Sorry, but I smeall a rat

Sorry, but it sounds too idealic
I just watched the ABC documentary “Tribal Wedding” where Australian Filmmakers Larry Gray and Mary O’Malley are about to be married in the tradition of the Namal people of Vanuatu’s Tanna island.
Does anyone know about the background to the filming of this? More importantly, is the village concerned really that idealic?
I have spent a large part of my life in remote locations looking for such cultures and I can say that in my experience, I have yet to find anywhere near this idealic.
The documentary basically states that the Namal people never have to worry about food as it grows in the immediate area, or they can catch it nearby. There is no money as everything is produced in situ. There was no mention of poverty, disease, tribal conflict or any conflict at all. In all my experiences, I am yet to encounter anything like this utopia. In my experience, people who still live in grass huts and live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle ALSO have HUGE problems with everything from poverty, malaria, dengue fever, tribal warfare, malnutrition brought on by overpopulation, depletion of wild game nearby, drugs, rape, incest and sexual disease. And I am only just starting. Either none of that exists in the Namal culture or otherwise there is something that is not being mentioned in this documentary. Also, in my experience, as soon as people have enough money to eradicate things like malnutrition, the first things that they will do is join the cash economy, build a brick house, buy Chinese-made kitchen and home ware and ultimately a vehicle.
As someone once said “don’t let the facts get in the way of a good documentary”.
What do people think?

I,m inclined to agree with you, if any of the docos I've seen on the island-builders in Malaita, Solomon Islands, are something to go on. I've sat in my Australian living room with someone who lives on one of those islands, laughing uproariously at how the villagers managed to pull the wool over the film-makers' eyes, and tell them exactly what they wanted to know.
I hope that one is available for web-viewing - if so I'll have a look over the next couple of days.

smell, not smeall.

Tanna ıs wonderful and lıfe there very tradıtıonal, but obvıously no place can be a perfect paradıse ın the way you descrıbed ıt shown.
But ıt may be less affected by the evıls you descrıbed than many other trıbal socıetıes ındeed.

the doco was juxtiposing western life and materialism v the community life they enjoy/endure there, I just took it as that.

Yes, the doco is all played up for the sake of TV. I worked on Tanna for 3 years on and off - these villages do have plenty food - as do all villages in Vanuatu except maybe in the Torres and a few other low lying atolls, but they also have malaria, dengue, high infant mortality, ongoing rivalries with neighbours etc, as you imagined. Its just TV.
There was a similar programme by the BBC a couple of years ago, taking 4-5 men from Yakel village to London so see how they would react - it was all staged for TV. They almost made out that the Tannese had never had contact before, but in reality Yakel has been a tourist photo-op village for over 2 decades, with daily staged kastom dances and souveneir stalls. The young men of Yakel go all over the world to tourism expo's to promote Vanuatu, but there they were on UK TV pretending they had never seen cutlery before etc.

I would be pretty sure the villagers would need some money from outside, if only to educate their children. Then there are the things you can't get from the environment: soap, kerosene for lamps, sugar for tea, and, of course clothing.

Nabanga, that is what I suspected. Thanks for your help.

its all remimding me of the joke where the tourist goes to take a picture of a aboriginal local who stops him, 'Oh, I'll take your spirit away?' says the tourist. 'No' says the local ,'the lenses cap is still on'

I've also spent a lot of time wit tribal people in the Amazon, West Papua, Indonesia, Vanuatu, Micronesia, the Philippines, China, Mongolia, Morocco and the Russian Arctic. While what you saw on TV certainly sounds like it was an exaggeration, it was in Vanuatu that I found the tribal people who were the happiest and seemed to have the most fulfilling lives without needing to worry about food or money

Of all the places I have travelled, the Vanuatu way of life seems to be the most traditional, especially among some of the more remote villages. It is a culture of inclusivity, no one is down and out. There is a social cohesiveness and happiness that I have not observed in the western world.

