. Similarly, people would never argue (verliliseg) but instead insist that they never politik with their brothers. The use of the Bislama word is somehow less harmful, less personal.

Fieldworker-talk: A new discipline?

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There is one kind of discourse strategy that only Eli uses; and that is what I would like to call ‘fieldworker-talk’. During the meeting, when the two main contenders were stubbornly insisting on their version, Eli threatens them by going into the family history, using knowledge that he has acquired during his many years of fieldworker training. This fieldworkerknowledge, displayed through ‘expensive words’ in Bislama and English, underlines his competence, both in terms of customary transmission of the land (thus drawing on the discipline of kinship) and in the method used by anthropologists to draw family tree diagrams: 626

Now, for me, now I am ready if it continues we shall dig, we go deep, we dig, we look at the history [bakgraon] of the land.

627

If you are strong now we will go back, back to the family tree.

628

I want to present, you are ready now, I am ready to go into the family tree.

629

Watch out we shall talk, we are saying my land, my land, but if we are not following the process of the family tree you will fall down.

630

You are ready, I am ready.

631

As chairman I am ready to explain to you where your ancestors came from, reaching this place.

632

If you are strong I will take us, we shall go back one generation, two, three, four, we will find out whose ground it is.

633

I, I am prepared now, because I find it difficult [to decide who is right].

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634

But I know a tactic with which to break through, to tell if it is really Alfred’s land or really brother-in-law’s [Martin’s] land, or whose [land].

635

There will be an accident if I go back I use the family tree.

636

And I prepared all my graphs to take you to discuss them.

637

Starting on top coming down I can tell where your ancestors came from. ...

642

Watch out if we go back now, we say that the land changed ownership, changed ownership, finishes at another person.

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Eli deliberately threatens the custodians with the possibility that, once the family tree is examined again, neither of them might be the rightful custodian, a position that has been unquestioned up to this moment.

Photo 5.1: Eli’s blackboard

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While Eli’s knowledge and oratorical eloquence goes a long way towards convincing the two parties to find an agreement, he knows that he cannot force them to do so against their will. He can try and influence them, permeate their thoughts, by argument or threat, but at the end of the day each custodian can make his autonomous decision about finding a consensus. Thus Eli describes himself as not being in a position to force them into peace: 1317

Ge te no ga ta la da o ta¼at min kêmi.

I cannot make peace for you (pl).

1318

Na nögök get te ser ta la da o ta¼at min kêmi.

My face is not straight to make peace for you (pl).*

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* Nögö also means front, as in front of house.

By verbalising his limitations he is also following the straight way (gersal ge tenênêg) of who may give advice to whom and from whom one can accept such advice. He paraphrased this last expression as mi no inaf (I am not capable) during our translation. He insisted that he cannot make peace for others; he does not have enough power to create peace. This power he sees as an inherent power within his body (possibly gained through magic), and not as a result of his social identity (not being vênê¼ Veran, not living in Qakê, not being kastom chief of Qakê). Important to note here is the implicit understanding that peace cannot be achieved by the acts or power of a singular person. The cooperation and the consensus of the plural person, invoked through stressing relationality, through the discipline of kinship, is necessary. While Christian values and concepts have been introduced from the 1850s onwards, the fieldworker system has only been around for a relatively short period, just over 20 years. In general, framing one’s arguments within the Christian doctrine gives weight to one’s truth, and not just in Vanuatu. The ‘fieldworker-talk’ can be seen as one of the latest local engagements with modernity, but I would not go as far as defining fieldworker-knowledge as a new discipline by itself. It is more like a subdiscipline, comparable to any new form of exotic knowledge acquired by travel, much like the knowledge the returnees from the labour trade brought back about Australian society and Christianity. Once a year the fieldworkers travel to the capital Port Vila and are exposed to global and academic discourses. The VCC is committed to recording, preserving and retraining customary knowledge. At this national level fieldworkers engage with two global (or Western) doctrines which can be paraphrased thus: (1) ‘it is necessary and good to preserve oral knowledge’, (2) ‘the answer to all problems countries like Vanuatu face lies in ‘steady economic growth and development’. While these doctrines are believed and defended by most, especially those working with the locally operating aid agencies, they are still

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verbally contested, and always moderated in practice by local agents. Fieldworkers like Eli struggle with the recording-of-knowledge as an-endin-itself. Recording restricted knowledge is dangerous because it may fall into the wrong hands. The VCC taboo-room, where restricted knowledge is stored, is safe only to a certain extent. More importantly, though, the recording process itself, the fixation of knowledge in words that can be recalled, stands in opposition to what is most valued about kastom: its orality, flexibility and potential to accommodate everyone. It remains to be seen how these two contradicting values, the fixation of knowledge as heritage versus the fluidity of it, develops in the future. With regard to development, people have learnt the lessons of their neighbours, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and differentiate between ‘good’ development, like eco-tourism and ‘bad’ development, like logging. Although people talk a lot about the need for developmen, there is a strong feeling that it is only acceptable when compatible with local kastom. Ideas, vocabulary (and money) flowing from the global doctrine of development are widely acquired, moderated12 and used. In town as well as in rural Vanuatu one can hear people using ‘aid-vocabulary’ such as public health, education, domestic violence and (soon) restorative justice.13 All these new concepts or sub-disciplines are used, transformed and applied to create truths in Vanuatu today. They are, however, always brought into harmony with the already existing doctrines of Christianity and kastom. In this chapter I have discussed some of the oratorical strategies currently used on Vanua Lava and probably also in other parts of the archipelago. To me, what the analysis of these strategies shows is indeed how powerful local disciplines and doctrines are when establishing knowledge and power in order to create public truth. Through detailed analysis of oratorical strategies one can keep track of new doctrines or disciplines emerging. The understanding of these in turn can be used to gain insights into people’s engagement with modernity. On a pragmatic level, it seems to me that people draw on any kind of knowledge, be it doctrinal or disciplinal, in order to create an authoritative statement. What is more important in relation to the subject matter of this book is that this knowledge is used to bridge the tension between individuals competing to win particular disputes and the public necessity to find a consensus. Walking home from the meeting, Eli commented that it was a ‘good’ meeting. At the time I understood him to mean that he was happy that the two old men finally made an agreement, and also that the meeting 12  By ‘moderated’ I refer to the usage of English words where the meaning is modified; for example, ‘pen friend’ is used to mean sexual partner, ‘prostitution’ is used to mean adultery. 13  Ni-Vanuatu participants of the conference ‘Restorative Justice and Conflict Management in the Pacific Islands’ held in 2000 in Port Vila comment in their contributions that they did not know what was meant by the term ‘restorative justice’ but that the practice of it is familiar to them (Dinnen et al. 2003).

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went according to the protocols of kastom by finding a public consensus. While I wrote this, though, I could not help thinking that Eli’s happiness here related as much or more to the fact that he made it happen, he won the day – not Martin or Alfred, but he won! Although he kept insisting, as chairman, that he was not making a decision he still made everybody follow his vision of the outcome of the meeting. He proved that he is the most powerful speaker; and he could make his truth, the truth of the correct kastom way of finding an agrimen, prevail.

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• Chapter 6 •

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Church and kastom: An Old Couple

Jos mo kastom hemi sem mak nomo, ‘Church and kastom are the same thing’, people assured me frequently.1 I found this somewhat surprising because in some contexts, like weddings, as we have seen in chapter three, a clear differentiation is made. Many have argued that the concept of kastom is contested and polysemic and that its meaning has changed over time (Keesing 1982b; Tonkinson 1982a; Larcom 1990; Jolly 1992a; White 1993). One might also, though, argue the same for jos, church or, as it was formerly more often called, skul (Jolly 1982). In the past, the term skul (derived from English ‘school’) was used to talk about Christianity in contrast to kastom, while today one only hears jos (Jolly: personal comment). While Christianity was seen as different from kastom, it was to a large extent exempt from the negative association with colonialism and was viewed positively. Today, while there are distinct differences between the denominations, Christianity has by and large been indigenised and is very much part of a ni-Vanuatu national identity (Jolly 1992a).2 In fact, I have frequently heard people describe Church and kastom as a married couple. In this chapter I examine people’s understanding of personhood and place through the ongoing dialogue between kastom and Church. What aspects of Christianity, kastom or bisnes are people thinking about when they comment on sameness or difference? Do they refer to a worldview? To morality? To power structures? How do notions about the Christian ‘individual’, in particular with respect to ‘individual salvation’ and the value of an ‘inner core’ affect local understandings of personhood and place? I approach these questions through two main lines of inquiry. First, what are people’s ideas about life after death? Is there a concept of soul? If so, where does the soul go, to a Christian heaven or to the traditional places 1  The term church is used in Vanuatu to mean Christianity; I use them interchangeably. 2  For example in the national flag, where the colour yellow is understood to stand for the enlightenment by Christianity (http://www.vanuatutourism.com/vanuatu/ export/sites/VTO/en/resources/flag_emblem.html). In addition, the preamble to the constitution states that ‘the united and free Republic of Vanuatu [is] founded on traditional Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles’ (Vanuatu 1990: 65). 156

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of the dead? Are there now two souls? Will the souls of the deceased be separated according to ‘good’ and ‘bad’, Christian and non-Christian? Will the dead be permanently separated from their ancestors, kin, affines and from their place? How is the journey of the soul imagined? Second, building upon the discussion in the previous chapter where both kastom and church were shown to be effective doctrines of power and truth, I ask: how do their leaders, kastom chiefs and priests compare? Can one person be both? How do bisnes men fit in? What characteristics make the Melanesian Brothers so effective in mediating conflict in Vanuatu? Why are kastom and church seen as united against other forms of modernity, waet man ways? Before I dive into these questions it is helpful to look at the different discourses on kastom and church and how the concepts themselves have changed over time.

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Discourses on kastom and church Global and local The fact that Christianity and kastom were initially seen as being in opposition to each other was largely due to missionary efforts to eradicate or appropriate certain pre-Christian practices. Early Christianisation gave rise to a self-conscious definition of kastom (Tonkinson 1982b; Bolton 2003b). It split the indigenous spirit world into ‘bad’ kastom (with destructive and antisocial potential) and ‘good’ kastom (public ceremonial activities, skills in arts and crafts, which have been divorced from sacred pagan elements). The ‘good’ kastom combined with Christianity expanded to the contemporary understanding of kastom as a general indigenous way of life. Christianity too is polysemic and has changed over time in Vanuatu. It has become indigenised. In other words, it has been transformed from an imported Christianity to a particular local form. Again, the character of this transformation varies between denominations. The Anglican Church, compared to the two other main denominations (Presbyterians and Catholic Church), has always had a more tolerant approach towards kastom, allowing a fair amount of ritual activity. Like the Methodists in Fiji, the Anglican Church has a national or regional (The Church of Melanesia) structure, whereas the SDA stress their membership in a worldwide community (Miyazaki 2004: 87). On Vanua Lava too the more recently introduced SDA are in their discourse explicitly anti-kastom, good or bad, rejecting the local ‘culture’ in favour of more global modernist development values and Christianity. While both Anglican and SDA offer connections to the outside world though the worldwide Christian networks, it can be argued that the Anglican faith has become localised, more a part of kastom. However, with kastom as a ‘way of life’, bound up with land transmission and other essential daily practices, small changes towards a less strictly anti-kastom position among SDA adherents are starting to emerge. In the last week of my stay one of

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my uncles, John-Elisabeth Kökör, SDA lay priest, reported that at the last SDA community meeting a visiting priest from the Solomon Islands spoke about ‘anthropology’ and how important it is to know and value one’s own culture.

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Photo 6.1: Anglican baptising through a local priest

Photo 6.2: SDA baptising through a South African priest

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Sameness and difference

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Geoffrey White distinguishes three discourses of custom in everyday practice on Santa Isabel in the Solomon Islands: kastom as sacred knowledge/practice, kastom in relation to judicial practice and kastom as in ‘custom chiefs’ (White 1993).3 Variants of such discourses can be found throughout the Melanesian region. How discourses on kastom on Vanua Lava are applied in a legal setting has been discussed in the previous chapter. The two remaining discourses are directly relevant to this chapter: kastom as sacred knowledge/practice and kastom as in ‘custom chiefs’. The remainder of this section as well as the next one on ideas about heaven and hell address the former, while the last section of this chapter looks at the latter discourse. While people insist that the missionaries have eradicated all ‘bad’ kastom, that is knowledge to harm others, people still have ‘protections’, just in case. One man showed me quotes from the Bible he had copied onto strips of paper which he kept in film containers spread throughout the house to protect against sorcery and bad ‘things’ in general. Christianity, as a source of sacred power, is captured in the Bible, like in a sacred stone, containing words that have power; it was and still is capable of protecting people from ‘bad’ kastom. It is thus an alternative to magic and sorcery used to activate spirit forces. Christianity parallels and rivals indigenous cultural logic in that ‘organised domain of knowledge about spirit forces and human interaction with them’ (White 1993: 481). Many people today claim that kastom and church are the same. Discourses at the local and the national level portray kastom as melded with Christianity. White argues that the function of Christianity as a spiritual antidote to threatening forces is modelled upon local views of magical knowledge as a means of maintaining a mantle of protection … Seen in this light, Christianity does not so much form a ‘contradictory pair’ with custom (with the former replacing the latter), as they form a complementary relation in which both participate in the same field of meaning (White 1993: 482).

The ‘sameness’ of Christianity and kastom is sometimes ascribed to the fact that both have a place. Christianity, as one of my interlocutors explained, is the kastom of Israel for ‘white people’, comparable to what kastom is for ‘black people’.4 Having a place of origin or belonging – a core value according to kastom – one could argue, is crucial for the validity of the Christian truth parallel to kastom truth. At the same time difference 3  Keesing (1982a) identifies four themes: kastom as codified law, kastom as political system, kastom as religious synthesis and kastom as validation of land claims. 4  Unlike the Canaque people of Leenhardt’s time, ni-Vanuatu know that Israel is a real place (Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: 174).

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– Christianity as kastom of another place – can be acknowledged. The stress on the importance of relations with other people and places makes people reach out for Christianity. Being grounded in a place and having global networks, to people, places and to God enhances Christianity’s exchange status. It has the ability to provide a forum for unity. The kinlike relationships evoked through a discourse of referring to Christian ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ strengthen this collectivity evoking prescribed Christian behaviour and values that form the basis of a particular sociality (see also Clark 1989; Burt 1994). However, in the most recent past, the arrival of new Churches has tended to fragment people again. Curtis argues that by ‘belonging to a specific church or … following a certain kastom, peoples’ allegiances and affiliations still follow a logic of ples’ (2002: 154). This seems to ring true for Vêtuboso. Members of churches other than the Anglican majority tend to move away from the main village and form their own little hamlet. Smaller villages, where the population is lower (e.g. Vatrata 188, Wosaga 180, Qakê 94) are not split along denominational lines. It can be argued then that Christianity has assumed a status where it can be ‘the same’ or ‘different’ to kastom, much like two sides of the same stone. Discourses on rupture and continuity are co-present, depending on the context and who is speaking. The fact that both of them, at least at a rhetorical level, seem to unite against waet man ways, epitomised in possessive individualism, could be based on their shared value of relationality. Recently, the Anglican Bishop of Malaita, Terry Brown, stressed in his address about Communion and Personhood at the St John’s Theological College in Auckland that ‘if we withdraw ourselves from relationships, then we are no longer Anglicans’ (Brown 2005: 5). The Melanesian sharing dividual, it seems, is a ‘natural’ Christian person. To what extent are Vanua Lavan and Christian concepts of personhood compatible? Both kastom and Christianity offer explanations about life after death through sacred knowledge. The dialogue between the two started over one hundred years ago with the first missionaries. Codrington’s book The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore, first published in 1891, is one of the earliest and most comprehensive records of people’s beliefs in this region. A consideration of how Vanua Lavans today think about concepts like soul or paradise will allow some insight into possible shifts in understanding of self with respect to individual salvation and the possibility of an emerging notion of a moral ‘inner core’.

Heaven and Hell in the Banks In the beginning people never died, when they grew old they simply left their old skin and became young again. One day a mother went to qötu ul, the place where one leaves one’s old skin. When she returned home her child did not recognise her, and would not believe that it was her. As the child did not stop crying the mother had to go back to the water hole where, luckily, her skin had

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not floated away but had been caught by a branch. She put it back on and went home. She had no choice but to become old and die. (Eli Field 30.05.02)

This is the most common story told today to account for the existence of death.5 Death, I was advised, occurs when one is careless and proud, when one goes to the ‘wrong places’ and when one does not obey the elder’s advice: ‘sipos yu no lisen long man, ded i skrasem yu’ (if you don’t listen to other’s [advice], death will ‘scratch’ you).

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The soul and other forces In 1891 Codrington wrote: ‘That death is the parting of soul and body, and that the departed soul continues in an intelligent and more or less active existence, is what Melanesians everywhere believe’ (1969 [1891]: 247). It must be borne in mind that while Codrington was an excellent ethnographer, he was first and foremost a missionary. Ethnography was for him, just as it had been for Leenhardt (Clifford 1982), an integral part of his mission work. His enquiry into the existence of the soul in indigenous thinking was central to his mission, since belief in an eternal soul implies belief in immortality and some form of life after death. Finding a Melanesian concept that could be translated as ‘soul’ could be seen as crucial to people’s acceptance of basic Christian precepts. Codrington elaborates: ‘whatever word the Melanesian people use for soul, they mean something essentially belonging to each man’s nature which carries life to his body with it, and is the seat of thought and intelligence, exercising therefore power which is not of the body and is invisible in its action’ (1969 [1891]: 248). Still, Codrington describes people’s difficulty in explaining and translating a word that has meanings such as ‘soul’, ‘shadow’ and ‘second self’ (1969 [1891]: 248). The term ete in Vurës (atai in Mota) is usually translated as soul.6 Jolly (1996) points out the difficulties and intricate power relations that are involved in any missionary ethnographer’s translation of spiritual concepts. Missionaries searched for indigenous equivalents for notions like God, spirit or sacred power and deliberately redefined their meaning, stressing malevolent characteristics in some and expanding the holiness of others. Today, after over one hundred years of dialogue and translation efforts, Vanua Lavans still struggle to describe what the concept ete includes. At the time of death the soul (ete) of the deceased is believed to stay in the vicinity of the body for four days. Through the killing of a pig (cow) it 5  Codrington also recorded this story in strikingly similar words in his volume from 1891 (1969 [1891]: 265). 6  The connection becomes clearer in the grammatical form of the third person singular atan.

