VANUATU: ART AND LITERATURE

Vanuatu’s early residents left behind rock drawings depicting animals, life events, and stylized ancestral spirits. These drawings were also decorated with geometric shapes. Another ancient form of art is sand art. Unlike the sand art we did as kids with layers of colored sand in a bottle, this sand art is essentially elaborate designs drawn in the sand. Sometimes they can resemble a person or animal (like turtles or fish) and are generally created around symmetrical designs (typically quatrefoil or trefoil designs). This style of sand art is included in UNESCO’s Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity list.

Ni-Vanuatu also creates a variety of crafts. Some of these include wearable crafts like shell necklaces, ankle rattles, masks, and headdresses. The masks are often decorated with feathers, tusks, leaves, and natural paints. It also includes carved arts like bowls and utensils, canoes, figurines of animals, as well as weapons like bows, arrows, clubs, and spears.

Modern European-style painting techniques were introduced by both the French and British. Today, you can find many art galleries in several of the islands showcasing local artists' works. There are also several public buildings with elaborate murals of island life and local history. One famous artist is Aloi Pilioko who is known for his colorful mural on the side of the post office in Port Vila.

The vast majority of the canon of literature from Vanuatu is steeped in the oral traditions of telling myths, legends, folk tales, and even sung poetry. These stories are passed down from generation to generation, often preserving a history of their culture. With the arrival of European missionaries, they taught the native Ni-Vanuatu written language in their schools. And they were quick to create Bibles and other dictionaries from Bislama to English and French.

Modern literature slowly cropped up in the 1960s when there was a push for a larger movement in teaching and producing South Pacific literature. And it wasn’t until the University of the South Pacific in Suva (Fiji) became the catalyst for accomplishing this major feat. Soon writing classes, literary circles, literary journals, and publishing houses were established as they created this new community of writers.

One of the most famous writers from Vanuatu is Grace Molisa. She became one of the foremost voices in feminist literature, and more specifically, poetry. Writing in both English and Bislama, she wrote quite a bit about post-colonial life in Vanuatu.

Marcel Melthérorong wrote the first novel from Vanuatu in 2007 called Tôghàn, about living in between Melanesian and European cultures. Writing in French, his novel was lauded as a fresh, new voice in French language literature. In fact, at its reissue in 2009, recent (2008) Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Jean-Marie Le Clézio added his forward to the novel.

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