The Concept of Taboo in Raga,Vanuatu: Semantic Mapping and Etymology

This article discusses the two terms that convey the concept of taboo in Raga, the language of north‐central Vanuatu originally spoken in north Pentecost, and provides linguistic evidence expanding on the information published previously by the anthropologists Masanori Yoshioka and John Patrick Taylor. Based on the corpus collected in north Pentecost in the period 2015–2017, and on older ethnographic and religious written material, a semantic map is proposed for the two taboo‐related Raga terms: sabuga and gogona. Reviewing the terms that designate the concept of ‘taboo’ in the neighbouring languages, the study also explores the possibility of borrowing and semantic interference from other languages, and proposes that sabuga is a reflex of Proto Oceanic *tabu, albeit an irregular reflex, and gogona a reflex of Proto North and Central Vanuatu*kona ‘sacred, taboo’.     

The Carnival of Custom: Land Dives,Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the aestheticization and commoditization of culture in specific grand rituals held in Vanuatu. Through political, commercial and juridical processes, the traditional referent of these neo‐ritualizations has been replaced by a celebration of the kastom theme itself; the official value of a regional, national, and global cultural heritage. The examination of two iconic rituals, the Nagol land dive on Pentecost island and the 15th February annual commemoration of John Frum on Tanna island, reveals them as similarly invoking a Christian and colonially inspired reverence in their idealization of an ancestral past. Nevertheless, the increasing monetarization of village communities through the global promotion of kastom spectacles by media and for touristic purposes is ever more frequently considered locally as a factor of inequality or division.