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can depart to the dancing ground of the dead. Once the transition from life to death is completed the term ete is no longer used. The deceased is referred to as timiat. A timiat is the ghost of the dead person. It has no body, but appears as the exact image of the person when they were alive. In discussing these matters with me, Vanua Lavans could not explain the transition from being an ete to a timiat. The difference seems to lie solely in the distance from the world of the living and one’s body. There are a number of other spiritual forces that are separate from or connected to humans. Codrington makes a basic distinction between spirits, vui, and ghosts, tamate.7 Spirits are something separate from humans, while ghosts are the disembodied souls of deceased people (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 121). Again, it must have been important for Codrington to find and stress a difference between non-human and human spiritual forces because of the need conceptually to separate people from God. As Burt (1994) points out, God is everybody’s ‘father’, but no one’s ancestor. Tables 6.1 and 6.2 show contemporary concepts on Vurës that likewise differentiate between non-human and human powers.8

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Table 6.1: Non-human powers9 ërër

Bad force that has existed since the beginning of the world. It has no beginning and no end.

kus

A visible force. It is in a liminal stage between life and death. One can control it; give orders or instructions to it. It can take the shape of a living person or a timiat.

dêbit

A fairy-like being that appears to a person in the form of someone they know of the opposite sex. The opposite of kus.

tamtê

Shadow: 1 in the sense of shadow; 2 in the sense of kus.

vu (=vui)

Pure spiritual being, non-human. Two kinds: named (e.g. Qet and Maraw) and unnamed, associated with, stones, places, trees and animals; a force like ërër but a good force.

In contrast to these non-human categories here are those relating to persons:

7  For a concise comparison between the Mota vui and tamate see Ivens (1931). 8  I have translated these powers or forces as nouns. I am aware of the possible limitations or inaccuracies, discussed in the context of translations of mana by Keesing (1985). He points out that a translation which stresses process through verbs, rather than the ‘things’ of nouns may be more accurate. Mana derives from the nominalisation of a verb which means to impart force, or efficacy. 9  The source of these glosses is Eli Field.

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Table 6.2: Terms for persons and their extensions ta¾sar

human being, person

atmên

man, male

reqe

woman, female

sul

people

¼iar

child

tarbê, turgi

body

ete

soul (not visible)

talme

detached ‘second self’ of a living person when sleeping and travelling in a dream

timiat (=tamate)

ghost of a once living person (miat = dead); a bounded being (sometimes visible)

Talme is the term used to describe the out-of-body experience when someone is ‘dream-travelling’.10 The talme is termed devil in Bislama; so is timiat, which is a legacy of the negative evaluation by missionaries, who labelled all spiritual forms that were not God devil. Some people compared the talme’s quality or consistency to wind; others say it is the same as ete. For the neighbouring island of Mota Lava Codrington recorded the term talegi, which he also compares to soul, but says: ‘A man’s talegi goes out of him in sleep, not in all dreams, but in such as leave a vivid impression of scenes and persons visited when the man awakes. When a man fainted the talegi had gone out, but life remained. [...] The talegi has no form, but it is like a reflection or shadow’ (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 249ff). One of the incentives for a talme to travel, I was told, is to retrieve missing items, or visit people who are far away or even dead. Another motive for a talme’s travel, which makes them greatly feared by people, is for them to be able to gather in the vicinity of a dead person and feast on their innards. The talme is said to close the body again with banana leaves and to others it is not visible that the corpse is empty of its innards but stuffed with banana leaves.11 Then, the talme re-enters his or her sleeping body through the big toe. It is crucial that the sleeping body, or ‘outside’ 10  Here I concentrate on aspects of dreaming that inform people’s concept of the person. For a wider discussion of dreams in a Vanuatu context see Tonkinson (2003). 11  Numerous rumours circulate throughout Vanuatu in which living people are said to have been attacked and eaten inside while sleeping. It was said that the person went on living for another few days, and then died. There has even been a claim that an autopsy in the hospital in Santo showed a corpse to be stuffed with banana leaves.

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of the person is not disturbed, otherwise the travelling talme or ‘inside’ cannot enter its body again and the person consequently is found dead in the morning. This practice is greatly feared and people whisper about who still has the knowledge to leave their body. I have only found one old woman, originally from Mota Lava, who admitted reluctantly that she used to dream-travel. She said she had once shared a ripe banana with a timiat, but she never joined in the actual feast of eating the dead. Her dream excursions were strongly criticised by the church and when she got married her husband forbade her from going on these tours.12 When asked about the motives for such a practice, people do not know what to say, other than that once one tries it one gets a taste for it. I discussed this with Eli and he too was at a loss to explain. A few weeks after our conversation, though, he produced the following explanation: people want to keep in contact with the world of the ancestors. Dreamtravellers can deliver messages in both directions, from the living to the dead and from the dead to the living. Timiat, talme and ete are all aspects or parts of a person. The body, turgi, is in this way seen as a kind of ‘outside’ or container for the lifeforce. While timiat and talme are potentially visible and akin to being embodied, ete is the true ‘inner’ substance of life. It is immortal: at death it leaves the body but assumes the image of the body it formally inhabited. How does this belief relate to the question of whether or not Melanesians conceive of persons having an inner ‘core’? Leenhardt’s model and Strathern’s notion of the dividual indicate that the person is only made up of relations to others and does not have a stable inner self (Leenhardt 1979 [1947]: 154ff; Strathern 1988). The concept of ete, however, could be understood to be exactly that. It is not a ‘core’ in the sense of being a basis for a moral conscience; but it is a core in the sense of a life-force belonging to an individual being, a singular person. The fact that it can leave the body and potentially harm other individual life-forces is in line with an understanding of a person being permeable, that is being subject to the influence of outside forces of people and places. Having said that one ete is one singular person’s life-force, can parts of ete be detached? Is ete, like a person, partible and dividual? A closer look at people’s ideas about the journey of the soul may hold the answer.

12  The interview situation with the woman in question was possibly one of the worst during my entire field trip. Not only had she been pre-interviewed by Eli the day before, but when I showed up the whole hamlet gathered and listened to her embarrassed and clearly rehearsed answers. She was frequently interrupted by her husband who started to answer for her, while she seemed to speak less and less Bislama as the interview progressed, until she only gave apologetic explanations to the listeners in Vurës, which were partially back-translated for my benefit into Bislama by her husband.

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The journey of the soul During the course of my fieldwork I found that Fr Jones Qelbe, a local priest in his late 20s or early 30s, had written an essay on the ‘Traditional beliefs on death and eschatology believed and practiced by indigenous people of Vanua Lava’ as part of his study at the Bishop Patteson Theological College in Kohimarama, Solomon Islands (1999). Being exposed to a mixture of kastom and Christianity as a child and then being trained as a priest, he refers to the traditional beliefs of his ancestors as ‘primitive’. He identifies with the evolutionary perspectives of his teachers, as he describes the traditional views on life after death: ‘The main emphasis here is to compromise [reconcile] the traditional doctrines with our Christian belief. This is because the religion of our ancestors only leads into Christianity which is the final stage’ (Qelbe 1999: 1).13 The Christian influence in his account of the journey of the soul, although described as ‘traditional’, is clearly visible in his efforts to show its compatibility and movement towards the Christian concepts. Unfortunately, Fr Qelbe left to work in Torres soon after I arrived, but his handwritten manuscript was a good basis for further discussions. I spoke with Hosea Waras, who is an Anglican lay priest as well as a kastom chief and with Eli Field, who believes in God but does not go to church, because he sees all those who go to church and still commit sins as hypocrites from whom he wishes to distinguish himself. The following discussion is based upon these men’s explanations of their ‘traditional beliefs’.14 The soul (ete) of a person is believed to be able to leave the body with the killing of a pig. The soul stays in the vicinity of the body until the night of the fourth day. Then it is said to leave the realm of the living forever. During this liminal time the dead person can still be seen by relatives, although during this time he or she already undergoes the processes of entering the world of the dead.15 Both Fr Qelbe and Hosea Waras agreed that the timiat has to undergo a journey that includes some kind of judgement. The timiat will be the ethereal image of the deceased and is expected to be recognised by the other dead. While at one stage both Qelbe and Waras agreed that the deceased retains his or her rank 13  This statement stands in contrast to Jolly’s findings for the South Pentecost region that around the time of independence Christianity was seen more as a rupture than a continuation of past practices (Jolly 1992a). This stress on rupture can be attributed to her working with anti-Christian interlocutors rather than indigenous priests. With the present discourses on the value of kastom as part of a national identity one may find that this new generation of priests and other leaders talk about change as a natural development rather than in a context of rupture and adoption of a new (superior) model. 14  Fr Qelbe’s main informant was another priest, Fr Gregory Manliwos, whom I estimate to be in his eighties now. 15  Compare Layard’s account of the journey of the dead (Layard 1942: 225ff, 1955: 291)

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and power from their previous life, this seems to be inconsistent with the claim that ‘worldly fashions’ are believed to be shed. Whether this refers to clothes or signs of rank rather than sins is unclear, as there is an ‘eternal hell’ for those who do not pass the test.16 I will now summarise both priests’ proposed stages of the soul’s journey and look at how their description overlaps or contradicts. I will start with Fr Qelbe’s account. The first stage of the soul’s journey is vet tevtev (stone cut). This is a stone guarded by a malevolent female deity. She cuts the dead, releasing the blood which represents their worldly thoughts and human actions. This accomplished, the soul must proceed to vet roweris, another stone, where it must pass a test. It must walk over the slippery stone which turns under him/her and can be utterly destroyed if the soul does not comply with certain conditions (unspecified in Qelbe’s account). But in most such journeys the soul (timiat) proceeds to le¼eke retivber, the guardian spirit, who strips it ‘naked’; then runs on to its first destination, which is sere timiat. It is located on top of the hill tôw sere timiat (place of the dead). Here the new arrival is welcomed with entertainment, singing and dancing. The chief timiat guarding this place check whether he or she is really a dead person. Then they send the new arrival to sere vugvug, the meeting field, where matters regarding the moral and social life of the deceased’s life on earth are discussed. The chief timiat and others make a decision whether the person was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The ‘good’ are sent on to qara¾ bönö, entering through the volcanic vent at the active volcano at Gaua; or they can sometimes stay on at the sere vugvug, and even be transferred to other sere vugvug on other islands like Mota, Mota Lava, Gaua. Qara¾ bönö is like paradise but it is underground. The atmosphere is full of joy and happiness. The spirits delight in festivals of dancing and singing. There is no hard labour, everything is ready and prepared. The bad are sent to wêrêsôr: the place of sorrow and sadness where souls receive their punishment for their immoral and evil practices in the world of the living.17 The ancestors who have died before will present their bottoms to the bad soul in criticism. Those who dwell at wêrêsôr will be like birds flying about eating all kinds of fruits, uncooked food, grass and leaves. These timiat are believed to roam around in the bush and along the coastal area of the island. They can assume the shape of any animal, but most likely kingfisher, owl, rat, or lizard. If one lets those 16  Hell is panoi in Mota. 17  This is also the place where the timiat laugh at others who carry the basket, bor, which they have not taken down in their lifetime. This refers to a w practice where hosts hang up a basket with all the food they have prepared in expectation of a guest, after he or she missed the appointment, in order to shame him or her. The errant guest should come and take the basket down and by that accept the shaming. However, some people never come to take it down and it is believed that once they are dead they will be burdened with all these gifts that they have not accepted and reciprocated.

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animals eat one’s left over food one will get sick, especially if one had left them in the garden and a wêrêsor is near by.

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Qelbe included in his essay a drawing of the journey of the soul. This is shown in figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1: The journey of the soul (Qelbe 1999)

The use of space in Qelbe’s drawing is remarkable. It conveys the extended projection of the soul, ascending from death, at the bottom of the page, to paradise, at the top of the page. However, the data that he

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presents as ‘traditional’ put paradise and hell on roughly the same level. The traditional paradise, while entered from high up on the mountain, is nonetheless under ground. It is also not the only place that the timiat can decide to go to. They can access other places throughout the Banks Islands and thus retain their links with places they may have visited during their lifetime. While death can be seen as ending social relations with one’s kin who are still alive, it increases one’s mobility and potentially re-establishes former links with dead relatives. While these places are a possibility, qara¾ bönö or paradise is said to be the final resting place. ‘Eternal hell’ or wêrêsôr is marked by restless movement, or enforced mobility, that is associated with not having one’s own place, and thus being eternally unhappy. These differential depictions of paradise and hell highlight the significance of the valorised connection of person and place. Hosea Waras’ account differs from Qelbe’s in several respects ranging from different words for paradise and hell to a different portrayal of a timiat’s personal requirements. While Qelbe’s account of a person’s qualifications at the judgement is vague Waras’ account is elaborated in considerable detail. This may be explained by the different aspirations in their ethnographic accounts. Qelbe concentrated on the overall similarities and compatibility between the two belief systems, in accordance with his goal: the successful conversion of everybody to Christian belief. Qelbe, like Codrington, sees the belief in a life after death and the immortality of the soul as important features of kastom in relation to the conversion to Christianity. Unlike Qelbe, Waras did not have to write an essay for Christian teachers at a Theological College. His agenda was not so much to accommodate kastom within Christianity but to display that he still has the kastom knowledge required to explain life after death. The stones mentioned as important steps in the soul’s journey are all located on his land, but he astutely avoided taking me to them. Here is a summary of his account: When a person dies s/he is called mate (or timiat). All the other mate take the new mate to sere timiat to check whether his/her body meets the requirements for entrance, such as ear piercing, and a tattoo or coloured mark. These are the signs by which other timiat accept the new arrival. If the mate has no earpiercing they will pierce it there and then, which is the reason why one can sometimes see blood on the road. For Waras, wêrêsôr is not hell but one of the places a timiat can reside. The new mate has to have paid the fee for wêrêsôr to another person (one must have a platonic friend that supports one during one’s life to whom one will have paid for wêrêsôr).18 If everything is all right 18  According to Kirk Huffman (personal communication), who spoke to people on the eastern side of Vanua Lava in the 1970s, every person had their own melody (o es tamat) as a kind of key to pass from the world of the living to the dead. Nobody I spoke to could comment on this though.

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then s/he moves on to vet tevtev where the other mate chase the newcomer and cut off a finger, the blood of which flows inside a hole in the stone. Then s/he moves on to the place of retiv ber, the ‘queen of the dead’, where his/her rank is determined. Retiv ber gives the mate the flesh of the dead, and water to wash in, so the mate cannot return to the world. The mate is now a full member of the dead community. He or she is now vantel wêrêsor, meaning that s/he has rights to go to any wêrêsôr. Retiv ber decorates the mate more beautifully than before and sends her/him to vet rowris. There is a big pool of water on the stone that functions like a mirror, but as soon as the mate climbs on top to look at him or herself the stone turns and the mate flies to a wêrêsôr where s/he comes to a fork in the road and is confused as to where to go. Then the person to whom s/he had paid the entrance fee for wêrêsôr comes and shows him/her the right way and the right behaviour for sere vugvug. There mate waits for her/his judgement. One of two spirits Qet or Dol will take him/her. Mate either qualifies for bönö (hell) where there is no happiness, no food and where one is beaten up constantly with fire and live in darkness; or s/he proceeds to geret (eternal life, lit.: mountain), where it is always day, one is always happy, has food and enjoys life under the protection of a man.19

I would like to point out that both Qelbe and Waras have read Codrington, and refer to him as a source of knowledge about the afterworld. The most striking factual difference between their accounts is that to Waras bönö is hell and geret is paradise, whereas for Qelbe both terms combined are paradise. To Qelbe weresôr is hell, to Waras it is only one of the places a timiat can reside. In his article ‘The Stratification of Afterworld Beliefs in the New Hebrides’ Capell (1938) tries to identify ‘original’ elements of indigenous beliefs, distinguishing Melanesian from later Polynesian influences. According to Capell, the notion of the afterworld as being located in a volcano is the ‘original’ Melanesian version, whereas the introduction of a sky-world is due to Polynesian influences.20 Following this line of argument, the fact that on Vanua Lava paradise, or ‘heaven’, remains in most people’s view within a volcano or on top of a hill rather than in the sky points towards retention of the Melanesian version of the local spatialisation of life after death. While Capell’s approach can be criticised for being reductionist and evolutionary,21 the fact that Vanua Lavans still 19  Waras uses the word ‘kingship’ presumably to express the leadership of a benevolent God-like figure. 20  In this view the story that I was told as the origin story of the vênê¼ Bêut (dealing with winged women coming down from the sky to bathe) would be seen as a result of Polynesian influence (see Appendix B). Codrington records the same story, with slight variations for Maewo (The Winged Wife, Aurora) and Jolly for Pentecost (Codrington 1969 [1891]: 397; Jolly 1999). 21  Others of this period have also tried to identify waves of culture (Rivers 1914b; Deacon and Wedgwood 1934; Layard 1942).

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cannot imagine life after death without their place is remarkable. Even when one dies one does not leave the area one identifies with; on the contrary, one rather re-enters the ground that one has come out of. Thus, one retains dividual relationships with the living and with place. Table 6.3 gives an overview of the possible residing places of the dead, indicating differing interpretations of Qelbe and Waras.