It is a subsistence lifestyle. They do have gardens with plenty of food - mainly root crops, citrus and bananas. The key food is the coconut plant which provides dietary sustenance including saturated fats. It is also the source of copra exports. The soil is very fertile, anything grows. The fishing is also fantastic. I am fascinated by the Ni-Vans mastery and management of their environment. Many villages supplement their diets with rice.

The Ni-Vans construct their own housing from concrete made of coral and weaved fronds for roofing. In the event of cyclones or earthquake devastation that often hit this area, rebuilding housing is not a problem.

It is definately not perfect though. Malaria, lack of health facilities, infections are always a problem in the tropics, lack of dentistry, lack of optometry, AIDs has also recently entered the country. With the high fertility rate I can see a looming problem of availability of land to farm. Areas get fished out. There are also land disputes among villages and substantial politics.

The village chief, decided by heredity, is the decision maker for his village. Great if you've got a smart chief, not so good if the chief is also the village idiot.

I have been told that some chiefs in remote villages send people to Port Vila to work and then have been unhappy with the changes in the individual when they come back to the village, so many chiefs ban or limit the number of people allowed to go.

Not all villages can send their children to school. I have heard that those who cannot send all their children to school will send one or two children to an English or French school. These then become the representatives for the village in dealing with visitors and the outside world.

It is not an easy lot for women. Women are down-trodden. In order of priority, men come first, then the pig and then women. In order to do business or get anything done, I find that as a woman I get a much poorer response than my male partner. So I let him do the talking or negotiating with the Ni-Van men. He has a soft gentle approach similar to the Ni-Vans and it is very effective.

Are you joking ozziegiraffe about needing money for "soap, kerosene for lamps, sugar for tea". Soap is made from the coconut. Judging by the way many of the males smell even from a distance, there is not a lot of washing going on. What lamps? what tea? Many people eat traditional diets that do not include sugar and few people are overweight.

To me, it's as close to paradise as there every will be.

Yeh in the remoter villages they have no need of almost anything from the outside, not clothes, soap, kerosene, sugar or tea, and education is as despised as the work of the devil! I went to one where they just very occasionally sent a couple of people to the nearest town (a full day's walk away then a truck ride) with a load of kava to sell and buy things like machetes and cooking pots.

I spend a lot of time in Solomon Islands villages, and lived there for 5 years out of the last 18. I think both Eddy's and Yehyeh's notions are overly romantic.
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are culturally similar, though chiefdom in Solomon Islands is generally earned, rather than inherited.
However, there are very few places that totally reject things that can be provided from outside.
I agree with Yehyeh about the lot of women - until education becomes free and compulsory (see UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and the Millenium Development Goals) this inequality between men and women will continue.
Many areas of Solomon Islands are finding food security harder and harder to maintain, due to overpopulation. Some areas are being abandoned due to global warming.
The idyllic island lifestyle is becoming more and more of a myth.

I also have to say that conditions in some villages are worse or better than others depending on the geography of their location, the competence of the chief, proximity to major centres, health issues, running water (which a number of aid programs have provided to villages who didn't have it), type of contact with westerners etc etc.

Ozzie, have you spent much time in Vanuatu?

No, but quite a few of my students were from there, and I have numerous ni-Van friends I met in the course of my work in Solomon Islands. Many of them are either from Santo, Pentecost or the Banks or Torres islands.
Recently, I have also been very involved in promoting aid projects which are targetting literacy and water supplies in these parts of the country. However, as they are a conjunction between the church and AUSAID, there are a variety of donor prejudices and rules to overcome.

Edited by: Ozziegiraffe

OG, I keep saying on this forum that parts of Vanuatu are a LOT more traditional than just about anywhere in the Solomons, but you always refuse to believe it.
Here you are: now two others have confirmed it.
While tea and lamps might be considere a necessity by default in the Solomons context, many (of course not all) villages in Vanuatu do without. They drink kava and sit around the fire to chat at night. Overall, they seem far less influenced by Western ideas and goods than Solomon Islanders, which came as a surprise to me too.

