Circumcision Ceremony

Today, Lance’s community held a custom celebration to celebrate the villages boys coming out of seclusion after being circumcised and officially being recognized as men. There was a huge ceremony at the Nakamal that had more Kava (thick trees of it, worth hundreds of dollars even here. Thousands in the states), LapLap (a staple food), huge yams, and more mats than anyone could use in 9 piles- for each of the 9 boys. These gifts were to be given from the boy’s fathers family to the boy’s mothers family, to show their daughters are being taken care of all these years later.

 Around 3 months ago, these 4-7 year old boys were separated from their mamas and circumcised, then put in seclusion with their uncles on their mothers side. After the last boy is fully healed, they tear down the high walls of their compounds and burn everything they used in the past three months. Today is the first day they will be allowed to see anyone else from the community.

Once we arrived, the 4 men in our group including Ryan went down the hill to the boys to prepare for the parade. It was a festive atmosphere with lots of bright colors, facepainting, naked children and some dumb adults who decided to give said children very loud conch shells to blow. After getting our faces painted we took part in several hours of Tanna’ favorite pastime, waiting for something to happen.

Sasha and another peace corps member, Genna, went to sit with the mamas to get ready. People were adding face paint and putting on skirts, and the kids would again gather to just stare. She started blowing on grass to make a duck whistle and soon a few of the courageous kids were giving it a go. Most kids are very shy and would turn or run away when looked at. One boy in superman shorts was especially excited and kept handing her grass to put in his hand. 

Throughout our visit on Tanna we had seen several tourists, but they were always brief encounters and always near one of the islands few paved roads never deep in the bush. Given this we were all quite surprised when two people walked out of the bush looking like they had read an adventure book and came straight from a shopping trip at REI. We figured they had heard about the ceremony from a local and were here to quietly and discretely observe the festivities and we paid them little attention. As they started walking around we could feel the Peace Corps volunteers around us start to tense up.

The tourists, with their big cameras, got right up in the faces of a group of children and started snapping pictures then moved over to two people having a conversation to capture that Kodiak moment. They continued to walk around in the middle of the gathering snapping pictures of everyone (except us) and managing to get in the way of the events at every turn. Imagine going to a play where someone gets on stage and walks around taking pictures.

The other Peace Corps started sharing stories of tourism in their own community. People come in tour buses to the schools and disrupt class to take photos. They bring colored pencils to donate when the school lacks paper or normal pencils. They post the photos saying things like “I discovered this quaint village, look at all the smiling people” though the Neevans were reacting properly to cameras being shoved in their faces and they did not get many smiling people. The main issue they had in this case however was that they were uninvited guests to a private ceremony of the local people.

The lady of the tourist duo arrived over the hill and started taking photos. Sasha handed her phone to a kid (he was very shy about talking, but I think his name was Dylan) to turn the tables and start taking photos of her without her permission.

She came close doing her best to ignore us and keep Genna and I out of each photo- and Genna was doing a splendid job ignoring her too. 

She eventually did come up to them and ask Sasha to take a photo of the kids, which opened up the conversation to how she would post them etc. Then sat next to the kids which all promptly ran away. She asked about the ceremony and about the black magic ceremonies on Tanna. Which are all a tourism sham- Tanna is the one island with a spirit which kills anyone who practices black magic right away and protects all who live there. The spirit if Tanna is what also fortunately keeps all of the harmful animals away! No spider will bite you, there are no large predators, and no snakes at all. 

We moved to some mats were the parade would start. Kids crept closer to stare at us. We started playing some hand games, and then they pull out the largest pig we had seen so far. It needed 4 people to carry it. One man hit it on the head with a club 15 or so times, it squealed loudly each time. People around us were laughing at how long it took to be killed. He gave up and gave the club to someone else to hit another 15 times. The pig eventually stopped squealing. 

A goat appeared next to another pile- and was also clubbed. The club did not do the trick and its throat was promptly slit. Then clubbed more. Ever the fighter, the goat only died after they had they slit the throat again. 

Meanwhile, we continued to try to whistle with grass and now tinsel that fell from the kids’ beautiful hats as more and more pigs were dragged out to squeal in the background. 

Soon (it was a very long time really, but time moves differently here) they started playing music with conch shells and the procession started. Men walked out in a neat line carrying yet more gifts- Taros of giant proportions, more kava, and other foods. Around the middle came Lance wearing nothing but his nambas (Google it when children aren’t around- we have photos but deemed them to revealing to post). Every one of the Neevans wore pants or a skirt, and most wore shirts. Lance was told the day before that everyone would be participating in wearing the Nambas as a part of the custom. All of the Nevans had a good laugh as he walked by the entire village and Ryan (following directly behind him) got an excellent view.

At the end everyone took photos with everyone and started the long process of putting the gifts in trucks. The pig that had been clubbed around 30 times at the beginning of the ceremony started squealing again, but was ignored and tossed in the truck alongside its fallen brethren. In another truck they stacked a dead cow, a living pig, and yet another dead pig. 

Genna, Jacob and Sasha headed back while the other men went to the Nakamal. This community was far stricter- they would never let a lady appear. Once Ryan arrived, they did not start chewing the kava until it had all been cleaned- which made it take forever. They did it that way because each person was equal and should drink at about the same time. Except for the chief who always went first, and the women who were not allowed. Lance however was able to pull a few favors and bring home a Plastic (Liquid kava in a plastic water bottle) for the ladies.

We boiled some water and washed our hair with hand soap before calling it a day.