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Table 6.3: Places of the dead Sere timiat

(lit. nasara blong devil, place of the dead) On Vanua Lava this is a hill behind the volcano; the small elevation of the part that is not the crater.

Sere vugvug

(lit. nasara blong miting, meeting place) Name of a place where all dead people meet. On Vanua Lava this is at a point near Sola looking towards Mota.

Bönö

A place where the dead people live below ground. The opposite of life on earth. Differing views on whether it is paradise (Qelbe) or hell (Waras).

Wêrêsôr

(lit. place to rest/kind of a humming insect) A place where the dead people can rest when travelling. It is usually a stone or a hill and must have bamboo growing close by. There is constant noise of cicadas The sound of the insect shg – shg –shg means stop – spell – go. To Qelbe this restless place is hell.

Geret

(lit. mountain) Heaven, the place of eternal life. Some say it is at Mt Geret, the volcano on Gaua Island, to others it could be any mountain. For Waras this is the place of eternal life, for Qelbe merely the entrance point to bönö, paradise.

Eli Field’s ideas about life after death differ, as one may expect, from those of Qelbe and Waras. His initial explanation was as follows. With the killing of the pig to enable the soul to leave its body, it goes directly to sere timiat to be welcomed by the other timiat.22 They take the new timiat around Vanua Lava to dance at different places. At night between the fourth and fifth day after its death they dance for the last time together with the deceased’s human relatives. A person will take their rank but also all the signs of their bad actions, such as the basket bor, with them. While life after death for those who have been ‘good’ is happy – without work but with a lot of dancing and laughter – life for the ‘bad’ timiat is unpleasant. 22  Layard comments that the mythological figure Le-hev-hev eats the pig’s soul instead of the man’s, enabling his soul to have an afterlife (Layard 1942: 257ff). He also notes that women and young men who have not sacrificed yet do not have a soul and therefore do not have an afterlife – a view that has clearly changed with Christian influence.

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Here Eli mentions specific punishments for specific sins. People who have committed adultery or prostitution will have to swim constantly in a pool of water; people who used to ensorcel others with poison will have to sit on sharp coral.

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Photo 6.3: Mt Geret, Gaua

At another time when Eli and I had discussed the location of heaven and hell and particular punishments he said that when he was a child the old people did not mention any judgement or punishment, there was just one place were the dead went; they were not separated. This coincides with Jolly’s findings for non-Christian people on Pentecost where ‘all human beings live on as spirit regardless of their behaviour in this world’ (1996: 240). It also resonates with Qelbe’s and Waras’ description of several possible places throughout the Banks where the timiat may go. Yet another time Eli commented that the good parts of the ‘souls’ go straight to the places of the dead, the bad part becomes a timiat and has to dance at special places on this world. This comment could be interpreted as a splitting of one ete into two parts. Only the bad part roams around in the bush and at several wêrêsôr. The other part of ete becomes a timiat that goes to sere timiat, which is equivalent to heaven in that it is the place of happiness.

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The Norwegian anthropologist Thorgeir Kolshus, working on the neighbouring island of Mota, argues that people conceptualise two souls, one of which is inherent in the body from birth (or even before), the other of which enters the body with baptism (Kolshus 1999: 107ff). At the time of death the ‘soul of baptism’ ascends to heaven, while the ‘soul of the world’ becomes a timiat (tamate in Mota) and goes to the traditional places of the dead. I had a copy of Kolshus’ thesis with me during my fieldwork and discussed his findings with people. While Vanua Lavans did not agree with the concept of the two souls, the question of where the soul goes – to a Christian heaven or to traditional places of the dead – remained. Eli too had argued against Kolshus’ two-soul system, but on first glance he seemed to have proposed something similar. There is a difference, however, which can be described in Strathernian terms by saying that in Eli’s view a singular person has a singular but dividual ete. This ete can, at death, divide permanently into its plural parts, just as the singular but dividual person may be permanently detached from the plural person that he or she was part of.23 This explanation fits the local cultural logic in other respects too. When a person is still alive part of his or her life-force can be bound up with an animal residing at a particular place. The concept of talme has been compared to ete, in that the alive ‘inner’ part leaves the body. Christianity thus did not give Vanua Lavans an additional ‘kind of soul’, but rather offered an additional relationship for the soul to engage in. Most Vanua Lavans seem to have circumvented the problem of separation by imagining and localising heaven and hell throughout different places across Vanua Lava and other mountains of the Banks Islands, where mobility between the different locations is possible, although some destinations are more comfortable than others. It also has to be noted that there was some variety of opinion. People’s answer depended largely on their degree of commitment to Christianity. Thus, the soul of people who renounce kastom altogether, such as SDA people, was said by them to go to a (global?) Christian ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise’, while the soul of those who follow kastom goes to sere timiat or any of the other customary places of the dead. There is a sliding scale of views held by members of the Anglican Church. Some Anglicans, even those who do not oppose kastom maintain that their soul goes to ‘heaven’. For others, who have a strong connection to kastom, ‘heaven’ or the Christian ‘paradise’ is in the same place where the dead go, according to kastom. By creating this equivalence between the Christian ‘paradise’ and the customary ‘dancing grounds of the dead’ they have resolved the threat of possible separation at death from their ancestors, kin, affines and from Jesus – a fear that is prevalent in some other areas of Melanesia (Robbins 2004).

23  Compare also Mosko (1983).

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So what can be said about the Christian influence on the Vanua Lavan person with regard to emerging individualism? Mosko (2005) has recently argued that the reason why Christianity has been so successful in Melanesia is that the Christian individual is really a dividual. That is, by entering into an exchange relationship with God one becomes part of Him and He becomes part of oneself. Repenting, that is giving one’s sins to God, begets salvation in return. Melanesian dividuality and relationality is in this view a ‘natural’ Christian characteristic.24 Notions about dividuality and the ‘two sides’ are visible in daily Christian practice. On a typical Sunday the church service in Vêtuboso begins around 7 am. People are not supposed to have anything to eat until they have received the Holy Communion. As one enters the newly built and still incomplete cement building women and children sit to the left, while men sit to the right. People contributing to the service by choosing the songs or reading passages from the Bible usually sit further towards the front. Towards the back people come and go throughout the service, usually attending to the needs of their smallest children. Reasons for not attending church are varied but can be as mundane as not having a clean pair of shorts to wear. One woman told me that she could not go to church because she had no money to give to receive the Holy Communion. She felt that she could not accept the body of Christ if she had nothing to give in return. The giving up of sins in this context is not deemed enough or seen as a worthy gift. Moreover, confession of sins is not part of the institutionalised local Anglican service. Repenting is done mostly in private prayer. Therefore, others that could be seen as part of one’s plural person are not part or witness to this individualised exchange relationship with God. This secrecy about one’s sins is markedly different to other areas.25 This leads us to the question of individuals taking responsibilities for their own sins. Repentance may happen in private; confessions in public only happen when a person is found out. The notion of responsibility for one’s own actions, though, presupposes that the cause or motivation is also formed within the individual. As I have demonstrated in chapter two, Vanua Lavans think it possible that the cause of their action could lie outside their singular person (or body). While this is not perceived to be the case in all situations alike it is quite common to attribute an outside cause to someone’s action that in a Christian moral sense could be deemed a ‘sin’. This possible split of agency and cause, noted by Strathern (1988: 273), presents a far greater potential incompatibility between Vanua Lavan (or Melanesian) and Christian/Western views than does dividuality 24  Even Leenhardt seems to have come to this conclusion (Clifford 1982: 8). 25  Robbins writes about the Urapmin: ‘All Urapmin beyond the age of twelve or so reflect on their feelings and actions in order to identify their sins. If you were to ask anyone at any time what sins they had committed since their last confession, they would be able to provide you with a list’ (Robbins 2004: 232).

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versus individuality. In this respect the change from a shamed dividual into a guilty individual on Vanua Lava, while starting to emerge with very committed Christians, is by no means complete.

The practice of power and truth

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How does the practice of power and truth inform concepts of the person and place? I have addressed the main issues around the doctrines of Christianity and kastom in the context of the oratorical strategies used in a land dispute meeting in chapter five. I will now look at non-verbal displays of power and truth by comparing church and kastom leadership and leaders’ approaches to sacred symbolism in Christianity and kastom. In what ways can they be said to be the same or different? What can be said about their relationship with place? Forms of leadership Various forms of leadership have been discussed extensively for the Pacific region (e.g. Sahlins 1963; Godelier and Strathern 1991; Feinberg and Watson-Gegeo 1996; White and Lindstrom 1997) and for Vanuatu in particular (e.g. Rodman 1977; Allen 1981, 1984; Lindstrom 1990; Jolly 1991b). Although the distinction of big-man versus chiefly systems is problematic, leadership in Northern Vanuatu has been found to lean more towards a big-man system (Allen 1984). However, Layard observed that the ‘graded society’ systems of North Vanuatu looked like degraded chieftainships (Jolly 1991b: 77). Colonial administrations were crucial in creating the position of ‘chief’, jif, where it may not have existed in that form before. The missions promoted the establishment of Christian leaders to be ‘paramount chiefs’ of larger regions of islands (Lindstrom 1997: 213). Today in Vanuatu the title jif ‘subsumes a miscellany of characters who stake their leadership claims in both tradition (kastom) and modernity. These leadership claims trace inward, seeking roots in locally recognized systems of inequality and outward highlighting a chiefly ability to mediate with state organs and programs’ (Lindstrom 1997: 212). In short, jifs today can be seen as particular kinds of persons but also as representatives of the nation state, in some cases even comparable to civil servants (Larmour 1997). On Vanua Lava, the formal political structure of the chiefs is shown in table 6.4. The elected chief of the whole island is referred to as ‘chairman’.26 This elected chief represents the Island Council of Vanua Lava and is the link to the National Council of Custom Chiefs, the Malvatumauri. The island 26  Until recently this office had been occupied by the ‘paramount chief’ Godefrey Manar. He retains his title, which he claims is hereditary.

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is divided into two ‘sides’ or districts: West Vanua Lava and East Vanua Lava, each side with its representative kastom chiefs. Below that, each village or group of villages, depending on size, has one chief or a set of chiefs.

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Table 6.4: Island Council of Chiefs on Vanua Lava Level

Area

kastom name

Island

Vanua Lava

Tôw vetam

Districts

West VL

Tesmele

East VL

Tôw lav

Villages

Lesa , Bek

Bê lav

Vatop

Bulenmen

Leev, Leon, Sasar

Sêriv

Sereba, Lal¾etak, Qeso

Vôr

Tinô

Qaseleôt

Mosina, Sisiol, Sola

Vetnibia

Vatrata

Serewômetelô

Wasag

Saleveleke

Vêtuboso

Tewêngar

Bokrat, Qakê

Tôw belwô

Two kinds of chief At the village level there are two distinct ways of becoming a ‘chief’. The first option is to become a kastom jif or maranag ta la sele ês through a formal pig-killing ceremony. This ceremony was carried out in September 2003, for the first time in 73 years (by Eli’s younger brother Kereli). The other option is to be elected a chief. The Vurës term maranag is usually translated as chief, but can include a wide range of positions, from ‘leader of my hamlet’ through to ‘chief of the island’; it is also used to refer to God. The first option, ‘leader of my hamlet’, coincides with Lindstrom’s observation that in Vanuatu, in contrast to other places in the Pacific, ‘almost any ambitious and capable man, in some context, with a straight face, is able to call himself jif’ (Lindstrom 1997: 211). It can be argued that this possibility of declaring oneself chief is closely connected with a person’s grounding in place. Living on, and off, one’s own land affords a certain kind of autonomy vis-à-vis someone else. The second option, to be elected chief to a specific office, is the most commonly found form of chief. The last option, to refer to God with the term maranag, is only used in church services. This may go back to the difficulties of finding an adequate translation for a respected being, but one that does not create a link to indigenous spiritual forces which were all translated as devil.

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The approach to chiefly offices is a very pragmatic one; they are added or withdrawn as the need arises. When I first visited Vêtuboso in November 1999 there was a ‘chief of culture’. No one could answer my questions as to exactly how this differed from a kastom jif. Later, in 2002, this position had vanished but the position of ‘chief of development’ was added due to the founding of a copra planters association and a cattle farmers association initiated by the Torba-REDI project.27 When I returned in 2003 I found the position of ‘chief of solwota’ added as a result of government representatives raising awareness for the need to protect sea resources. The island’s paramount chief who had recently retired from the National Council of Custom Chiefs took this new task upon himself (without being elected). Currently there are chiefs for the following offices: nasara (public meeting ground), church, kastom, water supply, solwota (sea resources) and development. All matters arising in the village are seen to by the chiefs. For example, the chief of the nasara is involved in organising public events and solving disputes. The kastom chief deals with disputes concerning the violation of kastom taboos and kastom ceremonies. The chief of the church organises church events and the chief of water supply ensures the functioning of the water supply system. Each chief may have a deputy chief to act on his behalf. However, holding the office of any chief qualifies every chief to help in straightening out disputes between villagers. It is up to the disputing parties whom they ask to help them. It is worth noting that here the fact that someone holds an office qualifies him, as a particular kind of person, to mediate.28 There is no regulation about payment of chiefs: some charge for consultation or mediating disputes, some do not. However, when there is a meeting concerning land the procedures and payments are formalised through the Nation’s ‘Kastom Lan Tribunal Akt Namba 7 Blong 2001’. There are also village rules and set fines for wrong behaviour. These are written down in exercise books and may vary from copy to copy, but the relative amounts of the fines are a good indication of people’s values. One of the effects of state support for chiefs has resulted in them codifying by-laws, enhancing their own as well as the state’s power. Here are the fines compiled from two sources: the first is derived from a village council meeting of 1986, the second reconstructed by Eli:

27  Torba stands for Torres and Banks province. REDI stands for Rural Economic Development Initiative. Governmental departments and non-government organisations have developed a five year master plan to promote economic growth in the provinces. 28  This evidence strengthens the argument that a chiefly system has been grafted onto an actual big-man system as White (1997: 246) argues for Santa Isabel.

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Table 6.5: Village fines Fines declared by the chief of nasara

Vatu

1

Trespass to fight or argue

1,500

2

Fine for injury with blood

1,600

3

Theft of kava, etc.

1,800

4

Non-attendance of community work without reason

5

Noise in village after 9 pm

6

Fight, swear or threaten with knife on nasara

40 500 1,900

Fines declared by the chief of development 1

2

Animal damage to another’s garden: the owner of the pig/cattle pays for trespassing – for each damaged plant (taro, manioc, sweet potato)

1,000 40

Person damage to another’s garden for trespassing for each coconut tree, banana – damage to an irrigated taro garden (mat, qêl)

1,500 100 900

Fines declared by the kastom chief

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For not respecting taboos (sösölö)* – wild cane (wotow)

300

– nanggalat (silat)

150

– Ficus wassa (balak)

200

– namele (¼el)

1,000

* The plants listed here are used as taboo signs to prevent the harvest of trees, use of reefs or access to areas and the like. Every man can only use the plants as taboo signs that he has paid for to a senior holding the right to use this particular plant. Women cannot acquire the right to use these plants.

Declared by the chief of water 1

Tax per household per year

300

2

Men and women cannot bathe and wash at:

qetu ul, gëm, ôt

3

Men and women should not dispose of rotten clothes at places to wash:

bê gavteg, bê marematqial, bê reur

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Eli Field’s amendments from 2004 1

Trespassing

1,500

2

Theft

1,000

3

Property damage: – through animal per plant – through person coconut food (taro etc)

30 1,000 30

4

Fighting in public

2,000

5

Lying

1,500

6

Injury with blood

2,000

7

Gossip

1,000

8

Adultery: – single man with married woman, each to husband – married man with single woman, each to wife – both married, each to own and other’s partner

6,000 6,000 3,000

9

Incest relationship:** – both single: pig to uncle plus amount of money that uncle specifies – both married: 6,000 each (as fines for adultery), pig to uncle plus amount of money that uncle specifies

10

Rape, murder: referred to court

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**  As incest, count relationships between members of the same vênê¼, and others through adoption, and so on, where the culprits are perceived to be on the same ‘side’.

Chiefs in all positions are (or should be) democratically elected every two years. Theoretically, women can also hold an office (with the exception of kastom jif, as this depends on restricted men’s knowledge). For the first time in Vanua Lavan history in October 2003 two women were elected chiefs (of nasara) in the village of Qakê. Their story is quite remarkable. They were elected because they had complained about the previous chief at the provincial level. In order to humiliate them the other chiefs nominated them and they accepted. What was meant as a mock-election was declared valid by Eli Field, who was secretary of the Island Council of Chiefs at the time. When Eli retold the story of how he took the first female chief to the Tôw vetam council of chief’s meeting he described the woman’s nervousness and the other chiefs’ disapproval that was meant to shame her to make her leave. Eli backed her and made the chiefs accept her presence. To me he commented ‘mi save tok smol long saed blong gender’. In his work as a fieldworker he had obviously had some briefing on issues of gender and, while quite conservative in matters of kastom knowledge, had seized the chance to advance a specific kind of gender equality. His display of

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‘development-talk’ enhanced his status as a leader, who has acquired knowledge that puts him in a strong position when interacting with foreigners. He also linked a revision of women’s position to his knowledge of the past, where there were high-ranking women, called meter, who had achieved their rank by killing a pig on top of their house.29 Thus, he proclaimed himself both as more modern and more traditional at the same time. One could argue that he fits the description of a ‘middleman’, a cultural broker, who is ‘always a consequence and often a cause of social and cultural change’ (Rodman and Counts 1982: 1).

