Nguna

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Nguna

ETHNONYMS: Efate, Ngunese, Sesake

Orientation

Identification. "Ngunese" is the name for the inhabitants of the island of Nguna, Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides).

Location. Nguna is in the central region of Vanuatu, lying approximately 7 kilometers off the north coast of the major island of Efate, where the country's national capital, Port Vila (Vila), is located, at about 17°30′ S, 168° E. Nguna is a volcanic island with several prominent cones, although they are all inactive and grass-covered. The central part of the island is hilly, with a narrow fringe of coastal plain on the south shore and a smaller one on the north end. The climate is tropical, with distinct dry and hot (September-April) and rainy and cool (May-August) seasons. Neither electricity nor running water is available on the island, the latter representing a Serious problem in times of drought, there being but one or two fresh springs to supply drinking water.

Demography. With measurements of approximately 5 by 10 kilometers, Nguna supports an ethnically homogeneous Melanesian population of close to 2,000 people, a figure which has almost doubled over the last decade.

Linguistic Affiliation. Most Ngunese are trilingual. They learn either English or French at school and acquire the nation's lingua franca, Bislama, through traveling to or working in other parts of the country or through listening to the national radio station and visitors from other islands. Their first language, however, is Ngunese, which is actually one of Several dialects spoken in central Vanuatu and collectively referred to as "the Efate dialects." The language itself has not as yet been unambiguously named, being variously known as Nguna, Efate, North Efate, or Sesake, and classified in the Central Vanuatu Subgroup of Austronesian languages.

History and Cultural Relations

Nguna's first mention by Europeans came with a brief landing by Captain Cook in 1774. Another visit, by the H.M.S. Pearl in 1875, provided us with a freehand drawing of ritual carvings (slit drums) from the northern end of the island. Between these two events were many other contacts, most of which left no record. It is known, however, that beginning in the 1860s, young Ngunese men began joining ships (sometimes willingly, sometimes not) bound for the sugarcane plantations of Fiji and Queensland, Australia. Missionization, too, had begun on Nguna with the arrival of the Scot, Rev. Peter Milne, in 1870. His 54-year-long stay was unprecedented in the archipelago in terms of its length, the lasting success he had in "eradicating heathenism," and the installation of Milne's own son as his successor. Between Reverend Milne's heavy influence, reprisals launched by the colonial government against any unrest on the island, and various epidemics during the 1890s, the turn of the century saw a radically changed society and culture on Nguna. Upon becoming Christians of a strict Presbyterian denomination, the Ngunese forsook many aspects of their lives, including kava drinking, intervillage feuding, cannibalism, and competitive displays of wealth and slaughtering of pigs. Broader historical developments, of course, left indelible marks on Nguna as well. With the signing of an agreement between Britain and France in 1906, the archipelago became the New Hebrides/Les Nouvelles Hébrides under what was termed a "condominium government." This was a unique, joint-rule arrangement, some of the complications of which remain even after the country's attainment of independent nationhood, as Vanuatu, in 1980. For example, many duplicated essential services and institutions—such as two school systems, one English-speaking, one French-speaking—are still in place.

Settlements

There are approximately thirteen villages on Nguna. While all are clean and compact in design, village size varies from a dozen inhabitants to over 200, with the majority having 60-70 people. Housing itself varies in terms of style and materials, most being a combination of traditional and European. The traditional house form has been described as being like an upturned boat, having rounded, closed ends, a low crawl-through entrance, and no windows. The largest remaining example of this type of structure (some 20 by 8 meters in dimensions) is the village meeting house (varea ) in Nguna's largest village. Houses made in this way, though on a much smaller scale, were relatively easy to heat (though smoky) and resistant to hurricanes, but the wood and thatch would rot within a few years, making attractive (though expensive) the more durable Western materials, such as corrugated iron roofing sheets and concrete blocks. In terms of village location, historically government officials and missionaries encouraged people to move down to the coast, but recently that trend has begun to reverse. As the population has risen People have increasingly sought less crowded, cooler, and airier sites for their homes on the bluffs above and behind the coastal villages. In a few cases long-deserted inland village sites are beginning to be reoccupied.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Ngunese horticultural production focuses on manioc and numerous varieties of taro and yams, although imported foods such as rice, sugar, and tea may also be considered staples. Seasonal Supplements to these staples are: fish and other seafoods; and fruits and nuts, including papayas, oranges, bananas, Canarium. almonds, mangoes, pineapples, and breadfruit. In addition, small numbers of livestock—chickens, pigs, and cattle—are raised. These animals are rarely consumed, However, outside of special events such as weddings. The universal primary source of cash is the cutting and drying of ripe Coconuts, producing copra to be marketed through local cooperatives, each of which employs a "secretary" to oversee the sale of the copra and run a general store owned by the members. A few individuals—or, more often, a group of kin (a "company")—make a portion of their cash income through "taxi" work (i.e., running a transportation service by launch or truck) or through opening a small store in their home. Many engage in part-time work that entails many labor hours but little, if any, cash outlay (e.g., baking bread, sewing, weaving, and carving).

