Washington and Lee University
After my writing my first dispatch, I left Port Vila for Tanna Island to continue my research on the archaeology of the first Christian Missions in southern Vanuatu. My work on Tanna would focus on three mission stations, at Lenakel, Port Resolution, and Kwamera. Once again, the goal of the research was to document the extant remains of old mission sites from the 1800s and early 1900s, and to identify communities that would be interested in collaborating as partners in this work.
I began at Lenakel, which is a sizable town on the west coast of Tanna just south of the airport.
When I arrived, I was greeted at the Tafea Kaljoral Senta (a provincial center affiliated with the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta), and immediately taken to a local nakamal. Nakamal are places where local men gather in the afternoons to drink kava, a mildly intoxicating beverage made from the root of the Piper methysticum plant. I would soon learn that kava would be a regular part of my cultural experience on Tanna, as it was an important part of social life on the island. I spent many late afternoons fading into evenings learning about local customs and beliefs, explaining to local people the purpose of my research in Vanuatu, and sharing stories about my home at Washington and Lee and life in America in general.
In Lenakel, the main interest of the community was a church built in 1912 which was an important part of community life until 2001, when damage from termites and weather made it unusable. The community is interested in conserving this church, and luckily for me was cognizant enough to understand that documentation is a crucial first step in the historic preservation process. I spent a number of days with this lovely building, originally built as a prefabricated kit ordered from Australia. I made a floor plan and drawings of important details, and walked around in the attic documenting as much as I could about the building to aid in planning future work. In addition, working with local chiefs and community members, I was able to document features from the first mission hospital, one of the oldest in the New Hebrides (as Vanuatu was called before independence in 1980).
I left Lenakel for Port Resolution by truck on a rough but spectacular road with great sweeping views of the forested interior of Tanna, the neighboring island of Aniwa, and a section crossing the ash fields of Yasur volcano, which is still active, regularly spewing ash and lava hundreds of meters into the air (the ash is both beneficial, as it contributes to the great fertility of local soil for gardening, and problematic as it can spoil crops in particularly active years, such as this one).
Port Resolution, on the east coast of Tanna, was named for one of Captain Cook's ships after the famous explorer visited Tanna in 1774, anchoring in the calm harbor. Cook also climbed a local outcropping to make surveying measurements, and local people still refer to this rock as "Captain Cook". About 70 years later, in 1842, the first resident missionaries arrived and set up a station at Port Resolution, but it was to be short-lived, as they were driven off by local people after about seven months. It wasn't until 1858 that the famous missionary John G. Paton, aided by his colleague Rev. J. W. Mathieson, was able to establish a more permanent foothold for the Presbyterian Church on Tanna. Unfortunately, not much is left on the surface from this early mission, with the exception of the grave of Paton's first wife and son. The old mission station is currently covered by the modern "Port Resolution Yacht Club", and while there are hints of the old arrangement (for example, the current kitchen and dining room follow the floor plan of the old church), it will take some digging to locate the features from the old mission.
The road to the south of Tanna was too rough for trucks, so I had a nice long walk to Kwamera, guided by a friend from the area who I met in Port Resolution. At Kwamera, I spent a day documenting the remains of the first mission station. Surprisingly, I found the church at Kwamera was different. Where all the other churches we documented in Vanuatu (indeed, most of the churches I've ever been to anywhere) were oriented so the altar was perpendicular to the long axis of the building, the altar in the Kwamera church appears to be parallel to the long axis. Archaeologists are always looking for patterns to understand people's behavior, but we are also excited when we find things that don't follow the patterns we think we have established. Why was it that Rev. Watt, the missionary at Kwamera from 1869-1894, decided to arrange his church differently than the other churches in the New Hebrides? Is this just a story of individual idiosyncrasy, or is there something deeper happening here? Only more searching will help us answer these questions.
Unfortunately, my time on Tanna was running short by the time I reached Kwamera. I did manage to document some other interesting features related more to the indigenous experience of Christianity, connecting some oral histories about an old chief named Yarisi to some sites at a place called Kwaraka before I had to go. But the next day, I had to set off to Port Resolution to catch a truck back to Lenakel and eventually, back to Port Vila. That night and the next morning, we had heavy rain. What a surprise to find, halfway through our walk back, that what had been a little trickle of water at a place called Iuwip, had become a raging torrent overnight! We managed to cross with some difficulty, and my return was otherwise uneventful.
That was the end of my fieldwork experience in Vanuatu, followed by a week in Port Vila doing some more archival work and arranging everything for my journey home. I had about a week in Auckland, New Zealand before returning to the United States. During that time, I was able to visit the headquarters of the Melanesian Mission, which was an Anglican mission that served the northern New Hebrides. As at Port Resolution, not much of the old mission station remains, and the one standing stone building has been converted to a restaurant. But, as always with archaeology, there is no telling what might lie waiting under the ground surface!
In many ways, my questions remain the same as when I left Erromango, though I also now have a better sense of some of the patterns emerging from these archaeological remains. This is an exciting project with great potential. Now that I've returned home, my work will be to organize and report on the information I've gathered over the last few months. And most importantly, I must sit down to plan my next trip to continue to explore the lives of all the people who experienced the first missionary encounters in the New Hebrides.
- Ellicott City, Maryland, U.S.A., 15 August 2011
IMAGE ON THE UPPER LEFT: 1912 Church, Lenakel, Tanna.