I think yehyeh's description of life there, with the problems incuded, are perfectly realistic and balanced.Now that she mentioned that she is a woman, I actually admire her acceptance of the local culture despite noticing the problems women face.

I might add that I didn't get the impression that chief's were much of a problem either. Compared to chiefs in Polynesia or Fiji, those in Vanuatu seem to excercise relatively little power. I just can't recall a single case where I heard locals complaining about misuse of their power, though of course it might occur.

Eddy's description is a bit more idealistic and narrowly-focussed (based on one specific village which nevertheless keeps a guestbook for visiting tourists and sings them in English!), but that's because he specifically goes around searching for people that might match his preconceptions best.
Even the most traditional Ni-Vans do need and welcome money, but they (and the less traditional ones, too!) seem much less obsessed with it than pretty much any other people I have met in the World.

pre-conceptions? What about your pre-conceptions about my style of travel? my answer might have been narrow but it certainly answered the question truthfuly - that there are places in Vanuatu where people are happier and less in need of money and Western goods than almost anywhere else in the world. I was not trying to say that anywhere in Vanuatu is utopia. yes that village has all the things you say Laszlo and yes its certainly not utopia - children die often, women are sometimes viewed more as posessions than people. But the Chief is very good and kind, more of a problem solver than a leader and of all the tribal groups I visited they seem to be the happiest with the most fulfilling lives despite of their problems. When the previous chief died the chief of another village thought it was his right to take the old chief's wives as his own, but the new chief refused and put up a fence round their house as a symbol that no one should touch them. And as OP mentioned tribal groups elsewhere can live in MUCH worse situations.

They also seemed to have retained their traditions and lack of need for Western products or money more than almost anywhere else. Of every village I visited in 6 weeks in Vanuatu it was this one where people relied most on the jungle around them for food, clothing and building materials, and this one where people went to buy things in town the least often. Of course that village is not typical of everywhere in Vanuatu - in Southern Pentecost some of the chiefs are really obsessed with money, presumably because of the constant appearance of herds of tourists around land diving time. In every one of the non-Christian villages in the interior the law has been laid down that tourists must pay 10000 vatu to take photos or 1000 just to be there / look around!

I can't comment on Tanna having never been there but the general consensus seems to be that the documentary in question was an exaggeration but that Vanuatu is probably the place in the world that comes closest to what it was claiming to portray

Laszlo, who actually drinks the kava, and sits around the fire talking?
Among my ni-Van frieds, this is a purely male custom. Did you talk to, or observe, any of the women?

No the women almost never drink it. The only time I saw women drinking it was at a village in Ambrym where two very overweight women drank it every night in an attempt to slim down. Not sure whether this was their decision or whether it had been prescribed by the men

I spent 4 years in all in Vanuatu working in villages, and visited all 80-odd inhabited islands - I agree with the general consensus here that Vanuatu has some of the 'least damaged' cultures.
However, almost all islands now do have a cash element in their economy, and have had one for decades - most villages have a small store of some kind selling kerosene, flipflops, rice and tin fish etc. Most men will visit the bigger store in the island admin centre fairly regularly for cigarettes, stick tobacco and other goodies not available in the village store. Nearly all villages on all islands use kerosene lamps at night in the home - except perhaps the last few remote villages in middlebush Santo.
Not much soap around, true enough. The coconut soap made in Vanuatu is for tourists. Water supplies of one form or another have been installed in about 80% of villages nationally over the last 40 years, but many piped systems soon stop working due to zero maintenance, intentional damage to do with land disputes etc.
The natural diet of yam, taro, manioc and fish/pig is supplemented by white rice in most villages - in fact white rice is taking over as day-to-day food because it is easy.
The cheifly system varies wildly - some cheifs sit back and don't play an active role, some are involved in politics, and some are very strong in tradition, such as in north ambrym, and the small nambas 'revival' in NE malekula.