Industrial Arts. Many women are expert weavers of rious types of pandanus mats and baskets for use by themselves and their families, as well as for giving as gifts on special occasions or for sale. While men generally do not weave, some carve such articles as souvenir war clubs, bows and arrows, and outrigger canoes for sale. A small handful of people engage in more substantial craft production (e.g., building launches, which take several months to complete but net a very large cash income).

Trade. There is evidence for the existence of an extensive trade network involving Nguna in precontact times. Today, Vila is the hub: the primary trade activity is that of taking produce, in both raw and cooked forms, and products of the arts and crafts industry to the Vila market for sale to urbanites and tourists. While labor-intensive, this enterprise yields a substantial profit and constitutes a pleasant day's outing as well, especially for women who, traveling cheaply and safely in groups of six to ten, often take the opportunity to visit relatives, especially grown children who live in Vila or surrounding areas.

Division of Labor. In terms of garden work, male and female tasks are differentiated: males do the jobs entailed in field preparation that require greater muscular strength, such as felling and clearing trees; females do those jobs requiring more time and care, such as the cleanup that follows burning off vegetation. Planting is often engaged in by both sexes. Once established, fields and crops are largely maintained and harvested by women, although gardening trips are often conducted in tandem by wife and husband. These divisions and similar ones in other contexts—such as women being the primary cooks in the home—are generally, but not strictly, observed, and they are not backed by any strong convictions such as the "female pollution" beliefs found in other parts of Melanesia.

Land Tenure. Communal ownership of land is vested in matriclans. The pattern of actual land use, however, is a matter of individuals' pressing claims through diverse lines of connection. The strongest claim is through one's father's having worked the land previously. But claims through one's mother or other relatives may also be made. Several factors make rival land claims difficult to resolve in the Contemporary situation: a growing population; absenteeism of young Ngunese employed off-island; and more land given over to coconuts. Together these have put the land tenure system under considerable stress and rendered land distribution less flexible.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. There are some twenty-two matriclans (nakainaga ) recognized on Nguna; these are totemic, exogamous, matrilineal descent groups named for rious objects, such as fish, types of trees, food plants, etc. Of these a small handful can be considered "extinct," as they have no living members. Others, on the brink of disappearing, have undertaken to preserve themselves by "adopting" adult females who already have daughters themselves. Ties to the matriclan of one's father are also recognized and maintained with care.

Kinship Terminology. The Ngunese have a Crow-type kinship terminology.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. In the past most marriages were arranged, uniting couples in a reciprocal system of sister exchange, the preferential spouse being a cross cousin. While there still may be some pressure to marry in particular ways, especially where the groom is expected to succeed to a high chiefly position, people assert that today they "marry for love." The past custom of polygamy, of course, was terminated with the adoption of Christianity. Nonetheless, weddings, following which the couple resides patrilocally, are one of the major social activities with which people concern themselves today, with substantial resources being amassed by the groom's relatives to provide a bride-price. For the Ngunese this does not constitute a payment for the woman; rather, the money and other valuables are gifts expressing gratitude and commitment to the relatives of the new bride on the part of the groom and his relatives. It is also true, however, that the size of the monetary portion of the bride-price, set at a very low figure by Reverend Milne, has escalated dramatically in recent years. Moreover, this sum varies substantially depending on the natal origin of the bride-to-be and the existing relationship that pertains Between the families concerned.

Domestic Unit. The nuclear or extended family is the basic residential unit. Villages tend to be subdivided by the use of hedges, low fences, or stone borders to demarcate separate compounds, each of which is comprised of a couple's home and those of their married sons. This agnatic cluster supplies most labor required by any of the householders within it, beyond that which wife and husband can do together.

Inheritance. Land rights and personal possessions are Inherited by both females and males; the latter, however, Typically inherit substantially more land rights than do the former. In addition, a son (especially the firstborn) will more often inherit his parents' home since daughters usually leave their natal village upon marrying. Use rights regarding trees belong to the person who plants the tree without regard to who owns the land beneath it, and so these rights are inherited in the same way as are personal possessions. Coconut trees, however, being slow to mature but generating cash for decades thereafter, stimulate people to make longer-term claims to ownership of the land beneath them.

Socialization. Child-rearing practices shift as children age, becoming more demanding and likely to involve both verbal ridicule and mild physical punishment after a child reaches school age. Until then few behaviors elicit a strong response from adults, with the exception of a child's stinginess or refusal to share food or toys with other children. Intellectual and moral maturation are taken to be natural processes that develop with age and cannot be taught or instilled.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. The essential bases of social Organization on modern Nguna are agnation and matriliny. With the matriclans dispersed widely across the island's villages, preferential male agnatic coresidence results in small aggregations of male matrikin in each village. Village membership itself is also a powerful force, uniting the different sets of kinfolk and clanfolk under the village high chief, in whose name villagers act collectively on certain significant occasions, such as planting yam gardens.

