Tanna

Tanna: one of the most southern islands in the Vanuatu archipelago and an island with a big name around these parts. Anthropologists love it because it is packed with living tradition and ‘kastom’, tourists love it for the Mt Yasur volcano, and if you are ‘man tanna’ (or from Tanna) you pull some serious street cred across Vanuatu as Tannese people have earned themselves a reputation for being pretty 'tuff' - which is a useful bislama word meaning both tough and cool.

Tanna is also home to two extraordinary religious movements. The first – the John Frum Movement – fervently believes in a god-like figure called John Frum, who is depicted as an African-American World War II soldier and who, they believe, will return to Tanna on the 15th February (no year specified) to bring untold wealth to his followers. The John Frum Movement is one of the world’s more legendary ‘cargo cults’ – movements whereby followers attempt to obtain industrial goods through magic. Many similar movements sprung up around the pacific in the wake of World War II as Pacific communities were suddenly confronted with machinery and technology that they were unable to rationalise. Over 100 000 American soldiers were based in Vanuatu during World War II (the population of Vanuatu at the time was only around 45 000), bringing with them heaps of cool stuff like jeeps and radios and refrigerators. No-one is sure where the name John Frum came from, but people suspect it might have come from American soldiers introducing themselves – “Hi, I’m John From America”. As their primary interaction with white people prior to World War II had been with missionaries, colonists and blackbirders, Ni-Vanuatu quite reasonably thought that white people were incapable of treating them as equals and so they were truly impressed by the fact that white and black American soldiers appeared to enjoy equal status. Incidentally, Barack Obama is on his way to achieving God-like status in Vanuatu too.

Anyway, once the war was over, the soldiers packed up and left, taking all their gear with them. But the locals had been watching the soldiers, and they knew how to get the cargo back – all you needed to do was clear an airstrip and yell orders into a box and the planes would come. So they busily set about creating air strips, fashioning radios out of things like coconuts and bamboo and marching about in military-style regalia to entice John Frum back. They still conduct these military marches today, brandishing bayonets whittled from bamboo, and if any questions their commitment to this elusive John Frum character, they have been said to reply ‘well, some people have been waiting over 2000 years for their messiah to return, we have only been waiting for 70!’

The second notable Tannese movement is the Prince Philip Cult. A tribe on Tanna believe that the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, is a divine being (and also John Frum’s brother). Their ancient kastom stories included the tale of a Tannese son who travelled across the ocean to a distant land to wed a very powerful lady, but who would one day return and bring power and fortune to Tanna. When they saw the respect accorded to Queen Elizabeth II by colonial officials, they decided that Prince Philip was their man and the 1974 royal visit to Vanuatu was very much an ‘ah-ha!’ moment for the cult members. Now they are waiting for him to come back on a more permanent basis. There is an incredibly fun documentary called ‘Meet the Natives’ about their plight, which mifala highly recommend to yufala.

We visited Tanna a while back now – the volcano photos are from our trip. But we spent most of our time visiting a village and that experience warrants its own blog too. So here it goes!

Our friends Cara and Caroline were visiting from Australia and Cara had a family link in Tanna, so we all invited ourselves along for the family reunion.

We boarded this aircraft from Air Vanuatu’s fine fleet ......

...and after a very safe and smooth journey...

...we arrived on Tanna. We took a bumpy truck ride to our destination – King’s Cross Village – where Cara’s family put us up in these cute bungalows.

Alack – Cara’s uncle’s wife’s brother – took us under his wing. He proudly showed off his island and took us on a mammoth walk to the volcano.

I love this photo of Alack contemplating the mighty Mt Yasur. He said that, like most people in Tanna, he has a special bond with the volcano and he frequently makes the 15 km or so trek to the crater to just hang out.

In our brief time on Tanna we also got a glimpse of village life.

And his mum showed us how to cook lap-lap (a baked root-vege cake).

We were cooking in honour of Caroline’s 30th - birthday lap-lap, mmm mmmm!

We made a trip to the beach too. All the beaches in Tanna are black-sand beaches, courtesy of the volcano.


These kids were having a great time mucking around.

The ‘funnest game ever!’ was to run up into the bushes and find a mud pit and then smear the mud all over and then let it bake on your body before jumping in the ocean to wash it all off.

The place was pretty much pikinini paradise.

And we thought it was a pretty great place too!

The end!