The Solomons, since about 1990, has been more influenced by american youth culture, especially in the island centres (Honiara, Auki, Munda etc), and this is starting to be seen in Vanuatu now in Port Vila. Crime in Port Vila was very low in 1990, now burglary, rape and murder are much more regular. The place is changing as everywhere does, but thankfully the villages are not so affected - mainly just Vila & Luganville.

Its a great place to visit, especially the outer islands, but its no utopia.

OG, I did talk to many women - they are not shut up behind closed doors.
Sure, they don' drink kava as a rule, but they are not spending family money on tea to drink with their friends either. They are often busy with domestic chores, often done communally with the other women, which may not be a women's utopia but is certaily the way things have "traditionally" been done in Melanesia for ages.
Note that this thread has been opened to discuss life in kastom villages in Tanna - that is no doubt quite different than the lives of your Ni-Van students who make it abroad. It is not representative of Vanuatu as a whole either, nor is it utopia, but it is VERY traditional, more so than most places in the Pacific (and certainly any I have encountered in the Solomons, Malaita's interior Kwaio included).

This is a very interesting discussion. Thanks everyone.

Nabanga, thank you. Your observations of rural Vanuatu are very similar to mine of rural Solomon Islands, and I have been with locals to rural areas in 7 out of 9 provinces, some where white people rarely visit.
Laszlo, a male perspective will always be a little dofferent to a female one. I certainly don't expect to find village women (except perhaps the very old) sitting around drinking tea, as their men do with kava. They might be chewing betel nut, however.
In some parts of Vanuatu, where there is a French influence, they probably don't drink tea.
Incidentally, I know many more people than those who managed to get a high school education. Since my 4 years of teaching, (and even while I was mostly engaged in teaching), I got to know many village people, and a good many women who had no opportunity of education (both Solomon Islander and ni-Vanuatu). Often they were doubly disadvantaged because their husbands had more education.

Ozziegiraffe if I remember rightly you haven't been to Vanuatu before? Forgive me if I'm wrong. If you haven't then ANYONE you have met outside the country will not be representative of the general population as most ni-vans have not been abroad. There are some areas where there is little outside influence at all, whether French or otherwise. What Nabanga says is true - most villages have a store of some description, but in the interior of the bigger islands such as Santo and Malekula and even South Pentecost life is about getting what you can from the jungle or going on a long hard trek to the nearest town.

Another question is whether we should really be making judgements on the role of women in traditional ni van society based on our own ideas of what it should be in our own society? they're two very different things and although i find it a bit shocking i'm looking at it from a western mindset. Have any of us really spoken to ni-van women deeply enough to ascertain whether or not they're any less happy than women in our society? they might think it horrific that women here have to work so hard and spend so much time away from their kids, often trusting their care to strangers.

It seems there will always be a difference in perception between people who have lived and worked in a country side-by-side with the local people (not ex-pat business people etc who never leave the capital) and people who travel from place to place, even though they may visit remote areas.

On my last trip I tried to engage with many Ni-Van women on the topic of their lives, their perceptions of their own lives and their relationships with men. As hard as I tried, I could not get a valid response from them. I think that they couldn't understand what I was asking, and I tried saying it in many different ways. I think it is because they have no basis for comparison. All they know is their lot and that is what it is, neither good nor bad.

This is as deep as I managed to go: I spoke with one young girl in her 20's with many children who was employed for domestic duties by an older Australian couple. She commented about how the Australian couple were affectionate towards each other and that this never happens in her culture. And it's true, Ni-van men and women are never affectionate, not publicly anyway. She was also surprised that I didn't have children and I didn't want them.