Photo 6.4: Women chiefs Romol and Marie-Claude, and their secretary Ellison, Qake, 2003

One of the women has since handed over the office to her husband. The other rose to the challenge and was acting in her office with the support of a secretary during my stay in January 2004. Several factors seem to be important for her success. By becoming an elected jif of nasara and not of kastom she did not threaten the ‘traditional’ male domain; rather she was able to take on the role of chief due to an already changing understanding of gendered roles. Furthermore, other circumstances were 29  There is not much other information available on this practice and what effect it had on the everyday life of these women and their family. Given the data on women’s bodies and their relation to the position of men’s bodies, though, one can only imagine what power this woman had by being on top of her house and killing a pig. Today women are not even allowed to help repair or thatch a roof.

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right. Probably most importantly she has the support of her husband. She also has no children under the age of twelve to demand her attention – neglecting small children is a sure way to attract criticism, not only by men. Lastly, she is an albino. In the perception of others this ‘whiteness’, and the qualities associated with it, might render her more ‘male’ or more capable in fulfilling the office of chief. The lifelong physical difference may have also prepared her psychologically for being able to cope with a marked difference in status or social position, including her resilience to intimidation. vênê¼ leaders Another new development is the formal reinstallation of ‘vênê¼ leaders’. In earlier times each vênê¼ was said to be led by a male elder. Being the representative of this plural person he would make sure that his kinsmen and women acted appropriately. According to Eli Field this tradition was lost, but in his position as kastom chief he tried to reintroduce the vênê¼ leaders. He argued that it was a good idea because the pressure on the few chiefs of the village to mediate conflicts seemed to be growing all the time. Although Eli did not express it in these words, it became clear that he is aware that social control through kinship is highly effective, and can cut the demand for a mediating chief in minor disputes or offences. I would not have been surprised if he had used the term decentralisation to describe this move, as this was frequently debated in the context of government representation on the islands on Radio Vanuatu at the time. He also felt it necessary to point out that ‘vênê¼ leaders’ are not chiefs. Chiefs have decision-making powers over the community with the support of police enforcement if necessary; vênê¼ leaders only have strong moral advisory functions to their own vênê¼. Again, this seems to parallel national policies towards chiefs to engage them to ‘police the hinterlands, overseeing “low-level” conflict resolution’ (Lindstrom and White 1997: 13), while restricting their political power. During my stay only some vênê¼s had already decided who their ‘leader’ should be.30 Career options for leaders I would now like briefly to compare two kastom chiefs and their respective careers. Eli Field, about whom I have said a lot already, has been kastom chief on and off for several years, and a fieldworker of the VCC for about 20 years. During my stay in 2002–2003 he was elected kastom chief of West Vanua Lava. In 2004 this had changed and he was secretary to the district 30  An interesting link to the phenomenon of the ‘town chiefs’ could be made here, where older men from outer island communities, resident in Vila or Luganville, assume oversight responsibility for their fellow islanders (compare Lindstrom 1997: 226).

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kastom chief, but he continued to be addressed as jif and was continually called upon to mediate disputes or speak publicly at kastom occasions like weddings and funerals.31 The second kastom chief is Hosea Waras, who, as already mentioned, is also a lay priest of the Anglican Church. He was kastom chief of Vêtuboso during my stay in 2002–2003, and district chief in 2004 when Eli was secretary. The two men went to school together at Port Patteson in their childhood and their friendship goes back a long way. Both men are the oldest male in their set of siblings. Eli has one younger brother; Hosea has three younger brothers. While Eli became a fieldworker Hosea chose the church as his career path. After a dispute with an Anglican priest Hosea was the first person in the village to convert to SDA; he was supported by two of his brothers and their family, who also converted. However, later he converted back to the Anglican Church.32 He told me that when members of SDA came to convince people he thought that they had the right interpretation of the Bible, but soon he found problems with SDA beliefs. Firstly, he commented that there are too many food avoidance rules so that one has to worry about pollution all the time. Secondly, because the SDA totally rejects kastom he could no longer communicate with Qet. He said that within the Anglican faith he could talk to Qet any time (but never touch him). He likened Qet to a minister under God; comparing the divine hierarchical order with the order of modern democratic government, God was, he said, like the ‘prime minister’. In 2003 Hosea and Eli’s younger brother, Kereli, were the first to become kastom chiefs through a pig-killing ceremony. Eli has, for now, declined the official status of becoming a ‘real kastom chief’ through a pig-killing ceremony. He argued that gaining a rank like this would prevent him from working with female researchers, such as myself. Another linked argument I heard him use is that he wants his kastom/culture to be alive with others first. By this he means that he wants others to know and practice kastom, rather than him recording knowledge and storing it in the taboo room of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre: ‘people need to live kastom.’ Hosea has since continued to preach in church, but at the same time has invested most of his efforts in advancing his kastom credentials, such as raising pigs and teaching his sons in secret knowledge. For the Christmas celebrations in 2003 he had taught about twenty young men how to make the famous masks for the ‘dance of Qet’, which involved three months of seclusion. 31  The public acknowledgement as jif beyond their time in office is not automatic; for example a jif of development would not retain his title beyond his appointment. The offices jif of nasara and jif of kastom, however, hold this possibility as they are usually given to men that already have considerable status though their kastom knowledge. 32  His two brothers remained with the SDA and the youngest, John, who was my main interlocutor for the VCHSS recordings, has become a respected lay priest.

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Eli, on the other hand, continued to work with Catriona Hyslop on advancing a Vurës grammar and dictionary. His agenda here was, and still is, to make people literate in their own language. He started his own language school, where he teaches everybody who is interested how to read and write in Vurës once a week. He plans to offer workshops in other villages as well. As a kastom chief he is often asked to speak at ceremonial occasions, to give ‘teaching’ to the participants and the rest of the community. This service, for the common good, accords with his work as a fieldworker, where he researches and promotes kastom. He sees this as a worthwhile enterprise in itself, not to gain money or to please tourists. This kind of voluntarism is valorised by both traditional and modern leaders (Rodman and Counts 1982). The care for one’s group’s well-being and the voluntarism expected of fieldworkers of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre resonate with the voluntarism of someone who aspires to be a kastom leader. Eli embraces this voluntarism and often refuses to accept pay for mediating dispute meetings because, he says, ‘as a true leader it is my obligation to look after my people’. In his understanding someone who has real power can afford to pay the fines in money and pigs on behalf of his relatives; he would moreover – like any ‘good’ person – always be willing to help. ‘Good’ leaders care for their people and one of the biggest returns is often ‘renown’ or, as people say in Bislama, hem I gat nem (s/he has a name). However, his doing or giving is usually reciprocated with a return gift. Vanua Lavans have a clear idea of what makes a good leader. A ‘real chief’, or ‘big man’, has to have certain qualities, such as being able to eat large amounts quickly, be physically strong, know how to fight and not be scared to fight. He should further not reveal his thoughts; as Eli put it, one should not be able to see through his skin, like seeing the bones through the skin of a certain fish. All that has been said about being a good person also applies to being a chief to an even greater degree. Thus, he is expected to be a good example for his supporters. The list of characteristics starts off with individual skills but then moves on to more relational qualities, like ideal behaviour and performance. Having secret knowledge and access to magic or divine power is also important. Proof of a leader’s success is his ability to attract followers, money and skills. In today’s engagement with modernity the ‘job description’ of a chief has changed somewhat. For example, great oratorical skills were not necessarily a sign of a respected chief in the past. Even today some of the most respected men say very little. However, in 2002 a much respected kastom chief was standing for election as an MP for the Vanuatu Conservative Party. He was not elected because it was feared that he would not be able to make himself heard in parliament. His traditional qualifications and integrity could not compete with the perceived strength of Nicholas Brown, an independent candidate and educated man from the neighbouring Mota, who convincingly argued in his campaign speech that he knows how to ‘go fishing’ for aid money.

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Church, politics and business offer new career paths but require different skills. By learning to master new skills (such as oratory or basic economics) and by following multiple career paths individual men not only acquire diverse knowledge but also gain status. In a modern aidvocabulary context this could be termed capacity building – capacity building it seems was part of kastom all along. What can be learnt from these examples of different forms of leadership? In a nutshell, despite the imposed chiefly system, personal qualifications seem to be crucial in becoming and remaining a leader of any kind. Having a foot in several camps seems to be a good strategy (Rodman and Counts 1982; Lindstrom and White 1997),33 even in politics (Morgan 2003). One may say that leaders have to be even more relational as well as more individualistic (in the sense of having a focus) than ‘normal’ people.34 Forces of modernity are said to disturb the former (imagined?) balanced state of affairs:

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Through most of the Pacific, authority was formerly based on spiritually derived potency combined with a commitment to promote common good. The introduction of money, commodity production and market exchange, however, have worked to undermine communal spirit, promoting individual competition and accumulation. Under such conditions, traditional leaders are tempted to use their privileged access to economic resources for their own benefit and that of their immediate families, thereby establishing themselves as an exploiting class, alienating themselves from their followers, and damaging their own legitimacy. At the same time, they usually lack the skill and worldly experience to be effective actors on the modern stage. Thus they become increasingly defensive and self-centered, further isolating themselves, compromising their authority, and creating a vacuum to be filled by new leaders of a variety of types (Watson-Gegeo and Feinberg 1996: 36).

Watson-Gegeo’s and Feinberg’s general description can no doubt be applied to some leaders in Vanuatu too. Indeed, businessmen and politicians also have to be included when looking at new forms of leadership. Through their access to money and (in the case of politicians) public renown by non-traditional means they can none the less participate in traditional exchanges and enhance their status by, apparently, performing kastom, as has been described for land owners on Ambae by Rodman (1984). Again, though, the matter is complex, because many men follow multiple career paths over the course of their lives. A case in point is Eli Field’s younger brother Kereli, who, before becoming a jif through the pig-killing ceremony, has tried his hand as a priest and a politician. He has returned 33  Lindstrom notes for the aspirations of politicians that while they ‘themselves want to be jifs, they clearly would prefer jifs not to be politicians’ (1997: 221). 34  Strathern and Stewart have discussed these mutually enabling characteristics of personhood and created the term ‘relational-individual’ (2000: 55ff).

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to his land, which is in a prime location for tourism, at the twin waterfalls at Sasar, to pursue a more local career. While tendencies, as described by Watson-Gegeo and Feinberg, have been emerging on Vanua Lava for some time, their description still sounds like a future ‘worst-case-scenario’. Contributing factors to this slower pace of change on Vanua Lava may lie in structural constraints such as relative remoteness and economic marginality. It may also have to do with peoples’ concept of the person, though, with their persisting practice of relationality with each other and with place. As Lindstrom notes for Vanuatu in general, even when someone is a chief at a national level, they are concerned to solidify their authority at home (1997: 218). Without being firmly rooted in a place, which includes the support from the people that are part of one’s plural person, it is virtually unthinkable to achieve anything. As already touched upon, the Church hierarchy structurally replaced the graded society within which leaders could exercise authority (Allen 1981: 4). In the following section I show how this authority, visible in ‘symbols of power’ resonates in traditional and modern understandings. I argue that the authority and legitimacy conveyed by representatives of the Church evokes memories of past traditional powers held by leaders, and such memories are effective in legitimising power and exposing the ‘truth’. Being able to incorporate these symbols of power is therefore crucial because the symbols in themselves are deemed powerful, even when the knowledge behind them is missing or incomplete (Rubinstein 1981a: 136).

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Symbols of authority and legitimacy Throughout the Pacific we have witnessed the decline of the power of traditional leaders through the influence of the Church and colonial powers (e.g., Clark 1989; Keesing 1989; Allen 1981; Barker 1992; Burt 1994; Feinberg and Watson-Gegeo 1996; LiPuma 2000; Douglas 2002). Besnier notes for Nukulaelae Atoll, Polynesia, a simultaneous ‘discourse of nostalgia’ for the re-creation of powerful leaders and a ‘discourse of egalitarianism’ which counteracts the submission to the authority of a single leader (Besnier 1996). Larmour remarks for the Pacific region in general that the ‘current revival of interest in chiefs may … have less to do with nostalgia for tradition, and more to do with nostalgia for the ability to “get things done”’ (1997: 283). Was there ever a notion of a singular authority, though, which has been undermined by historical changes? With respect to an understanding of plural persons and dividual notions of personhood, the existence of a singular uncontested authority over a significant period of time seems unlikely. The most obvious change that has occurred is that leaders are no longer solely dependent on their local networks but can receive funds and law enforcement from outside. At the same time, these outside forces

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curb certain activities. The missionaries banned sorcery; the colonial administration forbade chiefs to declare the death penalty. When we discussed authority, expressed in Bislama as respek, Eli said: ‘respek i no save wok hem wan, yu mas fraet fastaem’ (authority/respect does not exist by itself, you have to be afraid). He explains that in earlier times it was the fear of death which induced respect/fear towards a big man because he would have the knowledge to kill someone. Being afraid makes one keep a respectful distance. Thus, it seems that he sees the basis of power in fear of sanctions; the question of legitimacy does not arise. When pressed, however, Eli acknowledged that ideally respek has to be mutual. He stressed the quality, or kind, of the relationship, referring to the space in between, rather than the two persons on either side, but this later comment also hints at the qualities of leadership. Ideally, a leader’s authority is based on the knowledge that he has been able to accumulate. With this knowledge comes a moral position or obligation to care for people who seek protection. Thus, in an ideal world a leader would not abuse his power; and in return his followers would affirm his legitimacy by following his advice. It seems then that legitimacy arises out of the dialectical situation of a leader being able to rise to this position, the implicit obligations that arise with it and the affirmation of his practice by complying followers. It is highly improbable that an ideal state reflected in discourses about ‘the good old days’ ever existed. A continuous fragmentation and realigning of solidarities seems a much more likely scenario. Today, local, elected chiefs, who often lack the personal moral authority gained through initiation and pig-killing, have to rely on the mobile police force as a last resort to enforce their decisions regarding fines. This is a very frustrating experience for the chiefs because they are simultaneously flooded with requests to solve disputes and with disobedience and disrespect by the perpetrators. This frustration came to the surface one Saturday at the regular ‘social mornings’, where one of the chiefs suggested reintroducing ‘poison’. It is not clear what kind of ‘poison’ he had in mind, but clearly something that would be an effective enforcement of chiefly authority. Eli opposed him and alerted him and the public to the fact that reintroducing ‘poison’ bears the risk that this knowledge (of how to harm or kill someone) could get into the wrong hands. Once reintroduced, its use could not be restricted or monitored and people might harm someone for personal reasons. This incident highlights the fact that lack of effective authority is a continuing problem. Furthermore, the fear of death or harm to one’s health is still recognised as a strong motivation to obey or conform. Indeed, it may be the only one. The possibility of reintroducing ‘poison’ – even though it is banned and apparently knowledge about it is ‘lost’ – is still in people’s mind. Thus, it almost does not matter whether there is a real basis for it; the belief and fear of people about its existence may be enough to create respek. It is in this context that I would like to discuss the work of the Melanesian Brothers in mediating a conflict where accusations of ‘poison’ ran high.

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The poison case When I returned from a three-week break, in February 2003, I learned that four men had been accused of poisoning a teenage boy and that the Melanesian Brothers had stepped in to prevent violence. Accounts of what happened differed slightly but the overall course of events, according to the wife of one of the accused, was as follows:

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The parents of the dead boy accused four men of being involved in poisoning their son. The boy had had a wound on the knee that did not heal; his parents took him to Santo hospital where the doctors wanted to amputate his leg. The parents refused and left the hospital. They had sought alternative treatment with a local kleva but after some weeks the boy died. When the parents came back they told their family that this kleva had made a leaf-kastom and told them that he ‘saw’ a man (A1) with whom there is a dispute over land take a t-shirt of the boy and 1,000 vatu to a man (A2) with whom he always sits. This man then made another leaf-kastom and killed the boy. The kleva also saw a beach with a row of stones [a description of Vureas Bay] and a little further uphill a bald headed man (A3); he is also accused of being involved. Another man (A4) was accused because years ago there were allegations that he had poisoned another man, unrelated to the main protagonists in this incident. A3 has a land dispute with the boy’s mother.

None of the accused men had actually been named by the kleva but from his detailed description the parents had deduced their identity. The parents wanted to hold a meeting without warning to gain maximum effect. There were also threats to kill one of the men. The Melanesian Brothers attended this first meeting in order to prevent violence. They were asked for assistance by A3. They marked a rectangular space with sticks on the village’s nasara and stood by these.35 Within this sacred space the meeting proceeded peacefully but no evidence for the alleged poisoning could be found. A second meeting was held to clarify the situation. There the Brothers prayed and all had to swear by God. Each of the four men had to hold the Melanesian Brothers’ walking stick and tell the truth. Then they had to kiss the Bible and with the Melanesian Brothers’ medal in their mouths plead innocence. It was understood that if they were lying they would be dead within three days. When they had all gone through the procedure and it was the parents’ turn to do likewise, they refused, because they saw that nothing had happened to the men. This was seen as proof that the couple was lying. Now they were taken to court, accused of slander by the four men. The couple had offered a kastom reconciliation but the men refused, saying that their names had been sullied by the rumours which had reached as far as Santo. The four 35  Note that at men-only kastom dances a rectangular space on the nasara is marked with cycad leaves preventing women to enter this taboo space.

