Oh My Vanuatu - Translation woes

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Who could resist buying this, right? ;)

All Mixed Up 3 - Marriage

The following is part 3 in a series considering the ways in which Vanuatu finds itself in a somewhat precarious position culturally, as it straddles the fence between the old ways and the new. I will repeat the opening paragraph of the first post, and then share the rather mixed up scenario surrounding the concept of marriage in Vanuatu. 

History records that Europeans first made landfall in these isles back in 1606 (at which time the archipelago was known as the New Hebrides), but “Westerners” didn’t begin immigrating until the mid-1800s (primarily as missionaries and farmers seeking plantation land). In 1906, the English and French initiated a dual condominium government presence in Vanuatu. Then, during the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of American troops passed through Vanuatu. These influences, along with the general progression of the world-society, have contributed substantially to the current state of the Vanuatu’s otherwise very traditional culture. It would seem that the country now finds itself in a rather precarious position, perhaps not unlike a prepubescent teen caught between the two worlds of childhood and adulthood. This all makes for an interesting “mix.” In this series of posts, I want to share some of the ways in which locals (especially Christians) are struggling to sort out where they fit in these mixed up parts of societal life. 

With people from other cultures come other traditions. One of the greatest difficulties for a missionary to a foreign land is to determine what of his teaching is truly biblical and what is merely cultural (because, based on one’s own experience alone, the two are practically inseparably joined). I have talked previously about the introduction of physical adornment and language practices, and now want to consider the introduction of marriage customs.

Thankfully, the once commonly accepted practice of polygamy has all but died out in Vanuatu, so we have not had to deal with that (*yet). But perhaps you can imagine our confusion when someone introduces us to their “husband,” only to subsequently inform us that they are not yet “married.” Huh? Don’t those sort of go together? For starters, Bislama is somewhat like Greek in that there are not different words for man and husband, or woman and wife - rather, context determines the meaning. Nonetheless, “man blong mi” (i.e. the man that belongs to me) still clearly indicates the idea of “husband.” So, can a couple actually be “husband and wife” without being “married” to one another?

The confusion stems, I believe, from at least two sources. First, early missionaries (circa mid-19th century) brought with them a sacramental view of marriage that says the joining of two people must of necessity be exercised by church leadership, and therefore cannot be enjoined by the non-clergy. Second is the fact that centuries-old traditions that have lost practically all cultural-relevance (due in large part to the Westernization of the people) are stubbornly held on to by many.

Thus, an otherwise committed couple is viewed as not married so long as they fail to submit to a “blessing marriage” ceremony performed by a church official. Furthermore (and sometimes in conjunction to this failure), some couples are viewed as unmarried unless and until the husband pays the customary bride price to the woman’s family. Traditionally, the price was paid in items deemed valuable under the custom economy (e.g. woven mats, kava, yams, pigs, etc.), but with time currency became the norm (though obviously much less accessible). While the government has set a limit of 80,000 vatu (approx. US$850) for the bride price, families still regularly set an amount as high as 200,000 vatu. Especially for those sustenance farmers living in the village, this is a practically impossible standard to meet. And since there are practically no repercussions for beginning a family together without paying the bride price, a majority of modern couples simply choose to fall into the “husband-and-wife-but-not-yet-married” category.

The question is, are these couples married or living in fornication? If married (i.e. joined together by God), then they need to understand that fact and speak accordingly - “we are married.” If fornication, they need to married (again, joined by God), but the mixed up culture has so obscured the definition of marriage that folks sometimes assume it to be practically unattainable. Confusion abounds.

The antidote is, of course, teaching what the Bible says about marriage, no more and no less. But even that is easier said than done when you are teaching in the face of centuries of tradition (both foreign and domestic, secular and religious). It can be enough to make your head spin! And I haven’t even mentioned the difficulties associated with the fact that male-initiated adultery, teenage fornication, and rampant divorce have become so expected as to now be culturally acceptable. Sin is, indeed, an ugly and damaging thing.

All Mixed Up 2 - Language

This is part 2 in a series considering the ways in which Vanuatu finds itself in a somewhat precarious position culturally, as it straddles the fence between the old ways and the new. I shared some things about physical adornment in my last post. I will repeat the opening paragraph of that post first, and then briefly consider a particular struggle currently being experienced in regard to language. 

History records that Europeans first made landfall in these isles back in 1606 (at which time the archipelago was known as the New Hebrides), but “Westerners” didn’t begin immigrating until the mid-1800s (primarily as missionaries and farmers seeking plantation land). In 1906, the English and French initiated a dual condominium government presence in Vanuatu. Then, during the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of American troops passed through Vanuatu. These influences, along with the general progression of the world-society, have contributed substantially to the current state of the Vanuatu’s otherwise very traditional culture. It would seem that the country now finds itself in a rather precarious position, perhaps not unlike a prepubescent teen caught between the two worlds of childhood and adulthood. This all makes for an interesting “mix.” In this series of posts, I want to share some of the ways in which locals (especially Christians) are struggling to sort out where they fit in these mixed up parts of societal life. 

