‘Awakening the Stones’: The Nieri Performance, Gardens and Regeneration in Tanna, Vanuatu

ABSTRACT

In 2017, islanders from six villages on the southern island of Tanna, in the archipelago of Vanuatu, sculpted more than 50,000 taro into a large ship for the nieri, the premier Tannese exchange based on mythic injunctions to feed allies and protect land. Ships, canoes and stones are generative forms in Tanna and are woven into the interstices of daily life, gardens and ritual. This ritual, planned after the category 5 2015 Cyclone Pam destroyed gardens in Tanna, was also designed to ‘awaken the stones’ which ensure the fertility of gardens. The nieri reasserts the material and spiritual primacy of gardens through the exchange of food that engenders a particular kind of sociality and person in Tanna. During the performance, taro were swapped for yam from six coastal villages. Closely allied, taro and yam are gendered beings whose lives are entangled in the relational worlds of humans and other non-human beings. The fluid and ephemeral art forms that characterise Tannese ceremonial life are dependent upon and attuned to the cycle of the yam and taro garden. I explore how the ‘taro ship’ gathers the multiple relations and diversities that emanate from gardens. The nieri and the spectacle of taro ‘becoming’ ship, makes visible social, cosmological and ecological relations through the aesthetic forms that connect the everyday and myth.

KEYWORDS:

• Tanna
• gardens
• aesthetics
• exchange
• taro

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I acknowledge with gratitude the work of the late Jacob Kapere and the assistance of Emily Niras. I am grateful to the young people who participated in the project with us and to the gardeners and families in many villages who were generous in so many ways. I also thank the external reviewers for their insights.

2 In Tanna, there are several different versions of the name of this exchange ceremony including niel, nieli and neir (Nehrbass 2012, 97). The 2017 exchange that I describe was referred to as nieri (Jean-Pascale Wahe, pers comm, October 2021).

3 Cyclone Pam, which struck Vanuatu on 13 March 2015, was designated ‘category 5’ with winds that gusted more than 280 kilometres per hour causing massive destruction. It was regarded as one of the most intense cyclones that Vanuatu and the South Pacific have experienced. The southern islands of Tanna and Erromango suffered enormous losses of gardens, animals, birds, forests, housing, schools, roads and other infrastructure. See M. Calandra (2019) on the effects of the cyclone on the central island of Tongoa.

4 In addition to the nieri exchange, the nakwiari or toka is an elaborate and large-scale ceremonial exchange that is held occasionally. It demands several years of advance planning and preparation and features dancing and the exchange of pigs and kava roots.

5 The nakamal refers to the cleared open spaces under banyan trees serving as a meeting place for everyday and ceremonial events, a dancing ground and kava-drinking for elders.

6 We organised the project with the aim of having school leavers learn to do some basic research in gardens. We trained 18 young people both males and females, who then took part in the research documenting gardens in many different villages around Tanna. While conducting research, the young people had an opportunity to learn more about gardens by spending time with experienced gardeners. The young people designed the research questions that included, for example, gardening practices, the names of different kinds of plants grown in each garden and the division of labour. This process allowed the young people to gain a deeper understanding of gardens and the diversity of the plants. The idea was to elicit interest in customary gardening among these young people. Jacob Kapere had also planned to engage the young people in future projects.

7 Tannese Islanders have been subject to forced, conscripted and indentured labour; draconian Presbyterianism; colonial governance through an Anglo-French condominium for more than seven decades; exposure to the Second World War effort; tourism, and on-going labour migration within the archipelago and more recently to New Zealand and Australia (Adams 1984; Bonnemaison 1994; Guiart 1956; Lindstrom 1990).

8 Since Independence in 1980, marriage patterns have been changing due, in some measure, to migration from villages, the widening access to secondary school, the monetization of the economy, land shortages and the changing aspirations of youth.

9 Rio (2007) offers an insightful analysis of how women leave their village as sisters and return as wives on Ambryn Island, Vanuatu.

10 The nieri is often referred in Bislama, the lingua franca, as kaikai blong tawian, or feeding brothers-in-law which again underlines the significance of kinship and food.