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men went to court asking for a huge compensation (reported sums differ but once I heard 250,000 vatu). A1’s account of what had happened was basically the same but in his version A3 instead of A2 was said to have made the poison leaf-kastom. A2 had paid 4,000 vatu as a court fee. Later the men discussed whether they should withdraw the case. A1 was in favour of the kastom solution but the others wanted to go to court. After several months the case was finally resolved through kastom. The question of what had caused accusations of ‘poison’ to be uttered in the first place was never openly discussed. Tentative statements about personal reasons, such as a dormant land dispute, were mentioned. Then again, the accusations could also have been made to diminish the accused men’s status. All of them had some status to lose, either as leader of some kind or as traditional healers. This latter possibility comes to mind when comparing accusations of ‘poison’ on other islands. For example, W. Rodman (1993) illustrates the impact of a ‘poison’ case on Ambae, where men of lower rank seize the chance to destabilise traditional power structures not by simply voting chiefs out but by using traditional means, such as gossip, to silence chiefs and to effect a change in political leadership. The main reason I discussed this example, however, is the explicit display of authority by the Melanesian Brotherhood. Can their power be found in symbols that are not unlike traditional symbols of power? The following excursus pays particular attention to possible similarities. Excursus: The Melanesian Brotherhood The Melanesian Brotherhood had started in the Solomon Islands in 1925 and in the 1930s the Brothers started working in Vanuatu (first on Ambae and Maewo) (Macdonald-Milne 1999, 2003). Soon a household was established on Vanua Lava, named after the first Melanesian who became an ordained priest, George Sarawia from Vanua Lava. During my stay the household, which had not been maintained continuously, was reestablished. Ten novices and four Brothers were staying at the household in March 2002. The Brothers’ main vocation is evangelical but in recent years they ‘have changed their aim so that it includes the work of renewal among nominal or lapsed Christians’ (Macdonald-Milne 1999).36 The Brothers’ success can be attributed to their ‘very practical approach’ that Macdonald-Milne ascribes to the ‘truly Melanesian way’ employed by Ini Kopuria (the founder) who followed the principles of Bishop Selwyn. All Brothers were Melanesians. They could approach people as equals; they were not particularly educated; they did not impose themselves but waited to be invited; they made their own gardens, and therefore were not imposing on local hospitality; and they always worked in pairs – a concept that is in tune with local protocols of mobility. 36  Macdonald-Milne’s article does not have any page numbers.

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Macdonald-Milne describes the uniform of the Brotherhood as both symbolic and practical: practical because it is similar to what local people wear – signalling equality; by describing the uniform as ‘symbolic’ Macdonald-Milne probably meant its religious symbolism – black and white standing for ‘darkness and light’ – the constant polarity in the language of Christian conversion. But it was also similar to the uniform the Solomon Islands Police at the time; and thus perhaps could be read as a symbol of coercive authority as well as divine power. He also notes that authority resided in the Brothers’ sacred power:

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The people wanted the Brothers because they believed that their Christian God was stronger that their island gods. They were also impressed by the spiritual power or mana which the Brothers seemed to have. This often helped them in their work of evangelisation (Macdonald-Milne 2003: 87).

In recent time the Melanesian Brothers have been in the spotlight for their achievement in conflict mediation in the Solomon Islands (Amnesty International 2004; Mavunduse 2004).37 In Vanuatu too they are asked to attend conflict meetings. Their presence clearly inspires respek in people. Stories of Melanesian Brothers curing through prayer are common. But there are also stories of punishment, where their power has been challenged, ranging from misfortune to sickness to death. Rumours of their miraculous power to cure or punish circulated among people but were denied by the Brothers.38 Their proclaimed aim is not to do harm or force people into the right way but to convince others by giving a good example. However, even if these rumours are false they can still inspire the fear of death. And, I argue, it is fear of death, and the punishment of God through the hand of the Brothers that makes them an effective authority in disputes. If a person lies to them that person lies to God, and because God is omniscient, punishment will surely follow. One might say that there is no difference between this and lying to an Anglican priest. But the Brothers are more effective because they have, intentionally or not, combined the symbolic powers of traditional, state, and church authority. The symbolism of power and truth, I argue, lies in familiar details, in almost forgotten ways of doing things, in remembered formats and styles. These can be of a ‘structural’ nature, like the fact that both traditional and Christian hierarchy and office holders are predominantly male, or that both derive power from a spiritual source (Allen 1984). Or the use of the metaphor of kinship, rendering all Christians ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ invoking certain kinds of behaviour towards each other. 37  An Internet search on Google showed 14,600 hits for ‘Melanesian Brotherhood’ on 10 September 2005. 38  Playing down one’s power is the appropriate reaction of a really powerful person in kastom logic, so their denial may actually have had the opposite effect.

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There are details which are similar in kastom and Christianity to begin with, and those which are accidentally or deliberately exchanged. Vanua Lavan people in general, not just leaders, are eager to try out new things, new career paths, food, beliefs, and ways of relating. This process of trying, accepting, rejecting or modifying also results in a generalised exchange of symbols of power (see for example Curtis 1999). An example of a detail of format or style that was pointed out to me is the way people kneel down to receive the Holy Communion with both hands. This particular sequence of actions resonates with remembered tales of grade-taking ceremonies and of how men receive food at these ceremonies. The fact that the host symbolises the body of Christ parallels to a certain extent the grade-taking of the highest possible rank where a human sacrifice was required (compare also Clark 1989). Yet another detail is the use of song. For the Pintupi of Australia

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singing provides a salient image of sociability. Whenever large groups came together in traditional times, they would sing together at night. Ceremony – song and dance – was the real content of most group relations (Myers 1986: 112).

Similarly, for the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea singing is an important part of the expression of emotions in a social setting (Schieffelin 1976). For Malakula Layard also comments on music and dance stirring the ‘deepest emotions’ (Layard 1942: 336). For Vanua Lavans, singing gospel songs in church resonates with traditional chants and dancing. But songs were also used as (hidden) messages, or to effect garden magic and similar spells. The Church, in its effort to be tolerant towards ‘good’ kastom, frequently includes kastom melodies overlaid with Christian words in their Sunday service. Appropriating these tunes renders them ineffective for kastom uses. While the tunes have to some extent become ineffective melodies due to their public usage, they have also transmitted their sacred power to the Christian cause. The people themselves are complicit in this transfer of power because they suggest these melodies, wishing to include them in the church service.39 As for symbols of aspiring leadership, the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience taken by the Melanesian Brothers for a year at a time resonate with memories of almost forgotten initiation, which also included fasting, enduring hardship, learning, and acquiring spiritual powers (see also Jolly 1989). 39  The influence of Western popular music, especially Reggae, is big throughout Vanuatu, but cannot be discussed here.

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Discussion How do alternating claims of kastom and Church being different or the same inform today’s situation? The answer to this question is as often: it depends on the context and the intention of the speaker. The term kastom today can include a wide spectrum of meanings. It can refer to earlier definitions that stress the negative aspects of kastom, like black magic. It can be used to denote difference to introduced ways of life. It can also be used in its narrow meaning, referring to activities like weaving or dancing. All these stress difference. However, talking about kastom is highly politicised, at a local and a national level. Claiming kastom as one’s moral base puts a speaker in a powerful position; so does speaking in the name of God. The Church is just as polysemic as kastom. Not only are there different denominations, and varying degrees of conversion, there have also been noticeable changes over time in the particular Churches’ take on kastom. As already mentioned, even the SDA who are and continue to be very outspoken against kastom in their general discourse have recently recognised, at least on Vanua Lava, that kastom is so much part of people’s identity that it is actually virtually impossible to abandon it altogether. How would people inherit land if it were not through customary practices? Kastom is about to be reintroduced as a concession to value one’s own culture, very much in line with global discourses to value ‘diversity’ (Sahlins 1999). On Vanua Lava, and probably in most other regions in Vanuatu, combining both kastom and Church seems an obvious and unavoidable choice. Unavoidable, because ultimately the power relations between the Western intruders and the local population were and generally still are unequal. Adoption, rejection and modification have all been co-present to various degrees throughout recent history. And the engagement between kastom and jos is continuing. The most recent phase of engagement is of particular interest. Christian beliefs were integrated as one aspect of kastom. Then Christian activities seem to have replaced many of the customary activities. Attendance at church services leaves little time for elaborate kastom, such as grade-taking. Today, prayer frames all kinds of meetings, from disputes to kastom ceremonies. But, as I have shown in chapter three, when I pointed out this framing, it was understood as kastom becoming part of the Church. This suggested an unbalanced power relationship between the two and in this particular case efforts were made to counter-balance it. There seems to be an increasing understanding that Church and kastom have to be equal partners. And indeed, they are frequently likened to a married couple. The idea of seeing kastom and Church as a married couple is indeed an interesting one because it makes them like persons, as halves of a pair. But do they have a gender? If so which of the two is male? If we follow this (possibly slightly absurd) idea we may find that much of the struggle between the two, while each is stressing equality and complementarity,

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can be thought of as a struggle over wanting to be the male and expecting the other to quietly accept the role of the female. To continue this Strathern-inspired train of thought, each one can also stand for a plural person: Church including the family of the believers, kastom relating singular persons by existing modes of sociality. Any singular person can be part of both plural persons, not as a member of each group, but in having both forms of sociality within. A leader, say a kastom chief who is also a priest, has incorporated the authority of both. While Christian doctrine may lead people to become more individual in a moral sense, and Western possessive individualism may push them that way in a material sense, a leader who has access to both is, I argue, not necessarily moved towards individualism, but has the possibility to be more individual while being more dividual at the same time. Thus he is in line with the customary qualities of leadership. Where does this leave us? Allen has argued that

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those areas of north Vanuatu that have most easily and successfully adapted [presumably to European rule and Christianity] are those in which innovation was traditionally a widely recognized political tactic of ambitious Big Men (Allen 1984: 36).

Vanua Lavans, depending on context, may seem very traditional or to be whole-heartedly embracing modernity. Their traditional inclination to try and achieve the ‘best of both worlds’ is, like anywhere else, an exercise in trial and error. As for the marriage between kastom and Church, they mostly argue over the same issues like any old couple, but they none the less seem to have achieved the creation of a productive and powerful ‘house with two sides’. However, as with the Vanua Lavan moiety system, the stability of the two sides only exists from an egocentric viewpoint. The many vênê¼s can be compared to the increasing number of Churches. Their relative stability is always subject to fractionalisation and competition. And of course, place also comes into the equation as the concessions of the SDA illustrate. By acknowledging local cultural forms the SDA had to implicitly bow to the importance of place! Place in Vanua Lavan thinking cannot be totally replaced by a global identity of a particular kind of believer (being SDA). It is more than just where people happen to live; place is within persons.

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Conclusion

In this book I have drawn together several themes, discourses and conversations which concern Vanuatu specifically, the Pacific as a wider geographic area but also theoretical fields in anthropology: the relevance and expressions of sociality through kinship, concepts of person, issues about land and cosmology, the kastom debate, and questions about continuity and change. The main argument of this book reads almost like a mathematical equation. If we follow Marilyn Strathern in her claim that the western concepts of ‘the individual’ and ‘society’ as two entities have no indigenous counterpart in the Melanesian context, but that persons there have sociality within, then the distinction between (singular) person to place as in a figure-ground relationship is also not applicable. Rather, persons, singular and plural, also have place(s) within, which leads to the conclusion that places are also intrinsically dividual, or plural. This inherent plurality has implications for how people relate to each other and to place. People’s dividuality and partibility can be seen in their various forms of relating, especially the notions of ‘sides’, vênê¼, sögö, and gagêi. Importantly, these terms to describe plural persons also include places. By uttering the name of a vênê¼ one also refers to a place (of origin, of arrival, or regarding land rights); by doing this one also invokes the oldest male members who are the custodians of the land. By marrying, two singular persons become a pair, but the marriage does not only concern them as a couple since their respective vênê¼ are now also becoming ‘two sides of a house’. Plurality with regard to places becomes most visible when one considers rights to land and the notion of custodianship versus ownership. A singular person may be said to be the ‘owner’ of a particular area or tree, but the plurality within this person means that he or she may have more rights than someone else; it is not an exclusive notion of individual ownership because the plurality of persons matches the plurality of places. In this context, being considered a ‘good’ person is someone who embraces the prescribed obligations, such as sharing, helping, feeding and sitting down together. Permeability likewise applies to persons and places. A person’s behaviour, motivation or thought can be influenced by another person or place. Particular places are thought to have the power to affect people’s well being and actions, for example going to the ‘wrong place’ may cause a person to become bald or steal from someone else’s garden. Strathern’s claim that the Melanesian person is a dividual by and large holds for the Vanua Lavan person. However, Vanua Lavans have also been 193

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exposed to, and creatively engaged with what can be summarised under the term ‘Western individualism’. At different times in Vanua Lavan history people had different ‘modernities’ with which to engage. The value systems of nineteenthcentury traders and missionaries differed somewhat from those of twentieth-century development workers, legal advisors or business representatives. The legacy of engagement with ‘older’ modernity has left its mark, for example in the dress code for women (Bolton 2003a); the ‘newer’ modernity will no doubt leave some mark too. A constant factor in all of these engagements, though, has been the Western value, assumption or ideology of ‘individualism’. However, at closer examination several ‘individualisms’ seem to be lumped together under one heading. There is the capitalist notion of ‘possessive individualism’; the ‘Christian individualism’, that presupposes an individual relationship with God; and also the individualism based on Western psychology, which assumes the existence of an ‘inner core’. Of course all of those are linked (Macpherson 1962; Taylor 1989), but distinguishing them helps to understand different layers of engagement with ‘Western individualism’. The engagement with ‘Western’ individualism since contact is suspected to have shifted people’s thinking towards more individualistic notions of personhood, including all three aspects of individualism. If this is the case, how and where did it leave its mark? Have all three aspects been equally influential in Vanua Lava? In the wider context of kinship and sociality Vanua Lavans moved from an absolute moiety system to a relative one – the perspective shifted from a sociocentric to an egocentric view. Whom one is supposed to marry is dependent on their being of another vênê¼ than oneself. There is not just one ‘other side’ but many. To what extent marriage rules have been adhered to in practice in the past may be questioned but the new generations seems to be increasingly unwilling to do so. Their discourses attest to their wish to make an individual choice that is not guided by vênê¼ membership, namely by concerns about what Strathern would regard as a plural form of personhood. This shift could be interpreted as moving towards individualism in several ways. One of them is the stress on the notion of romantic love between two individuals. While indigenous notions of love may have existed before, it was not considered as valid a reason to change marriage arrangements as it is today. The other shift could be described as a move towards possessive individualism. While status or ability to work and bear children was always taken into account, today marriage partners are also chosen for reasons like education or wealth. The introduction of cash into the bridewealth payments has also contributed to a blurring of the line between a commodity transaction, involving individuals, and a gift exchange, which manifests relationships between plural persons. While reasons to choose a marriage partner can and have depended on a multitude of factors, the disregard for the plural person, the vênê¼, is looming on the horizon.

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With a revival of kastom, however, and more recently increasing complications regarding land transmission, this trend is partially checked. Marrying someone from one’s father’s ‘side’ or even vênê¼ makes future transactions easier as one’s rights have more weight already vis-à-vis someone else. In an increasing move towards codifying and individualising land rights by planting coconut rather than non-permanent gardens, marrying a person from the ‘right’ category does retain some appeal. Western notions about gender have impacted on Vanua Lavans in many ways. As already mentioned, nineteenth-century Christian modesty is still visible in island dresses. ‘New’ modernities have brought with them ideas about gender equality and the right over one’s own body. While the payment of traditional bridewealth is due to the parents and other relatives of the bride who have nurtured her, the gifts given at a church wedding are for the pair, the two individuals only. The fact that Vanua Lavans perform two weddings, a kastom and a church wedding, may be the best example of dividuality and individuality coexisting. Retaining both forms of marriage offers additional exchanges and thus the best of both worlds. Just how much kastom and church are intertwined, or encompass each other, becomes clear in the performance of an actual meeting or event that is said to be one or the other: prayer as part of a kastom meeting; kastom performances as part of a church event. This utopian harmony is soon shattered when issues of land are concerned. The engagement with the global economy, in particular through copra, has produced new forms of inequality, where more entrepreneurial men can accumulate wealth through non-traditional means and through those acquire traditional high status (cf. Rodman 1987; Lindstrom 1997). While men who are too successful are occasionally brought down to a more equal level again (Philibert 1982), inequalities with regard to land will continue to impact on Vanua Lavans who are acutely aware of its limited availability in the future. The growing registration and codification of land rights seems to be moving towards a model of individual ownership. People’s response to this varies according to context. While everybody maintains that rights to land need to remain inclusive and flexible, no one seems averse to themselves gaining an individual advantage. However, this is by no means ‘new’ in Vanuatu; there is an old shared notion of taking advantage at the right moment, expressed in Bislama as janis blong mi ia nao (this is my chance now). Modernity also creates new labels for persons and shifts meaning for old ones. One of those is the persona of jif introduced by colonial powers. Elsewhere in Vanuatu this has been described as the grafting of a chiefly system onto a big-man system that aims to make the leaders who have been identified in this way into civil servants (White and Lindstrom 1997). There are other, less discussed new labels that almost escape notice, though, such as the ‘tourist’ or the ‘criminal’. Tourists from abroad are frequently admired for their ‘freedom’, or dismissed for their ‘floating’; one can also imitate them as in mi go mekem turis (I go and be a tourist) to explain

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unnecessary travel. While being a tourist is taken more like a temporary ‘role’, being deemed a ‘criminal’ carries the weight of permanency. Someone being described as ‘a real criminal’ (e.g., Bongmatur in Lindstrom 1997: 226), is a new phenomenon that may well cause concern.1 In the traditional conflict resolution system every person had the chance to ‘make peace’. There was no moral judgement of the individual’s core characteristic being bad, rather than their action(s) – just as before the introduction of ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ all dead went to one place, regardless of having been ‘good’ or bad’. This is exactly what the notion of ‘criminal’ conveys, though: a personal trait beyond redemption. Introducing the label criminal is one of many ways to introduce a different way to think about persons. It has the potential to change a category of knowledge. Christian individuality, which stresses the responsibility of a moral self with the support from Western psychology and values an ‘inner core’, is at work here. These values are still counter balanced by the potential split of cause and agency, that is, by the continuing currency of the idea that the cause of persons’ actions may lay outside of themselves. New labels or categories are easily absorbed into oratorical strategies of speakers because they are ‘expensive words’, with which one can display one’s knowledge about the outside world and therefore lay claims to power and truth. This is especially visible in the relationship between kastom and church, expressed for example in their continuing struggle over doctrinal power and who gets to set the agenda. The issue of change and continuity has emerged throughout the book (e.g. in discussions of land transmissions, marriage choices, forms of bridewealth, leadership and authority). Because the Vanua Lavan engagement with Christianity contrasts with Melanesians elsewhere I would now like to discuss this difference. With regard to theoretical discussions of social change, Robbins argues that the Urapmin have experienced ‘humiliation’ (Sahlins 1992: 24), which has led to what he sees as a distinct form of culture change that he calls ‘adoption’. Distinguishing it from the forms of change that he calls ‘assimilation’ and ‘transformation of reproduction’ (to which Sahlins has given more attention), Robbins defines adoption as a kind of change in which ‘people take on an entirely new culture on its own terms, forgoing any conscious effort to work its elements into the categories of their traditional understandings’ (Robbins 2004: 10). While one could argue that there was an initial experience of ‘humiliation’ in the Vanua Lavan case as a result of missionisation and other forms of ‘cultural debasement’ this has not resulted in a wholesale adoption.2 In this initial phase of contact kastom and Church were talked about as opposite 1  Compare the debates about raskols in Papua New Guinea (Dinnen and Ley 2000). 2  Humiliation still comes to the surface when people negatively compare their own living situation or skin colour to that of ‘white people’.

