Religion in Vanuatu

Last updated

Sacred Heart Cathedral in Port Vila. Port-Vila cath Sacre Coeur.JPG
Sacred Heart Cathedral in Port Vila.

Christianity is the largest religion in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is an archipelago made up of 13 larger islands, and approximately 70 smaller surrounding islands, each home to multitudes of diverse cultural and religious communities. [1]

Contents

As of 2020, the population of approximately 300,000 people speak as many as 145 languages throughout the island nation. [2] Approximately 82% of the population of Vanuatu is Christian. An estimated 28% is Presbyterian, 12% Roman Catholic, 15% Anglican, and 12% Seventh-day Adventist. [3] Groups that together constitute 15% include the Church of Christ , [4] the Apostolic Church, Assemblies of God, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Protestant denominations. [5]

The John Frum Movement, a political party that also is an indigenous religious group, is centered on the island of Tanna and includes about 5% of the population. [5] The Baháʼí Faith, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) also are active. [5] There are believed to be members of other religions within the foreign community; they are free to practice their religions, but in 2007 they are not known to proselytize or hold public religious ceremonies. [6]

History

The traditional religion of Vanuatu

Before Christianity, the indigenous religion of Vanuatu was inherited from Oceanian and Melanesian traditions. [7] Missionaries often called this pre-Christian religion “pagan” or “heathen” in English, and as “times of darkness” in the country's local languages, [8] [9] : 207  or in Bislama (taem blong tudak). [10] : 86  [11] : 140 

The traditional religion, sometimes considered a form of animism, has been described by various authors, notably the Anglican missionary and anthropologist Robert Codrington in his famous 1891 monograph The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore (1891). [12] He was followed by other scholars, including anthropologists [13] [14] and linguists. [9]

Concepts central to the traditional religion include mana, [15] [16] tabu, [17] and the worship of ancestral spirits (tamate). [7] [9] [13] [14] Named deities or mythological figures included Qat and Qasavara in the Banks Is, Tagaro on Ambae, Lisepsep across the archipelago. [9] : 218–222 

Grade-taking ceremonies, which existed throughout Vanuatu, were associated with the indigenous religion, and with the transmission of mana.

Many aspects of the traditional religion have survived until today, in parallel with the adoption of Christianity, at least in some rural areas of Vanuatu. [10] : 86  [11]

Christianity

Christian missionization of Vanuatu began as early as 1606 upon the arrival of the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in Vanuatu. [18] Missionaries representing several Western churches brought Christianity to the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically from Presbyterian, Catholic and Anglican missions. [6] Some foreign missionaries continue this work; however, approximately 90% of the clergy of the established churches were indigenous by 2007. [6] The Summer Institute of Linguistics have been active in translating the Bible into the country's many indigenous languages. [6] [19] [20]

Because of the modernities that the military in World War II brought with them when they came to the islands, several cargo cults developed. Many died out, but the John Frum cult on Tanna is still large, and has adherents in the parliament. As well, Tanna is home to the Prince Philip Movement, which reveres the United Kingdom's Prince Philip. [21] Villagers of the Yaohnanen tribe believed in an ancient story about the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit venturing across the seas to look for a powerful woman to marry. Prince Philip, having visited the island with his new wife Queen Elizabeth, fit the description exactly and is therefore revered and even held as a god around the isle of Tanna. [22]

The effects of colonial Christianity on Vanuatu culture

The effects of colonialism and Christianization have differed enormously throughout Vanuatu, partially due to the Anglo-French condominium governance as well as due to the uncoordinated Christian missionization efforts throughout the nation. [23] The diverse approaches of the Catholic mission, the Melanesian Mission and the Church of Christ combined with varied cultural communities resulted in vastly different local attitudes regarding religion, tradition, and community restructuring. [23] Often, Ni-Vanuatu converted to Christianity in the hopes of attaining the apparent wealth and prosperity the European Christians possessed. [18] Through the spread of Christianity, missionaries aimed to restructure indigenous societies by desegregating gendered eating and sleeping customs, prohibiting exclusive men’s houses, and reworking the idea of the domestic Ni-Vanuatu woman, in order to save women from what the missionaries saw as a “degraded state in kastom." [24] In doing so, the missionaries inadvertently thrust Ni-Vanuatu women into the separate, but similarly gender-segregated Christian church, where men hold disproportionate power. While this new religious system upheld women in familial, motherly roles, it “stripped away those sacred aspects of human kinship which gave women a crucial if subordinated place in the ancestral religion." [24]

