This blog piece stemmed from having to find a proper title for a Micro fiction piece I am writing. It will be part of the New Zealand National Flash Fiction Day (I hope) and thought I could honour that day. The theme to 2024 is Rhythm and Sound and my background reading to this theme has uncovered a lot of rich content in this BBC article called How rhythm shapes our lives.
‘Rhythm connects us to the world. It plays a role in listening, in language, in understanding speech in noisy places, in walking, and even in our feelings towards one another. Rhythm is much more than a component of music. We experience the rhythmic changes of the season. Some of us have menstrual cycles. We have circadian rhythms – daily cycles of mental and physical peaks and troughs. Frogs croak rhythmically to attract mates and change their rhythm to signal aggression. Tides, 17-year-circadas, lunar phases, perigees, and apogees are other naturally occurring rhythms. Human-made rhythms include the built world – street grids, traffic lights, crop fields, mowed designs in baseball diamond outfields, the backsplash behind the kitchen counter, spatial patterns in geometric visual artforms.’
Nina Kraus, May 7, 2023 in the BBC.
My PhD Research theme of Lhalapwoi has circled into the piece and I cannot ignore it. Lhalapwoi is the Ninde dialect word from South West Bay which means to plant deeply and spread the seeds. It has biblical and cultural connotations for us. In this piece, it is highly relevant to use as a method to nurture the next generations.
I have been reminiscing about being at home on our tribal land of Denemus; to re-immerse myself into the traditions once more. The tribe of Denemus is located beside the Nembagahu, a solid boulder that is iconic to the local Bayers (People of South West Bay) in Vanuatu. It has a lot of potential for entrepreneurs who might like to take on that calculated risk!
I have always been fascinated by what Mitchell Kanashkevich, a travel/cultural documentary photographer wrote about South West Bay – Where pristine nature meets traditions. He described and compared Vanuatu customs to Western standards below:
‘There are no homeless people and no-one begs for food. The air is fresh and the culture is rich.’
I miss this part. No denying about this.
Our elders are constantly worried about the fast disappearing of our traditional cultures in South West Bay. In their article on Sustainable Development at the Policy-Practice Nexus: Insights from South West Bay, Malakula Island, Vanuatu, Rantes and his colleagues (2021) supported the claims of a disappearing traditions in this part of the world – South West Bay. Elder Maxing from Wintua village in the Bay was quoted “ol yangfala oli lusum kastom fasin mo yumi mas toktok long olgeta” which translates to the younger generations have forgotten traditional practice and that their elders had the responsibility of teaching them this once more.
We must Lhalapwoi to our young generations. We have a responsibility to. It is becoming critical!
Each day, I try and remember a piece of home to practice and honour the Lhalapwoi concept. It’s a challenge when having lived abroad for more than 4 decades. That is more than my lifetime in Vanuatu. Either I read a piece of Vanuatu in the News or through the Vanuatu Daily Post, the local news outlet for Vanuatu to catch up on the current affairs for the nation. I seriously take time to think about some of the dialects and concepts that were once spoken to me by my parents and extended family members.
Our traditional systems and words include the following as highlighted from Rantes and his colleagues (2021):
The Sengtau System is a critical and survival concept for us the Bayers (South West Bay locals) which had existed long before the Europeans arrived in the 1890s in the area. This is a traditional governance system based around land sharing that was developed to support livelihoods following disasters or at times when there is a need for particular residents to increase food production. The increase in food production was either due to whether the local population had increased substantially or the land that was formerly used was no longer productive. I often witnessed my tribe Denemus exercising the Sengtau System to help our extended families and relatives (from the other tribes too) as there was more cash crops like cocoa beans, coconuts and fruit trees on the land. It also extended to firewood as the tribe came together to chop wood and sell to the local District School. Our families earned money from this traditional practice system of Sengtau.
The Sengtau Hybrid Lease System, a new concept was developed after the failings of the traditional Sengtau System. I find this fascinating! Times are changing and we go with the conformations. I have been aware of this concept for awhile whenever I am back home in Vanuatu. This is where while the land belongs to the tribe, the chief manages it and controls the use of it’s resources (current and potential) on behalf of the tribal members. We saw this system in action in South West Bay, where the chief of a particular tribe leased 20 hectares of land for 15 years to an investor because much of the land was losing it’s value from food to kava productions.
As I reflect on this concept and understand the reasons for this, I am reminded that in our Ni-Vanuatu culture, land is not a commodity to be bought or sold – it has sacred and spiritual value. It is more than a material resource. It remains our foundational sacred civic. I have often found myself having similar conversations about the Sengtau Hybrid Lease System with my father – the head chief of our Denemus tribe. It has it’s advantages and disadvantages.
The Noho System, a taboo concept applied especially to our marine-protected areas and environments is critical to our local resource management. My father has used this traditional system many times to conserve our marine and coastal resources along the boundaries of the Denemus tribe. As we monitor our seafood intake, the Noho System is extremely valuable to exercising respect and care to both our marine and land environments. I have also witnessed the Noho System applied to our forestry stock on our tribal land to conserve special species of trees. The Noho has a time frame of two years and means no person can enter the forbidden area for the purposes of catching seafood (if it is placed on the reefs) or gathering fruits or other food (it if is placed on land areas). The Vanuatu Namele leaf is used as the Noho and is very well respected among the locals. Unfortunately, the last two decades have seen the increase of interisland marriages. We witness the disrespect and unruly behaviours of foreign women towards our Noho Systems. These foreign women are defined as those who are married into the culture of South West Bay, come from other islands or communities in Vanuatu and do not show or have the cultural and traditional knowledge to support our existing traditional governance systems.
As I end this blog piece, I reflect on my research concept of Lhalapwoi. It is one mighty concept that would benefit our local and new generations of South West Bay. Our traditional systems have been used and continue to serve the way we handle our livelihoods in our tribes. It is time we resort to the traditional governance systems of Sengtau and Noho using Lhalapwoi. Lhalapwoi brings our generations together. It encourages the intergenerational mahi and knowledge transmissions of these systems. We will work in our well established traditional environments, our nakamals, using our ways of kastoms in our tribes to impart our knowledge to the next generation. Lhalapwoi is a sacred concept that will protect and conserve our traditional livelihoods in the Bay for life. It is our sacred duty to embrace and maintain it for our future generations.
The girl who is building a museum 