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‘sides’ between which one must choose. With the continuing engagement over time and discourses about kastom and Church slowly changing to a more complementing and encompassing relationship, a transformation took place. So in terms of the three models of social change distinguished by Robbins, the Vanua Lavan case, at least in the more recent period, can be better described as one of ‘transformation’ or ‘transformative reproduction’, where ‘people’s efforts to bring their pre-existing categories into relation with the world eventuate in a transformation of the relations between those categories’ (Robbins 2004: 10). What may have started as humiliation-induced adoption has become ‘transformation’. This has had the noteworthy consequence of lessening the experience of humiliation by redefining it. This redefining can be compared to the process of change of emotions – for example, from culturally inappropriate anger to appropriate shame or avoidance – in a Pacific context (White and Watson-Gegeo 1990). Just as redefining emotions opens the way for disentangling conflict, experiencing change

Photo 7.1: Dance of Qet, traditional masks

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as ‘transformation’ rather than ‘humiliation’ moves the discourse from a passive ‘converted’ mode into an active one where people have agency and take responsibility and ownership over this transformation. I had initially thought to entitle this conclusion ‘kastom as you like it’. The idea came to my mind in the last weeks of my fieldwork in a mood that may be best described as a mixture of exhaustion, frustration, admiration, irony and a very vague sense of achievement. Living for a year in a remote and culturally unfamiliar place had taken its toll on my physical and mental well-being. I was completely exhausted and ready to go home. With the phrase ‘kastom as you like it’ I wanted to express the vagueness and flexibility with which people practised kastom in contrast to talking about it. How, I wondered, can I ever capture the gaps, the inconsistencies and the flexibilities, in writing without becoming cynical? Then, some time into the writing process I had yet another experience of ‘oh, someone has thought about this already and has written about it much

Photo 7.2: Dance of Qet, modern mask made and worn by a local man who now lives in Port Vila

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more eloquently that I am about to’. This person was Margaret Rodman. She talks about ‘breathing spaces’ in the context of land tenure (Rodman 1995) as ‘opportunities for operating flexibly and without creating overt dispute between apparently contradictory conventions of custom and practice, as long as they are not brought into open debate as contradictions’ (Rodman 1995: 67). I sincerely hope that this book, while making contradictions visible, will not hinder but maybe encourage people to continue to make up their own minds about change and to keep kastom flexible and grounded in place.

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Appendix A Qet’s brothers

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Codrington names the eleven brothers of Qet with their Mota names (1969: 156). The first part of each of their names is tangaro. The two first brothers are ‘the wise’ and ‘the fool’, the rest are named after leaves of trees: Nr.

Mota name

Vurës name

Translation

1

Gilagilala

Mêrên

the wise

2

Loloqong

Lolesil

the fool

3

Siria

?

?

4

Nolas

Deles

leaf of poisonwood tree

5

Noav

?

?

6

Nopatau

Debieg

leaf of breadfruit

7

Noau

Devidege

leaf of pandanus

8

Nomatig

Domôtô

leaf of coconut

9

Novunue

Dovono

Macaranga dioica

10

Novlog

Dôlôm

leaf of Indian mulberry

11

Nokalato

Dêsilat

leaf of nettle tree

For two names I could establish neither a Vurës term nor the species, but I think it is better to include this list, even if it is incomplete. Maybe someone, either a ni-Vanuatu or another researcher, who reads this may be able to fill the gaps.

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Appendix B

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Photo 8.1: Cathy Doris Lekel

History of the vênê¼ Bêut told by Cathy Doris Lekel, 2002 At a place called Bêut in the South of Vanua Lava the children saw their parents go to the garden every day to get food. They went down to the sea to swim. A group of girls that came down from the sky joined the children of the land. When they reached the place they took off their wings, put them to one side and joined the children from Bêut to swim. One of the girls from the sky was nicer than all the other girls and she always carefully hid her wings underneath a reef, under a tree called ¾er. They swam until the sun almost drowned, and then put their wings back on and flew back to the sky. They kept doing this for a long time until one day, when they had flown back, all the children of Bêut went home and one girl told her father: ‘Hey papa you know what? Every day us children go down to swim, the girls 215

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from the sky too come down and swim with us. I am telling you papa, these girls are so nice. But one is nicer than all the others. Every day when they come they put their wings where we can see them, but she, who is so nice, hides her wings.’ When the father of the girl heard this he planned to hide and watch them swim. One day he went down to the sea and hid behind a tree to watch the girls come down. After a short time the girls from the sky arrived and he watched when they took off their wings and where they put them. He carefully watched the one who was nicer than all the others to see exactly where she hid her wings. When they had all gone down to swim he crept there slowly and took her wings and buried them close to the middle post of his house. When the girls saw that the sun was almost drowning they came back to put on their wings to fly back to the sky. All the others found their wings but she did not find hers because the man had taken them away. When the others started to leave the man came and asked: ‘Hey why are you crying?’ She told him: ‘I’m crying because I cannot find my wings to go back up.’ He replied: ‘It is alright, come with me.’ So she followed him home. But during all the time that the girl stayed with the man his first wife was jealous of her. And whenever the girl sat down close to the middle post she cried. The girl became the second wife of the man. After some time she got pregnant and gave birth to a girl. But still she was not happy; she wanted to find her wings to go back to her place up in the sky. She looked after the baby and the man really loved her a lot. One day, when the baby could talk already the mother was sad and sat close to the middle post and cried. Her tears fell to the ground, sank in and touched her wings. It was almost morning. When she had finished digging her wings out she put them on and they fitted perfectly. So she took her daughter and flew back to the sky. This all happened when it was not day yet. When the man awoke he was surprised not to find the two. The man worried about their absence and told a bird: ‘You fly up and have a look for a child and her mother.’ The bird flew as high as it could but it could not reach the place. But the man did not give up. He asked a spider: ‘Hey friend, can you help me?’ The spider said, ‘Yes, I am ready to help you but what is it?’ The man said, ‘My child her mother flew to the sky. Can you make a road for me so that I can reach them?’ The spider replied ‘Okay, you dig a hole in the ground and you cut a lot of wild canes and make plenty arrows (tot).’ Once the man had made the hole the spider or maraw told him: ‘You take one arrow and your bow and you shoot inside the bottom of the hole.’ The man did as he was told. The spider released its web at all the other arrows into the Banyan tree in the sky. Then he followed the spider’s web into the sky. There was a big feast in remembrance for the girl that had been lost to the world. But when she appeared alive again they were surprised. So when the man heard the dancing he approached quietly. He found his daughter hiding behind the leaves of a wild taro (ve). Her father recognised her at

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once and asked: ‘Where is you mother?’ The little girl said, ‘My mother is in the house, but wait here and I’ll tell her.’ When her mother knew that her husband was there she told her daughter to bring him into the house. She asked, ‘Hey, how did you get here?’ But the man said, ‘I just followed a rope. The woman said, ‘Wait, I’ll fill up a basket with food, and then we three can go.’ All the others continued dancing. The man said to her, ‘You carry the basket, I’ll carry the girl.’ He walked in front carrying the girl, and the woman followed with the basket. They reached the roots of the Banyan tree, which the spider web had covered, reaching down into the hole. The two discussed who would go first and the woman said, ‘You with the small girl go first. When you have reached the ground I will follow.’ So the woman stood under the Banyan waiting. The man with his daughter went first. When the woman heard that they had reached the ground she cut the rope, so she could not go down to the world; she remains in her place in the sky. The man raised his daughter until she was old enough to be married. So through the girl born of the two tribes Bêut is born out of her till today. This is why the tribe is called Bêut Maleg. (Maleg means sky; bê means water; ut is a place where the sea is always rough.)

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Appendix C

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Photo 8.2: Roy Wutot Lemegev Kipe

Stories of Dol told by Roy Wutot Lemegev Kipe, 2002

Dol and the flying fox A long time ago on Vanua Lava there were two God-like beings, Qet and Dol. Dol lived at Lôvônô and used to trick humans. People of Vanua Lava knew that Dol was playing tricks on them all the time. If he happened to trick you, you would still think, ‘Oh it is true’, but it wouldn’t be, because he is a trickster. One time on a brightly moonlit night the children said, ‘Let’s go down where the pandanus trees grow by the sea.’ They went, carrying some bananas. From then on they went every evening to shoot flying foxes. Then one day Dol thought, ‘Oh man, I have to go and trick those children.’ During the day he prepared everything so he would appear to be a flying fox. He used pieces of an old broken canoe to make his wings. He arranged 219

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them like the feathers of a fowl, tying them to his arms. In the evening he went to the beach. All the children made a lot of noise trying to shoot flying foxes. Then he began his trick by flying, pretending he was a flying fox. The children were excited: ‘Hey everybody, a big flying fox, be quiet.’ They hid and watched the flying fox come closer, hanging on the pandanus, leaving again, just like a real flying fox would. He finally settled, hanging from a pandanus tree, crying like a flying fox. They said, ‘Hey let’s shoot the big flying fox.’ They teamed up in pairs and made a plan whereby two would shoot first, and if he flew off the next two would shoot him. Two of them shot him with their bow and arrow. The arrows stuck in the bottom of the plank. Two more arrows flew, everybody jumped up. They heard him cry and shot again. ‘That’s it, he is dead’ they thought when he made his last moves at the top of the pandanus tree. One of the children said, ‘Okay, you two climb up.’ They climbed all the way to the top and held on to the big flying fox, but he was holding on to them too. He held them tightly and the ones on the ground could just see the flying fox fly off with them. The two kept shouting, but Dol continued flying. He let them go when he reached far over the deep sea. The two fell down and died never to be seen again. All the children went home. When he had dropped the two into the deep sea to drown he came back to his house quickly. He heard the children come back in the night, he said, ‘Hey, children where did you go?’ ‘Oh, we went to shoot a big flying fox like we had never seen one before. But then two of us climbed to get him and he held them tight. We heard them cry.’ ‘Then what happened?’ ‘He flew out to sea.’ ‘True? No, you are kidding.’ ‘No, it’s true. The two did not return.’ ‘Oh’, he said. The children went home and told their parents. They went to look for them but they knew immediately that it was Dol who tricked them. They went to see him: ‘Hey, Dol did you play tricks with our children?’ He said: ‘No, when?’ ‘Yesterday, at night.’ ‘No, they came by my house and talked to me, then went on.’ So, although they knew he was lying, they just had to believe him. Because when he speaks like this he has a kind of magic in his mouth. When he talks you just have to believe him.

Bow and arrow Another time, all the children practiced shooting with bows and arrows at the beach named ôn serevgal1. Dol watched them practice and said: ‘Oh, you all. What are you doing?’ 1  Ôn: beach; vagal: battlefield, shortened to vgal.

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‘We are training our eyes so we can shoot.’ ‘Oh, true.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Okay, wait, I tell you four something. I shall teach you four. Your fathers should train you, but maybe he does not know, so I will do it.’ They said, ‘Okay very good, we want a man like this.’ ‘Okay, you start digging a hole on the beach.’ They dug a hole, so that when Dol stood inside only his chest and head would look out. ‘Now, it is time for you four boys to practice shooting. When you shoot, you have to stand like this: two on one side, two on the other side. I am in the middle, and you all try to shoot me.’ ‘Oh, but we will kill you.’ ‘No, you won’t. If there is a man that can shoot me his hand will be perfect, he will never miss his goal shooting again. He will shoot flying foxes, fish, even a man, he will never miss.’ They answered, ‘No, man, we will shoot, you will die.’ He replied, ‘No, I won’t, you try.’ He went and stood up right in the middle between them in the hole, which reached his chest. Then he told them ‘When you shoot, you aim for your friend opposite you. You aim for him on the other side; you aim for him on the other side. Okay, I will sing a song for you, once, twice, at the third time you will shoot.’ Then he sang: Serser wegalo wegalo o i o o ê They aimed their arrows. He sang again:

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Serser wegalo wegalo o i o o ê And a third time: Serser wegalo wegalo o i o o ê When he sang the last o ê he bent down into the hole, and the children let their arrows fly. One child shot another, another child shot another on the other side, until all of them were dead. Dol then emerged from the hole, carried the four bodies to the hole and buried them. After he buried them he walked back to his house singing. After some time the parents started looking for their children. ‘The children said they were going to the beach, but there is no one.’ ‘Hey, Dol.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Did you see our children?’ ‘I sat here and saw them pass by, but I don’t know where they went.’ The parents looked for their children a long time but without success. They knew that he killed them: ‘Dol, you tricked our children, didn’t you?’ Dol answered, ‘Aoa, I wouldn’t trick them no, I can’t do that.’ They kept looking for the children some time longer but in vain. The children were lost just like that.

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The fowl trick The news of Dol’s latest trick had made it around Vanua Lava. Two men from the other side of the island, from Lêmêrig, made a plan. The two were brothers-in-law; one had married the sister of the other. One said, ‘Oh, brother-in-law this man keeps playing tricks on us all, even kills people. Brother-in-law, we two should go and challenge him. He will not win against me.’ ‘True?’ says the other. ‘Yes, there is no man that can win against me. We two should go.’ ‘Okay, alright, we two go and visit him.’ But Dol sat there; he knew already that the two would come to visit him. Now he waited for them to arrive. ‘Oh good, the two will come.’ Before there was no good road, like today, a road that is straight. Before, you would go to one station, then to the next station – the road was crooked all over. They took two or three days to arrive at Luvônô. So, because Dol knew that the two would arrive on this particular day he prepared some food. He baked taro. Then he saw them approach on the beach, ‘Ah I can see the two coming over there, now they are arriving.’ The two men approached until they reached him. ‘Oh you two have come.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Good, come in. Man I live here, plenty people live close by but no one wants to visit me.’ ‘But why?’ asked the two brothers-in-law. ‘Oh they don’t want to come, but you two live far away, you two came to visit me. This is good, sit down.’ The two sat down and they talked. ‘Oh wait, I’ll take out the food from the oven, we three will eat first. So you two are going back tomorrow, ah?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Okay, good, you two go back tomorrow.’ They stayed all day, and in the evening Dol said, ‘Let’s bake some food again for tomorrow.’ They agreed and started making a fire in the hole of the oven. ‘Oh, let’s go and get some leaves, burao leaves’, Dol suggested. Before people used to cover the top with burao, today they use bags.2 The two went and got some and wove them together. ‘You stay here, but you go to my breadfruit tree. There you will see my fowl, which has laid an egg. The egg is there, but because the fowl is wild you should catch it so we three can eat it, because it is too wild.’ So here Dol tricked the two again. Because he knew the two would come he put a huge pile of shit there. It was the biggest pile of shit. Then he put chicken feathers over the top, so one could not see the shit. It looked just like a fowl that had gotten wet in the rain and sat down quietly. 2  The food is covered with Helicona leafs, then Burao leaves to retain the heat. Nowadays people use old copra bags instead of the Burao leaves.

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‘You go to the roots of the breadfruit tree and look for it, sitting down on its egg. You crawl along the ground, and then you jump on it. You don’t just grab it. No, you jump and hold it with your whole body. It must not escape.’ So one of the two went, following the directions that he was given. Then he reached the place and looked for it: ‘Oh there, there it sits.’ He crawled closer and closer and then jumped to hold it. The shit covered his face, his mouth, his hands, everything was covered in shit. He said, ‘Hmmmm’ and didn’t go back to the other two, but went to the sea. He went to swim and wash himself. The other two waited and waited. ‘Oh man, he went to catch the fowl, but now what? Maybe he missed it and is looking for it now.’ But really he had gone to wash in the sea. They waited and waited and waited. His other friend got angry. ‘Man, if you had sent me it would have been good, but you sent him.’ Dol answered, ‘No, I sent him.’ because he knew that it was he that wanted to come and visit. They waited until he finally arrived. ‘Oh, sorry, the fowl, I jumped but I missed it, it flew away.’ Dol said, ‘Yes, I told you, my fowl is wild, you just found out now.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Okay, not to worry, we three will just eat taro.’ ‘Okay alright.’ They baked the food for the next morning. The two slept, woke up in the morning, took out the food from the oven and ate well. They said, ‘Oh, sorry Dol, we two have to go back now.’ ‘That’s alright, thank you for your visit. You two came from far away but all the people around here never come to see me.’ They left and walked back home. When they reached their village the man that went for the fowl said, ‘Hey friend, you know what? The fowl was not a fowl, but his shit.’ ‘True?’ ‘Yes, his shit.’ ‘Ah true, okay. Alright he tricked you, but he cannot trick me.’3

The tied penis The two reached their village and told each other what had happened. They talked about Dol for a long time. The one that had accompanied his friend to see Dol then said to another one of his friends: ‘Hey, we two should go back there to see him.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes, he tricked this man, but he will not win against me. He has knowledge; I too have knowledge. So he cannot beat me. We two go back. Tomorrow we go.’