The effects of Christianity on Vanuatu kastom

As Christianity gained followers, eventually becoming the prominent religion, support of local kastom decreased due to missionaries’ habitual suppression of the incorporated local values, practices, and traditions. [23] Kastom is an all-encompassing Bislama word that refers to traditional practices including culture, religion, art, economics, and magic in Vanuatu. [25]

Vanuatu indigenous culture and kastom dramatically declined in the face of European colonization. The Europeans brought with them disease, weaponry and alcohol which lead to the death of indigenous peoples, as well as forcibly removed Ni-Vanuatu citizens, relocating them to Australia for forced labor. [23] As well, European missionaries and Ni-Vanuatu Christian converts consciously oppressed certain kastom ways of life. While tolerance of kastom varied between churches, locations, and missions, the majority of Christians deemed the erasure of certain customs as a precondition to Christian conversion. Some of these practices included: “Polygyny, pig sacrifices, ‘idolatry,’ kava drinking, and men’s secret societies,” as missionaries believed such practices exemplified “heathenism” and “the powers of darkness.” [23]

The roles of Christianity, kastom and national identity on the 1970s Vanuatu independence movement

Kastom played a key role in mobilizing Vanuatu's independence movement in the 1970s, through establishing a national identity within a largescale resistance against Anglo-French colonialism. [23] In 1971, Ni-Vanuatu Christian converts established the Vanuaaku Pati, originally named the New Hebrides National Party (NHNP), a political party which aimed to revive and maintain kastom as an essential part of Vanuatu nationalism. [23] The Vanuaaku Pati highlighted the need for Vanuatu to break away from its colonizers, while simultaneously “emphasized the importance of kastom as a non-European ‘grass-roots’ force exemplifying the ‘Melanesian way’ as opposed to ‘the white man’s way.’ [23]

Prior to the 1979 national elections, the Vanuaaku Pati “published its electoral platform,” affirming protection of kastom within the government. The document outlined a plan to create a National Council of Chiefs, ultimately ensuring the inclusion of kastom via leaders with power within custom law. [23]

National symbols of kastom and Christianity

Symbols and rituals of kastom in daily life

[25]

Freedom of religion

Vanuatu religiosity
ReligionPercentage
Christianity
 
83%
Animism
 
7%
Buddhism
 
4%
Baháʼí
 
3%
others
 
3%

The Constitution of Vanuatu establishes the freedom of religion, and also states that the state is founded on a commitment to "traditional Melanesian values, faith in God, and Christian principles." [27]

Religious groups are allowed to establish private schools, and both private and public schools include optional religious education courses. [27] Secondary schools must offer at least one hour a week of religious instruction, but parents can request an exemption for their children. [5]

Religious groups are required to register with the government or face fines, but this law is not enforced in practice. Since 2016, high ranking members of the government have expressed the intent to define Vanuatu as a Christian country and to prohibit other religions from entering the country; as of the end of 2022, Vanuatu has no state religion. [5]

The Baháʼí Faith arrived in Vanuatu in 1953. Local administrative councils, or Spiritual Assemblies, were formed as soon as individual Baháʼí communities were large enough. A regional administrative council for the south west pacific islands, including Vanuatu, was elected in 1964. Thirteen years later, in 1977, there were enough Baháʼís in Vanuatu for them to elected their own separate National Spiritual Assembly. The community continued to grow sufficiently that in 2012 the erection of a local Baháʼí House of Worship, or "Haos blong Wosip" in the local Bislama, was announced, serving as a space for people of all religions and backgrounds to gather, meditate, reflect, and worship. Ground was broken for the structure in 2019 and progress continues. [28] At the groundbreaking ceremony, Vanuatu government officials and traditional leaders highlighted the importance of the local House of Worship on the island, stating that "This Temple will symbolize what we wish to see in Vanuatu in the years to come, which is peace and unity among us all, irrespective of belief" and describing that it "provides us a place where we can meditate deeply about our spiritual reality." [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanuatu</span> Country in Oceania

Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu, is an island country in Melanesia, located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 km (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 540 km (340 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bislama</span> English-based creole language of Vanuatu

Bislama is an English-based creole language. It is the national language of Vanuatu, and one of the three official languages of the country, the other ones being English and French. Bislama is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" and the second language of much of the rest of the country's residents. The lyrics of "Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the country's national anthem, are composed in Bislama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cargo cult</span> New religious movement