It is similar in Solomon Islands - partly due to lack of equality in education. As I become more fluent in Pijin, i pick up more - but it's taken years. I did however, spend a lot of time with a woman from Santo/Pentecost, and though she is educated, and a qualified nurse, she is still, like everyone in both these countries, very close to her family in the village, and told me a good deal about what life was like for them. She is the co-ordinator, now, of the literacy project on these islands.

OG: It seems there will always be a difference in perception between people who have actually visted a country and met and talked to the locals living there and between those who have only heard of it, too.

Incidentally, you are not the only one here who has lived in a tropical island country either.
But life and culture in the Solomons and Vanuatu seemed no more similar to me than in say Britain and France. Among many differences, betelnut is not chewed in most of Vanuatu, including Tanna.

As for the locals' perspective on their lives, one of the most charming talk I have had (in Bislama) actually occured in the kastom village I stayed in on Tanna. It illustrates the difference between Western perspective and theirs pretty well, I think.
Locals asked me:
"Do you have poor in your country?"
"What do you mean by poor?"
"We heard in Australia there are poor people who have no hose to sleep in, and have difficulty getting food as they have no money. We feel so sorry for them!"

And these were people whose earthly possessions consisted of some grass huts, pigs, bushy subsistance gardens and some rags to put on when going to "town".

The difference between these villagers and Australian poor is that ni-Van or Solomon people all have rights to grow food on Kustom land, while very few Australians have this. The vast majority of us migrated here (or our forebears did) within the last 200 years. And then proceded to alienate most of the indigenous people from their land.
However, certainly in Honiara, the squatter underculture is growing, mainly from people displaced during the tension, and having few ties to their ancestral lands. They come back to town, because they don't know how to live at home any more. There are also those from villages (generally inadequately educated) who move to town thinking there are jobs there that actually pay money.
When I first went to Honiara, you could count homeless children on one hand. Now there may be hundreds.
How does this compare to Vila or Santo?

I can't speak for Australia but in England plenty of people living in rural communities have a garden where they could grow food if they really wanted to. In towns of course it's less common, the same as in Vila. And yes, in Vila there are very poor slum / squatter areas too with a lot of crime such as Freshwater 4 where people don't have land to grow food on. One thing I don't remember seeing in Vanuatu though was actual homeless people like you see everywhere in England although I may be mistaken on this.

This is all really irrelevant to the original discussion though, the answer to which seems to have been agreed on already by several people here.

I've never seen a homeless person in Vanuatu either, nor a drunk person. Like I said before, it is a culture of inclusivity, so no one is down and out.

unfortunately I did sea drunk people in the main "towns" on Malekula and Santo and in Vila.

Eddy, the problem is, homeless people have no permanent place to plant a garden, much less wait for it to grow. (Although the area outside the temporary soup kitchen in the regional Australian town where I live includes tents and a vege garden. Some of their clients have been homeless for that long.
However, the soup kitchen (with local council help) have just bought a large pub, which will provide both temporary accommodation and a permanent place to cook and serve food, etc.)

I can not recall seeing drunks in Vanuatu either, which I think is one virtue of the kava culture. I may have overlooked them, but in the Solomons or PNG there was no way of overlooking them!

I saw drunks on such few occasions that they stand out very clearly in my memory. One was in the main port on Malekula, one in Luganville on a national holiday and a couple were in Vila. I can say pretty surely though that none of these were the sort of permanently off their head drunks you get in England or especially here in Russia, they were more just young men going a bit wild on one particular night

Binge drinking is a problem on paydays in Vila and has been increasing over the last decade with increasing urban drift. A popular drink is "120", which is cleaning alcohol - alcool a bruler - (that costs 120 vatu) which is mixed with orange juice. A group of payday "120" drinkers used to gather in my garden and knock on my door for juice to mix with.
Holiday periods like Independence day, Christmas and new year period is now fairly intimidating in parts of Vila - Seaside and Blacksands etc - young men out of their minds in cheap spirits, screaming, throwing bottles, fighting etc.
Nothing like PNG though.