3  This story and the following stories were told in one sitting. Where one story ended and another one began was not always clear.

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‘Okay, alright, tomorrow I shall take you there.’ The next day they went on the same road the two had followed before. Dol at his place knew already that two men would be coming back to see him. So he prepared a rope like people used before to catch birds, its name is ga iaw. He rolled it so thin that one could hardly see it. He finished rolling it and stored it away. After some time he saw the two men approach. ‘Oh, you two, you two have just arrived.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh good, thank you, I don’t have a friend to talk to. It is good that you two have come. So you two are going back tomorrow?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Good, good, we’ll sleep and tomorrow in the morning we’ll eat plenty and then you can just go.’ So the three of them stayed and ate well at supper. Then they lay down to sleep. But the two friends only pretended. Dol made a lot of noise snoring and the two thought he was asleep, but he too was pretending. The two thought, ‘Oh man, he is asleep’, so they start to whisper: ‘You hear, you know, we’ve come here, he can not beat me. The knowledge he has I have too. You see later today we’ll go back. This will be good news.’ So after a while one of them started to snore. ‘Oh, it is not he.’ After a short time the other one started to snore. ‘Oh, both of them are asleep now’, said Dol. He went to fetch the rope he had prepared. The two were fast asleep. He took the rope, took of the nambas (penis wrapper) off the man, pulled out his cock and pulled his foreskin till it was long. Then he tied it with the rope. The man slept with his penis tied. This accomplished, Dol went to sleep. In the morning the two got up to go to the toilet. One had no problem, the other could not piss. He tried and tried but the piss wouldn’t come out. The rope could not be removed, it was too strong. Now the man started to feel bad. They ate and sat around, but one was happy, the other was not because he wanted to piss but couldn’t. Now his whole body was full of water. He wanted to leave quickly, but Dol said, ‘No, wait, we have to eat first.’ Dol wanted him to know that there is no one who can beat him. After they finished eating he said, ‘Oh lie down and rest from the meal, then you two just go.’ The two went to lie down, but the man could not rest. He got up, went outside, came back in and felt worse and worse. Finally Dol said, ‘Okay, enough, it is time for you two to go.’ The two started to go home now. Once they were far away he said to his friend: ‘Oh friend, I made us two go, but I feel bad now.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You have a look at my cock, it is all swollen. My whole body is swollen.’ ‘But how?’ ‘Damn, you see he tied my cock.’

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‘Ah, true.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh, let me have a look.’ He saw that his testicles were all swollen, his legs swollen, and his cock swollen, like the glass of a Coleman light.4 It was big! So the two keep walking until they reached Qeserat. ‘Hey brother-in-law, we’ve almost reached our village. You have to work on me before we get there.’ ‘Okay good.’ He sat down under a tree; he lost all his strength. He sat down under a Markô¾ tree.5 His friend collected some thorns with sharp ends and started to cut the rope. He cut all the way round, when the rope finally came off his piss came out. There was no end to the flow. He sat under the tree and the piss dug out the roots of the tree until it fell over. He got up and told his friend ‘This was the last time to go back to this mad man. I’ve just got to know him now. I thought I was wiser than he but no, he tricked me well.’ His friend replied ‘No, I have to try again. He tricked you, but he will not trick me. When we reach the village we will not tell what happened.’ ‘Alright.’ When the two arrived they were asked ‘Oh you two came from there, how is he?’ ‘Oh, that man, that trickster, we beat him. We came away unharmed, we beat him easily. He did not beat us, we beat him.’ ‘Ah, true.’ ‘Yes.’ So what happened then was that two other men said, ‘Let’s go and see him, see what he is like.’

Hitting the cock So, the two planned to go and visit him again. ‘Okay at this time we two go.’ They went on the arranged day but he knew already that they were coming. He again prepared something to trick the two. ‘The two will come today, it is good they come.’ He prepared good food, a fowl, good meat. He sat in his house when he saw the two appear in the distance on the beach. ‘Ah, now they are coming, good.’ The two came nearer and nearer until they reached him: ‘Yes, we two come to visit you.’ ‘Okay, good good good, come inside the house, this is my nakamal. When they were inside he said, ‘When you have rested I will take you to the sea to wash.’ ‘No, we already washed in a stream on the way.’ 4  When Roy told the story he looked around to see something that had the right diameter and his eye caught my Coleman light on the desk. 5  A species with strong roots.

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‘Okay, then I will go alone to wash.’ They rested and when it was almost dark he said: ‘Okay you two, I shall go now to wash in the sea.’ ‘Alright, we’ll just wait for you.’ He went and reached the sea and walked along the beach. He found a dead shell6 that had floated ashore and picked it up. When he was close to the house he blew it and its sound was wonderful. He added some of his magic to the different sounds of the shell too. The two inside heard it: ‘Hey who’s making that sound? Maybe him, but what is it?’ They continued to listen to all the strange sounds for a while until they saw him come back. ‘Hey Dol, who was down by the sea?’ ‘Why? No, I made some kastom, we held a salgôr down at the sea, but you two are not allowed to see it.’ ‘Oh, but we two really want to see it and go to the salgôr.’ ‘No, I won’t tell you now, when you two go back I will tell you and you just do it then.’ ‘Okay, good.’ So they stayed, slept, and the next day they thought that he would tell them about the strange noise, but no. So they said: ‘Oh Dol your salgôr really interests us, but you did not tell us.’ ‘Oh yes, I forgot, there are too many things in my head, but I will tell you now. It is like this. You two will go back home and on your way when you’re almost there you will hold this small ¾al¾al of mine.7 And when you reach the roots of a big tree, where you think that it is good, you chose one of you. But I think maybe you! (He points to the one who initiated the visit) When you find a good root then you take out your cock, lay it on top and let the other one hit it. When you hit it like this, then you will hear all those strange noises that you heard and it will reach the village. But when all the people come you two must hide, because this is the kastom now.’ They say ‘Okay, good.’ So the two went, carrying the small ¾al¾al on their way. The talked about who should do it first. ‘I should go first.’ ‘No, I, he said I.’ ‘No, I think it is better if I do it first.’ ‘No, no, no, no, he said I.’ Finally the other agreed and they kept walking. They sat down, because they had gotten a little lost, and started arguing again. ‘I think you should hit my cock.’ ‘No, he said it should be me.’ ‘I think it should be me.’ ‘No, it is not you, it is me.’

6  The shell is called wötövtöv, it was previously used in the salgôr, and is seen as the origin of the water bottle. 7  ¾al¾al is a customary hammer to kill pigs.

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So, the two kept walking until they were close to the village. They started arguing again until finally one said: ‘No, we should follow his order, he said you should hit me.’ ‘Okay, alright.’ He took his nambas off and put his cock on the root. The other hit it and split it in two. He fell over dead; a piece of his cock fell down in another place. The other shook him and shook him to revive him but he could not do it; his friend was truly dead. He went to the village: ‘Come, let’s go.’ They say, ‘what is the matter?’ ‘Oh man, we went to visit him but he really tricked us.’ ‘How?’ ‘I killed my friend over there.’ ‘How did that happen?’ ‘He tricked us. He told us to make kastom but it was no kastom, it was a trick. I hit the cock of my friend, it broke and he is dead. Now he’s lying over there; let us go and get him.’ They said, ‘You, we told you two not to go but you two wanted to. Now see what has happened.’ The brought him back and buried him. The story of them finishes here.

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Birth of a child When the people heard that the man was dead they did not want to go and visit Dol anymore. They were afraid that if they went, maybe lots of people would die. So they just stayed at their place. They never went to visit him again. So he decided to visit them instead. He started walking around Vanua Lava. But while he was still at home he knew that there was a pregnant woman that had tried hard to give birth. So he walked about until he reached ¾ereqê, a village from before. When he reached the village and met the people in the road, they cried. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ ‘Shsh, be quiet.’ ‘Why?’ ‘A woman up there is trying hard to give birth to her child, but she is having trouble with it.’ ‘Ah, true.’ ‘Yes, she cannot give birth.’ ‘But where is her husband?’ ‘Here, this is him.’ ‘You think it would be good if I make a kastom lif for her?’ Her husband said, ‘Oh that would be good; if you can save my wife I will thank you.’ ‘Okay, everybody that is inside the house with her has to leave, because I am making kastom lif for her.’ He went and carried just any kind of leaf he could find and came back. He went inside the house and asked everybody to leave. The woman lay inside a small room, like they used to have before, called din. There was

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an old woman, who could not walk inside the house; he sent her outside too. When she had been carried outside he went into the small room and lay on top of the pregnant woman and had sex with her. When he finished and withdrew she gave birth to a baby girl. He came out of the house and one could hear the baby’s cries inside. He told people, ‘You go back in, the baby is born, I made a leaf for her to drink and the baby is already born.’ They did not recognise that he was Dol, because he can change his face anytime. They said, ‘Oh man, his leaf is good, we shall ask him about it when he comes back tomorrow or sometime. We shall wait for him and ask him.’ They waited the same day till dusk, the next day till dusk, the day after till dusk, but he did not come back.

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The death of Dol Dol walked around Vanua Lava. He was afraid to go to the place of Qet. He passed behind the hill and continued. He walked about and thought, ‘No, I have to get a canoe.’ So he went and stole a canoe and continued his journey. He went and made a home for himself inside a cave close to a village called Towlav, at the side of Metsarig. He stayed there and saw the people and they saw him, but they didn’t know that he was Dol. One morning a couple prepared to bake food and sent their two sons down to the sea: ‘You two go and bring back some saltwater in this bamboo, so we can salt our taro leaves with it.’ So they went, each with a bamboo, the short distance to the sea. Dol pulled up in his canoe: ‘Hey what are you two doing?’ ‘We’ve come down to get some salt water to salt our taro leaves with it.’ ‘Ah, you two with your mother and father are baking?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No, leave it, come with me.’ ‘But where are we going?’ ‘Oh we’ll go over there and throw a net to catch fish in the deep sea. Then we’ll come back.’ ‘Oh man, but our father ... let us take the saltwater back first, then we’ll go.’ ‘No, if you take back the salt water and your parents see you again you will not come back to me. It is better if we three go now.’ ‘But we two are hungry, we have not eaten.’ ‘No, look here some nalöt and in the leaf parcel there is some pork. There is also water for us three to drink, come, come, come.’ The two got up, left the bamboo behind and climbed into the canoe. They sat in the front, he in the back. He paddled towards Reef Islands. The three paddled and paddled until they were half way; Vanua Lava was far away. He said: ‘You two come and hold the paddle for a while, I will eat now.’ The two paddled and he ate. ‘Listen you two, it is like this. Two feel hungry but one man who has food eats.’ When he had finished he said,

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‘You two, it is like this. Some wait hungry while one man drinks water.’ He lifts up the bamboo and drinks until it is empty. Now his belly was full. He said, ‘Okay you two, give back the paddle, I will paddle. They gave it back feeling weaker and weaker. One said to the other, ‘This man has tricked us good.’ ‘Yes, what kind of a person is he?’ They didn’t know that it was Dol. ‘Man, I am so hungry.’ ‘Me too. I am hungry but we have to follow him now.’ They reached Reef Islands and went ashore. At the time it was low tide and he gave them a net to go fishing. He said, ‘I will wait for you at the base. You two go to the end of the reef over there. You will see a long hole where there are plenty of fish inside. One of you stands at the mark while the other chases the fish down.’ So they went and did as he said. When Dol saw that they had caught plenty of fish he started paddling again out to sea. The two did not know that he had left; only when he blew the conch did they realise it. ‘Oh this man, he ran away from us. He goes back now, over there he goes.’ They cried because they did not know what to do now or what they would live on. They carried the fish to the base and made fire by rubbing two sticks together. They stayed on the island eating only roasted fish, there was no other food. After two days their parents were looking for them. They found the bamboo and their footprints going towards the sea and disappearing. They thought a shark had eaten the two brothers; but they were alive. They had been staying a long time on the island and their parents started to prepare the feast to commemorate their death after one year. Dol had married a woman who had children from a previous marriage. Her husband had died. Dol lived with her; he had a nakamal and a house. The two brothers on the island ate only fish. When the fish was finished, they went and caught some more, roasted it and ate it. ‘How shall we make our way back to our island?’ they wondered. Then they saw a small white ant. ‘Hey, friend can you help us?’ ‘How?’ ‘A man carried us here, dropped us and ran away again. When he left he said, ‘if you are hungry eat your shit, if you are thirsty drink your piss, I’ll go back to my place now.’ ‘But why did this man paddle away?’ ‘No, he went back to Vanua Lava.’ The ant said, ‘Okay I shall try, you two stay here, I go now.’ It went into the sea and died. The two waited for its return. They stayed and saw a black ant and told it the same story. It said, ‘ok, you wait, I shall try.’ It too went and died. ‘Oh man our parents have eaten to commemorate our death already. They will think five days have passed, 50 days, 100 days, the two will never come back now.’ Then the two saw a butterfly flying towards them. ‘Hey, friend come, come please.’

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‘Yes, what?’ They told him the story and he said, ‘Okay, I will go and find this man.’ The butterfly went but the distance was too great and it died. The two brothers waited and waited. ‘Oh man, what can help us now?’ ‘We two are on an island where there are no big birds. I think we will stay here till we die. What can we do?’ Their mother and father were ready too to eat their year of death. The two brothers got up in the early morning and dug holes at the beach, made a fire in the middle and lay down on either side. They had not lain down properly yet when they heard a bird’s cry. ‘Hey that was a bird crying. We have to find it. I think it may save us, because its voice is big.’ So they got up and saw the bird flying towards them. It sat down, then flew again, then sat down again, flew again, sat down again. The bird’s name is têgêrêr.8 The two brothers call it: ‘Hey friend, friend, friend, come here please.’ ‘Eh?’, when it came it was surprised to see them too. ‘Where did you two come from?’ After the two told their story it said, ‘Oh, you two, I know this man, he is a trickster. His name is Dol. You just wait; I shall go and find him.’ ‘But do you think you can save us?’ ‘Yes, I can save you; I know what I shall do to him.’ ‘Oh thank you. If you can only save us we will thank you so much.’ ‘You two stay, I will go now and come back. You will see his canoe go to that point over there.’ The bird flew a long way. When it reached Vanua Lava it went to look for that man. It saw his canoe at the beach with a little water inside. Têgêrêr went in, came out, went in again and kept doing this. One of Dol’s children saw this and ran back: ‘Papa papa papa.’ ‘Eh?’ ‘You go down quickly, there is a bird swimming in your canoe. It is swimming and singing.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Down there.’ ‘Oh, you just wait.’ He went down and crawled closer with his ¾al¾al to kill the bird. But when he jumped for it, it flew away. He had hit his own canoe and broken it in half. The bird flew and teased him. ‘Ahh, bird you are so small, you want to win over me? There is no one that can beat me, but you small something you want to beat me?’ The bird flew a bit further and sat on one of his big pigs. The tusk of the pig had gone round once already. It jumped on the pigs head. Dol told his two children to make the pig lie down still, so he could kill the bird. He crawled closer and tried to hit the bird, but it flew off; he had killed

8  Fantail (Rhipidura fe spp.)

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his pig. He said: ‘Oh man, you are so small, you made me break my canoe and kill my pig.’ But the bird flew and sat down on the head of his child. ‘Small one, don’t move, shut your eyes, don’t move. I just have to kill this small thing here. It is too arrogant, I have to kill it.’ His child sat down and he crawled closer and hit it. The bird flew off but he had smashed the head of his child and killed it. The bird flew and sat down on his wife who was holding their dead child and cried. ‘Oh man this small thing makes me act as if I was stupid. But I am wiser than it. I have to win. I must kill it.’ He told his wife to sit still and crawled towards her. But when he stroked again the bird flew off and he killed his wife. He held his wife but was now very angry. ‘You have to die today.’ The bird flew inside his nakamal. ‘You have to die inside the nakamal.’ The bird flew around inside making a lot of noise. He blocked all the doors. He went and collected dry wild cane and black palm sticks and spread them around his nakamal and set fire to it. He said: ‘You made me break my canoe, kill my pig; then my child is dead, my wife is dead too. You are so small, you will die inside, and the fire will kill you.’ But the bird kept in the middle and sang. The house was burning but the bird still sang. As soon as the fire burnt a small hole the bird flew out. He followed the bird all the way to the beach and saw it fly away in the direction of the Reef Islands. ‘Oh man, those two sent it to me.’ The bird escaped. Because Dol’s canoe was broken he had to go and steal another one. The bird reached the two brothers. ‘You two, I saw him, he will come. He will come the day after tomorrow. He will not come in the daytime, but at night. So you two go over there in the evening, you dig at the beach, make two lumps with sand and drift wood, collect fire wood and make a fire in the middle. Then you come back to the base. When he arrives he will walk over to kill you two. Then you just take his canoe and go back.’ ‘Is this true?’ ‘Yes, this is the way you can reach Vanua Lava again.’ ‘Oh, thank you, what can we give you? Because we are stuck here we have no garden here, no money, no pig. Everything is at the island.’ ‘No, it’s all right, you just go. I have plenty of food, you don’t.’ Now the two were happy. They waited until the day after tomorrow till it was dark, then they started to prepare everything. Back home their parents too prepared the last feast to remember their death for the next day. After they had prepared everything they sat and waited. Then they saw him coming. He reached the base and saw the fire. ‘You two made me break my canoe, kill my pig, my child, my wife and burn my nakamal. You two have to die today.’ He went ashore, took his ¾al¾al, his axe and his spear. When he started moving towards where he thought they were, the two brothers took his canoe and left. He crawled towards the ‘sleeping bodies’ and speared one, but the spear just hit the wood. He thought they would move but no. Then he discovered the trick.