Cargo cults were diverse spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the late 19th century. Most cargo cult groups were led by charismatic prophet figures foretelling an imminent cataclysm and/or a coming utopia for followers—a worldview known as millenarianism. While the specific claims made by these prophets varied greatly from movement to movement, most of them predicted the return of dead ancestors bringing an abundance of food and goods. The movements usually sought to appease these "ancestral spirits or other powerful beings" by either reviving ancestral traditions or adopting new rituals, such as ecstatic dancing or imitating the actions of colonists and military personnel. Most groups foretold the coming of a bounty of Western goods or money as part of their prophecy, although this was not a universal feature of such movements, with other prophets telling their followers to abandon Western goods. Anthropologists have described cargo cults as rooted in pre-existing aspects of Melanesian society, as a reaction to colonial oppression and inequality disrupting traditional village life, or both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Frum</span> Figure associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu

John Frum is a figure associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. He is often depicted as an American World War II serviceman who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him. In a 1960 BBC documentary, British broadcaster David Attenborough asked the locals what Frum looked like and was told "'E look like you. 'E got white face. 'E tall man. 'E live 'long South America."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of Vanuatu</span>

The national flag of Vanuatu was adopted on 18 February 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanna (island)</span> Island in Tafea Province of Vanuatu

Tanna is an island in southern Vanuatu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Papua New Guinea</span>

Religion in Papua New Guinea is dominated by various branches of Christianity, with traditional animism and ancestor worship often occurring less openly as another layer underneath or more openly side by side with Christianity. The Catholic Church has a plurality of the population. The courts, government, and general society uphold a constitutional right to freedom of speech, thought, and beliefs. A secular state, there is no state religion in the country, although the government openly partners with several Christian groups to provide services, and churches participate in local government bodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambae</span> Island in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu

Ambae, also known as Aoba, Omba, Oba, or Opa and formerly Lepers’ Island, is an island in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, located near 15°30′S167°30′E, approximately 310 kilometres north-northwest of Vanuatu's capital city, Port Vila. It is also Vanuatu's largest active volcano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ni-Vanuatu</span> Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu

Ni-Vanuatu is a large group of closely related Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu. As such, ni-Vanuatu are a mixed ethnolinguistic group with a shared ethnogenesis that speak a multitude of languages.

Futuna is an island in the Tafea province of Vanuatu. It is the easternmost island in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erromango</span> Fourth largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago

Erromango is the fourth largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago. With a land area of 891.9 square kilometres (344.4 sq mi), it is the largest island in Tafea Province, the southernmost of Vanuatu's six administrative regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aniwa (island)</span> Island in Tafea Province, Vanuatu

Aniwa is a small island in the southernmost province of Tafea, Vanuatu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coat of arms of Vanuatu</span>

The coat of arms of Vanuatu features a Melanesian warrior holding the spear standing before the mountain superimposed on the boar's tusk encircling two crossed namele fern fronds and the golden scroll on the bottom with the National Motto that reads: LONG GOD YUMI STANAP. The Bislama "long" is a preposition derived from the word "along" and has several flexible meanings, "in, on, at," and "with." When used referring to another with personhood, it is generally understood to mean "with ." The original version was designed by Australian artist Rick Frazer in 1980. Since this Vanuatu national symbol does not conform to the rules of heraldry for a traditional coat of arms, then it could be considered a national emblem instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Vanuatu</span>

This article presents an overview of the culture of Vanuatu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanuatu Labour Party</span> Vanautan political party

The Vanuatu Labour Party is a political party in Vanuatu. The party was established on 3 June 1987. It was founded on the initiative of various trade union organizations in order to contest the 1987 parliamentary election. The proposal to found the party was first presented by Ephraim Kalsakau, a leader of the Vanuatu Municipal Workers Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum of Vanuatu</span> Museum in Port Vila, Vanuatu

The National Museum of Vanuatu is located in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC) in Port Vila, Vanuatu. It specializes in exhibits relating to the culture and history of this group of islands in the South Pacific. It is unique amongst Pacific national cultural institutions for rejecting many aspects of European museology, and creating new ways of working which value kastom practices.

The literature of Vanuatu, understood in the strict sense of written literature, began in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turaga nation</span> Indigenous movement in Vanuatu

The Turaga nation is an indigenous movement based in northern Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Its leader is Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua, and it has also been associated with Motarilavoa Hilda Lin̄i. The organisation has its headquarters in the traditional village of Lavatmanggemu on the north-east coast of Pentecost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu</span>

The Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, or the Presbitirin Jyos Blong Vanuatu in Bislama, is the largest Christian denomination in Vanuatu.

Ni-Vanuatu names are the names used by the people of Vanuatu, who are commonly known as ni-Vanuatu. Under the law of Vanuatu, a child's name registered at birth should include "the family name, the Christian name, if any, and the Melanesian individual name", the latter of which is also known as a "traditional name" or "custom name".