Political Organization. During the late nineteenth Century, the precontact system of ranked, hereditary titles underwent a series of changes, becoming more rigid and less based on competition. With conversion to Christianity around 1900, the traditional economic base—pigs—was replaced by copra. Simultaneously, the titles ceased being transmitted matrilineally in favor of the patriline (i.e., sons rather than sisters1 sons became the usual successors). Yet, since these changes did not entail a restructuring of the distribution of wealth nor of the power relations that it supported, most of the men who had dominated in the previous system continued to do so. Today, a few chiefs still retain disproportionate control over land (including large coconut stands) as a result of the attachment of rights over certain plots of land to their chiefly titles. Even after tremendous historical upheavals and alterations, bearers of the highest titles continue to inherit the associated lands and to dominate the other two power structures that govern island life: the local "session" of church elders and the pastor; and the village councils, some of which are more formally organized bodies while others merely constitute the adult membership of the village as a whole.

Social Control. This is largely under the authority of both village councils and the council of chiefs, whose memberships overlap to a significant degree, as mentioned above. A sliding scale of fines in cash, mats, pigs, and community labor (e.g., road maintenance) is applied to various misdemeanors such as swearing, theft, adultery, minor fights, and destruction of property. The central government has jurisdiction over all crimes of violence via an appointed local intermediary, the "Government Assessor."

Conflict. Land claims are a major source of conflict, for reasons discussed above. Village councils tend to have difficulty putting such arguments to rest permanently. Where these or other interpersonal conflicts end in destructive behavior or violent confrontation, alcohol abuse is usually a factor.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Formerly the Ngunese, like people throughout the central part of the archipelago, believed that the god Mauitikitiki had pulled the islands up out of the sea with a rope. Apart from that, he played no known role in relation to everyday life. Numerous lesser spirits were thought to inhabit particular caves, trees, or rocks in the sea, and they could be influenced by a chief or, at his bidding, his religious specialist. In the present, the Ngunese continue to follow Presbyterian Christianity. There are challenges, of course, in the form of minor inroads made by other denominations and, to a degree, by a secular trend in modern ni-Vanuatu society in general. There have also been cargo-cult ideas abroad at different times, but they have never developed into any coherent movement on Nguna.

Religious Practitioners. While sorcery is said to have been rife on Nguna in the past, and some fear remains that it could be revitalized, there is no concrete evidence of such practices today. High chiefs, however, are still believed to be possessed bodily of spiritual powers: for example, it is believed that neither they nor their belongings can be touched safely by people other than their spouses or close family members.

Ceremonies. In the past the naleoana and natamate were the focal ritual activities, the first entailing pig sacrifice and gift exchange, the second centering on dancing before an orchestra of slit gongs, which are hollowed-out logs carved in the image of powerful ancestors and erected on a flat, Ceremonial clearing. Today a first-yams ceremony, annual prestations to high chiefs and the pastor (at least in some villages), investitures of chiefs, and other such ceremonies occur, but they are divested of traditional religious content.

Arts. While pre-Christian ritual dances have disappeared, having been replaced by secular string bands and Westernized dances for young people, what is apparently a traditional form of oral performance (including four different genres of story text) is still widely engaged in and enjoyed.

Medicine. The "diviner" is a shamanic type of healer who uses herbal cures and supernatural messages, which may involve spirit travel during sleep to divine the cause of illness or misfortune. Many Ngunese consult such specialists in addition to making use of the services of a paramedic in the local clinic or traveling to one of Vila's hospitals for more serious matters.

Death and Afterlife. Although now looking toward Heaven as conceptualized in Presbyterian doctrine, the Ngunese once saw death as the beginning of a journey to the spirit world, which began with one's passage under the sea to emerge at Point Tukituki, on the southwest corner of Efate. Leaping from the cliffs into the sea, the spirit had a number of encounters with dangerous spirit beings as it passed through three different worlds, each stage being less familiar and less comfortable than the preceding one. Upon reaching the last, the person lost all contact with the living, in so doing completing his or her descent into nothingness.

Bibliography

Clark, Ross (1985). "The Efate Dialects." Te Reo 28:3-35.

Facey, Ellen E. (1981). "Hereditary Chiefship in Nguna." In Vanuatu: Politics, Economics and Ritual in Island Melanesia, edited by Michael R. Allen, 295-313. Sydney: Academic Press.

Facey, Ellen E. (1988). Nguna Voices: Text and Culture from Central Vanuatu. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Guiart, J., J. J. Espirat, M.-S. Lagrange, and M. Renaud (1973). Système des titres, électifs ou héréditaires, dans les Nouvelles-Hébrides centrales d'Efate aux Iles Shepherd. Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, Musée de l'Homme.