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‘Oh where are you. You think that you have tricked me. But this island is small, I will find you.’ He looked for them, not knowing that they had left already. But he couldn’t find them. When the brothers had reached a good distance they blew the conch. ‘Oh, please, you two, don’t ruin me like this, come back and we three will go back together. Why are you doing this to me?’ ‘But it is good like this, because you tried to ruin us. So now we have given it back to you. You just stay there. If you are hungry you shit and eat it. If you are thirsty you piss and drink it. But we two go back to our island.’ ‘No, no, come back.’ ‘We’re going now.’ He kept calling and swimming, but the two were pulling towards the sea now. They reached Vanua Lava and went ashore. They pulled the canoe ashore and reached their station; there was a lot of noise. They saw some dancing. ‘I think they are eating one year for us.’ ‘Yes, I think you are right. I shall go through, but you hide. Let’s see if our father recognises me.’ ‘Okay.’ They went closer; there were so many people. They hid in a place where the rubbish is taken to. Their mother came to throw some out. She threw it and the firstborn whistled at her. She looked and recognised them. ‘How did you get back here? We are eating one year of your death.’ She started crying and holding them. Then everybody was called to the nasara and the two were presented. Everybody cried and then asked what had happened. They told their story. They told how Dol lured them away to Reef Islands and how they lived there and how they got back again. ‘We will not let you leave again.’ ‘No, we came back to stay.’ Everybody cried a lot again, and another big feast was held. And this is the end. Dol died somewhere on the Reef Islands.

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Index

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Abu-Lughod, L., 150 adoption, 6, 13, 17, 22, 36–38, 52, 74, 128, 165n, 178, 190, 196, 197 agency, 2, 12, 14, 28, 50, 53, 64, 65, 67, 70, 84, 130–32, 137, 148, 173, 196, 198 Allen, M., 18, 27n, 35, 54, 55, 58n, 122, 174, 184, 188, 191 Ambae, 55, 128, 133, 148, 149, 183, 187 Amnesty International, 188 Anglican, 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 39–41, 94, 95, 107, 117, 122, 129, 140n, 157, 158, 160, 165, 172, 173, 181, 188 animal, 24, 63, 64, 71, 72, 78, 99, 100, 117, 118n, 120, 126, 162, 166, 167, 172, 177, 178 avoidance, 13, 20, 30–32, 37, 60, 69, 72, 73, 74n, 91, 93, 101, 120, 143, 181, 197 Ballard, C., 10n basket, 33, 37, 47, 69, 83n, 86, 89, 93, 108, 113, 166, 170, 217 Barker, J., 184 Barthes, R., 77 Basso, K.H., 8, 105, 135 Batick, R., 125, 126 Battaglia, D., 44, 68, 73, 126, 135 Beckett, J., 135 Besnier, N., 184 Biersack, A., 43 body, 13, 29, 40n, 44–47, 50–53, 60, 62, 63, 65, 77, 82, 98–101, 116, 117n, 137, 150, 153, 161– 65, 168, 170, 172, 173, 189, 195

Bolton, L., 2, 8, 9, 16, 43, 50, 121n, 133, 148, 157, 194 Bonnemaison, J., 8, 9, 16, 17n, 27n, 43, 117n, 131n, 132 Bourdieu, P., 29, 44, 45, 106, 109, 134 bridewealth, 4, 13, 20n, 30, 55, 68, 70, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88–97, 194–96 Briggs, C.L., 86 Brown, T., 160 Brunton, R., 135 Burt, B., 160, 162, 184 Busby, C., 65 Caillon, S., 56, 108, 111, 112, 118, 119n Capell, A., 169 Clark, J., 160, 184, 189 Clifford, J., 161, 173n clothes, 32, 37, 44, 48–50, 73, 80n, 102, 117, 166, 177 coconut, 6, 41, 48, 49, 55, 60, 83, 93, 101, 103, 107, 108, 117, 118, 122n, 124, 125, 127–30, 137, 140, 141, 146, 177, 178, 195 Codrington, R.H., 10, 15, 16, 20, 43, 71, 160–63, 168, 169, 213 Counts, D.A., 179, 182, 183 Crowley, T., 115n Church, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11–14, 39–41, 46, 67, 69, 74, 81, 82, 84, 85, 91, 94–97, 100, 107, 117, 129, 135, 137, 139, 142, 156–91, 195–97 Christianity, 9, 11, 13–16, 36, 41–44, 52, 55, 56, 65, 74, 84, 85, 94, 96, 103, 119, 135, 137,

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139, 142, 144, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159–61, 165, 168, 170–74, 187–91, 194–96 conflict, 14, 41, 43n, 55, 91, 93, 113, 128, 138, 140, 141, 143, 148, 151, 154n, 157, 180, 185, 188, 196, 197 Curtis, T., 9, 127n, 130, 131n, 160, 189

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Damon, F.H., 97, 126 Deacon, A.B., 122, 131n, 169n death, 13, 14, 52, 53, 59, 67, 69, 81, 82, 84, 97–104, 122, 124, 126–28, 156, 160–72, 185, 188 Dinnen, S., 138, 154n, 196n discipline, 138, 139, 142, 145–48, 151, 153, 154 dispute, 13, 14, 35, 53, 55, 81, 87, 113, 115, 117, 125, 127, 128, 137–41, 150, 154, 174, 176, 180–82, 185–88, 190, 199 doctrine, 14, 138, 139, 142–44, 148, 153, 154, 157, 165, 174, 191 Dol, 149, 169, 219–32 Douglas, B., 9, 42, 43, 55, 56, 184 Douglas, M., 64n, 72, 77, 78 Elias, N., 78 Ellen, R., 105 emotion, 13, 29, 35, 45, 58–61, 104, 117, 122, 135, 136, 141, 143, 147, 149, 150, 189, 197 anger, 7, 32, 59–61, 99, 131, 143, 197, 223, 231 empathy/ sympathy, 6, 56–60 fear, 22, 57, 60, 77, 114, 117, 163, 164, 172, 182, 185, 188, 227, 228 homesickness, 82, 135, 137 sadness, 45, 60, 99, 136, 166, 216 shame, 7, 24, 34, 57–61, 147, 150, 151, 166n, 174, 178, 197 Espiritu Santo, 10, 12, 46, 163, 186

Feinberg, R., 174, 183, 184 Feld, S., 8, 105, 135 Feuerbach, L., 77n fieldworker, 1, 3, 5–8, 85, 121n, 125, 143, 151–54, 178, 180–82 fines, 20, 35, 50, 52, 103n, 125, 151, 176–78, 182, 183 fish, 16, 48, 57, 62, 64, 73, 78, 80, 81n, 101, 102, 108, 112, 113, 116, 120, 130, 133, 182, 221, 228, 229 Fischer, E.F., 3, 477 Fischler, C., 77, 80 food, 4, 6, 12, 13, 29, 33, 34, 37, 38, 41, 47–49, 55, 58, 59, 62– 65, 68–83, 86, 90, 91, 93, 95, 99, 101–4, 110–12, 115–17, 122, 125, 127, 130, 135–37, 149, 166, 167, 169, 178, 181, 189 forgetting, 62, 73, 90, 103, 135 Fortes, M., 27 Foster, R.J., 9, 98, 126 Fox, J., 8 Frazer, S.J., 73 garden, 5, 12, 13, 33, 49, 53, 58, 62, 69, 70, 79n, 82, 89n, 90, 93, 99–101, 103, 105–8, 110–20, 129, 136, 137, 141, 144, 145, 167, 177, 187, 189, 193, 195 Gaua, 10, 15, 22, 24, 35n, 49, 97n, 133, 166, 171 Gell, A., 61 gender, 28, 39, 42–45, 49–52, 89n, 112, 113, 119, 132–34, 178, 179, 190, 195 ghost, 162, 163 gift, 13, 34, 38, 39, 42, 43, 50, 53, 62, 67–69, 73, 81, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91–97, 100, 110, 126, 132, 166, 173, 182, 194, 195 Godelier, M., 54, 174 Goffman, E., 57 Govor, E., 10 greetings, 45, 47, 108, 109 Gregory, C.A., 68

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Index

Harris, M., 77 Hess, S., 1n Hirsch, E., 8, 105 Huffman, K., 10, 137, 168 Hviding, E., 18n individualism, 9, 13, 14, 41–43, 54, 55, 65, 106, 137, 160, 173, 191, 194 Ingold, T., 105 intention, 2, 44, 54, 61, 64, 65, 132, 139, 151, 188, 190 Ivens, W.G., 15n, 162n

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joking, 13, 20, 30–32, 46 Jolly, M., 1, 8, 9, 16, 29n, 39, 43, 48, 49n, 58n, 71n, 73, 110, 112, 118n, 119, 132, 133n, 156, 161, 165, 169, 171, 174, 189 Kahn, M., 8, 35, 77 Keesing, R., 17, 18, 25, 26, 39, 43, 105, 109n, 156, 159n, 162n, 184 Kingdon, E., 115 knowledge, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 24, 27, 35, 41–45, 51, 54, 62–65, 70, 80n, 82, 85, 90, 91, 103, 112, 117, 121, 122, 129–32, 135, 137–39, 143, 144, 146, 149, 151, 153, 154, 159, 160, 164, 168, 169, 178, 179, 181–85, 196, 224 Kirkpatrick, J., 60n Kolshus, T.S., 18, 22, 75, 172 Lakakeris, 118 Land, 12, 13, 24, 27, 38, 55, 65n, 73, 82, 83, 99, 100, 103, 104, 106, 107, 113, 115, 116, 127, 128, 133, 137, 159, 168, 175, 183, 193, 195, 215 inheritance, 20, 27, 35, 36, 74n, 100, 101, 122–27, 190 discourse about, 14, 82, 116, 117, 138–55 dispute, 13, 81, 87, 127, 137–55,

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174, 176, 186, 187 names, 105, 119–22 tenure, 18n, 56, 199 titles, 124, 125 transmission, 13, 27, 36, 52, 54, 75, 81–84, 97, 100, 101, 103, 115, 122–27, 128, 129, 151, 157, 195, 196 Larcom, J.C., 138, 144, 156 Larmour, P. 115, 174, 184 Layard, J., 40, 122–24, 131n, 165, 169n, 170, 174, 189 Leach, E., 77 leader(ship), 9, 10, 14, 18n, 53, 54, 62, 64, 131, 157, 165n, 169n, 174–85, 187, 189, 191, 195, 196 Leenhardt, M., 43, 44, 56, 159n, 161, 164, 173n Ley, A., 196 Lindstrom, L., 54, 119, 120, 132, 138, 139, 147, 174, 175, 180, 183, 184, 195, 196 LiPuma, E., 9, 43, 51, 54, 56, 57, 70, 80, 85, 184 Lukere, V., 73 Lutz, C.A., 150 MacClancy, J., 10, 12 Macdonald-Milne, B., 187, 188 Macintyre, M., 34n, 43 Maclean, N., 65, 66 Macpherson, C.B., 42, 55n, 194 Maewo, 169n, 187 magic, 48, 54, 61–63, 73, 103, 122, 130–32, 139, 153, 159, 182, 189, 190 Malinowski, B., 105 Mallett, S., 62n Marriott, M., 42 marriage, 13, 20n, 21–23, 26, 27, 36, 38, 52, 67, 70, 82–97, 100n, 124, 133, 134n, 191, 193–96, 229 Mauss, M., 35, 96 Mavunduse, D., 188 Meigs, A.S., 35, 77

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medicine practice, 61 traditional, 62, 82, 103, 139 Melanesian Brothers, 14, 40, 41, 157, 185–89 memory, 12, 44, 45, 50, 81, 82, 88, 129, 149 Merlan, F., 64 Meyerhoff, M., 59 Miklouho-Maclay, M., 10 Mitchell, J., 55 Miyazaki, H., 157 money, 2, 4, 9, 10, 13, 15n, 36, 38, 52, 55, 65, 67–70, 73, 81, 83, 86, 88–90, 92–97, 99–101, 103, 119n, 124, 125, 130, 132, 154, 173, 178, 182, 183, 231 Montgomery, H.H., 11, 120 Morgan, M.G.,183 Mosko, M.S., 55, 98, 172n, 173 Mota, 11, 15, 18, 22, 24, 31n, 32, 71, 75, 119, 121n, 133, 161, 162n, 166, 170, 172, 182, 213 Mota Lava, 4, 12, 24, 128, 133, 163, 164, 166 motivation, 48, 54, 57, 58, 61–65, 82, 173, 185, 193 Mühlhäuser, P., 139n Munn, N.D., 110 Myers, F., 135, 189 names, 8,15, 17, 21–24, 30–32, 35, 39, 53, 69, 74, 75, 90, 93, 105, 112, 115, 118n, 119–22, 124, 127, 128, 140, 149, 162, 170, 175, 182, 186, 187, 190, 193, 213, 220, 224, 230 Narokobi, B., 2 National Statistics Office, 3n, 40n Newman, P.L., 109n nostalgia, 135–37, 184 O’Hanlon, M., 105 Patterson, M., 115

payment, 4, 20n, 29, 35, 37, 52, 62, 67–70, 73, 74, 81, 83, 84, 87–89, 91–104, 124–29, 137, 176, 194, 195 Pentecost, 16n, 29n, 71n, 118n, 165n, 169n, 171 Philibert, J.-M., 195 possessive markers, 34n, 90, 116, 117n 137 priest, 11, 18, 41, 85, 94, 100, 130, 144, 157, 158, 165, 166, 181, 183, 187, 188, 191 Qelbe, J., 165–71 Qet, 15, 16, 21, 40, 133, 149, 162, 169, 181, 197, 198, 213, 219, 228 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R., 31, 32 rank, 50, 165, 166, 169, 170, 179, 181, 187, 189 Rawlings, G.E., 115 Reef Islands, 228–32 respect, 13, 20, 21, 28–31, 35, 36n, 47, 51, 60, 73, 93, 94, 98, 100, 101, 106, 109, 130, 132, 147, 151, 175, 177, 182, 185 Rivers, W.H.R., 11, 21, 24, 31, 40, 71, 73, 169n ritual, 10, 13, 40, 49n, 54, 61, 67–104, 119, 157 Robbins, J., 55, 172, 173n, 196, 197 Rodman, M. 8, 9, 55, 115, 116, 122, 128, 129, 149, 195, 199 Rodman, W.L. 174, 179, 182, 183, 187 Rubinstein, R.L., 20, 184 Rumsey, A., 1, 64 Sahlins, M.D., 54, 174, 190, 196 Sarawia, G., 11, 187 Schieffelin, B.B., 35, 58 Schieffelin, E.L., 8, 77, 122, 135, 189

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Index

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Seventh Day Adventists (SDA), 4, 12, 39–41, 52, 84n, 157, 158, 172, 181, 190, 191 Shineberg, D., 10 sin, 165, 166, 170, 173 smell, 48, 118 song, 29, 31, 34, 35n, 39, 40, 61, 122, 130, 136, 137, 173, 189, 221 soul, 10, 14, 100, 101, 156, 157, 160–72 Speiser, F., 10, 11, 36 spirit, 29n, 38, 44, 61–63, 70, 72, 74, 97, 100, 101, 114, 134, 157, 159–63, 166, 169, 171, 175, 188 Stasch, R., 32 Stewart, P.J., 8, 54, 183n stone, 16, 24, 27, 33, 34, 47, 52, 53, 64, 77n, 78, 93, 106, 107, 120, 121, 129–31, 133, 149, 159, 160, 162, 166, 168–70, 186 Strathern, A., 8, 52n, 54, 64, 73, 183n Strathern, M., 8, 26, 41–44, 50, 51, 54, 56, 65, 67, 68, 96, 114n, 164, 172–74, 191, 193, 194 Tanna, 37, 119, 133, 134, 139 taro, 4, 6, 36, 49, 69, 70, 74, 76– 78, 81, 82, 84, 86, 93, 102, 107, 108, 110, 112–15, 117–20, 130, 136, 141n, 177, 178, 216, 222, 223, 228 Taylor, C., 56, 194 Taylor, J.P., 16n Thomas, N., 43 Tonkinson, R. 1, 9, 156, 157, 163n Toren, C., 48 tourist, 12, 38, 49, 56, 85, 182, 195, 196

237

truth, 20, 47, 87, 127n, 138, 139, 141, 145–48, 150, 153–55, 157, 159, 174, 184, 186, 188, 196 Tryon, D., 53, 125, 126 Ureparapara, 133 Valeri, V., 97 Van Trease, H., 55, 115, 122 Vanuatu, 156 Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC)/ Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta (VKS), 1, 3, 5, 9, 125, 129, 137, 143, 153, 154, 180 Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Site Survey (VCHSS), 77n, 129, 133n, 181 video, 36, 46, 61 Vienne, B., 21 Wagner, R., 51, 65, 67, 97, 114, 126 Ward, R.G.,115 Wassmann, J., 1 Watson-Gegeo, K.A., 60n, 143, 150, 174, 183, 184, 197 Weiner, A.B., 35, 55 White, G.M., 60n, 143, 150, 156, 159, 174, 176n, 180, 183, 195, 197 Whitehead, H., 77 white (person), 5, 6, 12, 36, 49, 80, 85, 88, 91, 97, 110, 136, 142, 143, 159, 180, 196 Whiteman, D.L., 10, 11 Young, M.W., 35, 61, 77

Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Person and Place : Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2009.