References

  1. ↑ "Vanuatu | History, People, & Location". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  2. ↑ Barbour, Julie; Daly, Nicola. "People on Vanuatu's Malekula Island speak more than 30 Indigenous languages. Here's why we must record them". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  3. ↑ United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom (2020). "Vanuatu 2020 International Religious Freedom Report" (PDF).
  4. ↑ "World Convention » Vanuatu" . Retrieved 2012-06-09.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 US State Dept 2022 report
  6. 1 2 3 4 International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Vanuatu. United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (September 14, 2007). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  7. 1 2 Allen, Michael (1987). "Vanuatu religions". In Charles J. Adams; Mircea Eliade (eds.). Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 15 (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. pp. 184–187. ISBN   978-0-02-909880-6.
  8. ↑ See entry toglolqōn̄ in A. François’ Cultural dictionary of the Mwotlap language (2023).
  9. 1 2 3 4 François, Alexandre (2013), "Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of spiritual words in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Mailhammer, Robert (ed.), Lexical and structural etymology: Beyond word histories, Studies in Language Change, vol. 11, Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton, pp. 185–244
  10. 1 2 Lightner, Sara B. (2007). Ples blong olgeta sista: Ni-Vanuatu catholic sisters navigating places and spaces (Masters thesis). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. hdl:10125/21181.
  11. 1 2 Taylor, John Patrick (2016). "Two Baskets Worn At Once: Christianity, Sorcery, and Sacred Power in Vanuatu". In Fiona Magowan; Carolyn Schwarz (eds.). Christianity, Conflict, and Renewal in Australia and the Pacific. International Studies in Religion and Society. Brill. pp. 139–160. ISBN   978-90-04-21723-2 . Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  12. ↑ Codrington, Robert Henry (1891). "Religion". The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore. New York: Clarendon Press. p. 116 ff. ISBN   9780486202587.
  13. 1 2 Ivens, W. G. (1931). "The Place of Vui and Tamate in the Religion of Mota". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 61: 157–166. doi:10.2307/2843828. ISSN   0307-3114. JSTOR   2843828 . Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  14. 1 2 Vienne, Bernard (1984). Gens de Motlav - Idéologie et pratique sociale en Mélanésie. Société des Océanistes. Paris: ORSTOM. ISBN   9782854300642.
  15. ↑ Keesing, Roger (1984). "Rethinking mana". Journal of Anthropological Research. 40 (1): 137–156. JSTOR   3629696.
  16. ↑ Mondragón, Carlos (June 2004). "Of Winds, Worms and Mana: The traditional calendar of the Torres Islands, Vanuatu". Oceania. 74 (4): 289–308. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2004.tb02856.x. JSTOR   40332069.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  17. ↑ François, Alexandre (2022). "Awesome forces and warning signs: Charting the semantic history of *tabu words in Vanuatu" (PDF). Oceanic Linguistics. 61 (1): 212–255. doi:10.1353/ol.2022.0017 . Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  18. 1 2 Taylor, John (April 2010). "The Troubled Histories of a Stranger God: Religious Crossing, Sacred Power, and Anglican Colonialism in Vanuatu". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 52 (2): 418–446. doi:10.1017/s0010417510000095. ISSN   0010-4175. S2CID   145645031.
  19. ↑ Bloom Library website
  20. ↑ Vanuatu Education Support Program
  21. ↑ Fifty facts about the Duke of Edinburgh 25 January 2002 Archived July 25, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ↑ Squires, Nick (27 February 2007). "South Sea tribe prepares birthday feast for their favourite god, Prince Philip". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 19 April 2007.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Tonkinson, Robert (2009-02-10). "National Identity and the Problem of Kastom in Vanuatu". Mankind. 13 (4): 306–315. doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.1982.tb00996.x. ISSN   0025-2328.
  24. 1 2 Jolly, Margaret (1989-11-24), "Sacred spaces: churches, men's houses and households in South Pentecost, Vanuatu", Family and Gender in the Pacific, Cambridge University Press, pp. 213–235, doi:10.1017/cbo9781139084864.012, ISBN   9780521346672 , retrieved 2021-10-23
  25. 1 2 "What is Kastom". www.vanuatu.travel. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  26. ↑ "Crossed Namele Leaves Shadow Vanuatu Elections | Pacific Islands Report". www.pireport.org. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  27. 1 2 International Religious Freedom Report 2017 § Vanuatu US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
  28. 1 2 "Milestone for Vanuatu Temple uplifts, galvanizes island | BWNS". Baháʼí World News Service. 2019-11-17. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.