We have been sooooo lucky to be able to witness such a grandiose custom ceremony in Tanna, 3 days of beautiful costumes and make up, heartwarming singing and impressive show by the numerous dancers.
Colourful & Powerful show, that cultural bath was truly heartwarming !
Just to give you a quick background on the Nekowiar festival, people are performing as part of a cultural ceremony, there are also exchanges of kava and pigs (the festival ended with the public killing of more than 100 of them), and it is about unity and peace between many villages of Tanna.
They don’t do it for the tourists or the show but they welcome outsiders like us expats, other islanders and people from Tanna warmly.
In the daily life, very few of them would dress up like this, and even dressed up traditionally, you can see shorts, tshirts, tops under the grass skirts and decoration. They will display those fantastic outfits for ceremonies though.
Most of them work in the gardens, but few of them work in the “city”.
Many of them won’t have Facebook, internet or data, but some of them will have it all.
A lot of them have phones.
All of them are living according to the “kastoms”, traditions that are still very much alive across Vanuatu.
Practises took place for a year or so and everybody was so impressed by the endurance and energy of the youngest and the oldest!
So many things happening during the dances, perfectly choreographed or totally improvised, clowns are jumping in, making the public laugh, lollies are thrown in the ground for the kids in the public to pick up, music is made by the stomping, voices or outfits, make up is spectacular and many outsiders wear some too, and spectators gathers in the trees, on platforms, on the ground or on roofs...
A real mix of amazement and joy!
The festival started with the practise of the women and what a show it was! All those colours and singing were pretty heartwarming..
The second day was the men practise and at night, the real show started (although, to me, the practises were the real show too): Napen Napen (women dances) started around 8pm and were on until approximately 4am, then the men took over and danced till 1pm ish (to be honest, nobody is really looking at the time during the festivities). Finally, after a lap lap (local meal) exchange ceremony (Ewen got given a piece by an old man 🥰) 100 of pigs are sacrificed in the public place (we left before that part)
Nekowiar (Toka) festival’s dates was announced a few days before it started.
For weeks, everybody was in the starting block and nobody could tell exactly when it would happen. When the dates were finally out, flights and accommodations were booked out and charters were organised!
And the program itself kept on changing until the day before it started. As for the time schedule, a few hours of delay didn’t make much difference 🤪✌️🌴😎