Vanuatu is said to be the most linguistically diverse country (per capita) in the world, with each individual region possessing its own unique language, resulting in some 150 total languages for a population of only 250,000. Bislama serves as the lingua franca and, alongside English and French, is one of Vanuatu’s official languages. Bislama is an ever-changing language. For instance, the word ending -em signifies a verb, e.g. sanem, laekem, givim (send, like, give), and in recent years words like textem and emailem (texting and emailing) have cropped up with the introduction of cell phones throughout the islands.

The “pidgin English” of Bislama came about as a result of “blackbirding” (the practice of “coercing” islanders into slavery-type situations on plantations in Fiji, Australia and other parts of the Pacific) several hundred years ago, which caused many different Pacific islanders to be thrown together under English-speaking captors. Needing a way to communicate with each other, they pieced together parts of their own languages, joining them to the English language which surrounded them (necessity is the mother of invention).

The mix-up, in this particular case, comes from the fact that the trade language was formulated by non-English speakers who learned how to speak from sailors and slave traders. As you might can imagine, there are therefore words that reference various body parts, body functions and sexual acts that are quite offensive to native-English speakers, but that are very acceptable (and sometimes the exclusive term available) in Bislama.

Shawnda and I coach our children regularly about the differences in acceptability between the languages, with extra caution being applied before traveling to America. We still find ourselves grimacing when others use this category of words, and feel even worse when forced by the cultural context to use them ourselves (with even the Bislama translation of the Bible saying things in ways that make us blush). I also struggle in my attempts to discuss the application-side of passages like Ephesians 5:4.

Of course, God understands, and we do our best to balance the two sides, but it’s certainly something that we didn’t necessarily anticipate when came over as “green” Americans armed with little to no cross-cultural communication skills. Culture is an amazing thing, and the longer I am here the more I understand the relationship between knowing and appreciating the culture, and the ultimate success of our “mission.” Both Jesus (Phil 2:6,7) and Paul (1Cor 9:19-23) practiced an incarnational ministry, wherein they sought to let others know how much they cared before expecting others to care how much they knew. God help us as we strive (struggle?) to contextualize ourselves and His enduring gospel to our present cultural environment.

Part 3 upcoming…

All Mixed Up 1 - Physical Adornments

History records that Europeans first made landfall in these isles back in 1606 (at which time the archipelago was known as the New Hebrides), but “Westerners” didn’t begin immigrating until the mid-1800s (primarily as missionaries and farmers seeking plantation land). In 1906, the English and French initiated a dual condominium government presence in Vanuatu. Then, during the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of American troops passed through Vanuatu. These influences, along with the general progression of the world-society, have contributed substantially to the current state of the Vanuatu’s otherwise very traditional culture. It would seem that the country now finds itself in a rather precarious position, perhaps not unlike a prepubescent teen caught between the two worlds of childhood and adulthood. This all makes for an interesting “mix.” In this series of posts, I want to share some of the ways in which locals (especially Christians) are struggling to sort out where they fit in these mixed up parts of societal life. 

Before proceeding, I think it important to admit that one of the primary sources of confusion has come from missionaries who have come in and not only sought to convert locals to Christ and His kingdom, but have simultaneously mixed in their own cultural practices as if they too were gospel. For instance, a wikipedia author states of a particular 19th century missionary that “he spent the rest of his life there, working to convert the inhabitants to Christianity and western ways” (emphasis mine). In fact, looking back, I see scenarios in which we too have been guilty of such (in spite of the fact that we came specifically planning not to promote “Americanism”).

I begin this series considering physical adornment (i.e. clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, etc.). The full spectrum of this category is represented in Vanuatu. There are still a few remote villages that proudly maintain purely kastom dress - grass skirts and no top for the females, and merely a nambas (the creative use of a couple of leaves) for the males. These communities are few and far-between, and to my knowledge little-to-no (effective) evangelistic work has been done in these villages. In a sense, kastom is their religion. On the other extreme, and about as uncommon, are those who dress in almost audaciously-Western garb - oversized sunglasses, large leather handbags, very tight/revealing skirts and shirts for the women, and shined shoes, neckties, and product-infused hair for men (many young men are also heavily influenced by the American “rap” culture, and seek to dress accordingly - caps pulled low, large jewelry, baggy clothing, gold teeth, basketball shoes, etc.). 

In most villages, especially those on islands outside Efate (where the capital city of Port Vila is located), there remains an unwritten taboo against women wearing trousers (long or short). The clothing of choice is the Island (aka “Mother Hubbard”) Dress. History says that this style of dress was introduced into Vanuatu in the late 19th century by missionaries highly offended by the scantly clad women they encountered throughout the country. [On that note, there was an insightful comic in the local newspaper several years ago, which was drawn in two windows. The first was captioned “1856” and caricatured a smartly-dressed European missionary couple aghast at the brevity of clothing the local men and women wore, embarrassingly offering a set of “more proper” clothing to them. The second was captioned “2006” and showed a ni-Vanuatu couple walking along the beach dressed in the type of clothing they had been presented a century and a half earlier, embarrassingly crossing paths with a couple of Europeans running on the beach proudly displaying their speedo and bikini. “My how times have changed” it noted.] Some villagers today still see a woman wearing trousers as a great and significant offense, while others have become conditioned to accept it without question (though even these would still have standards against inappropriately brief or tight clothing).

Aelan dres blong Vanuatu

I was at a wedding ceremony recently where a local Christian (who was visiting town from one of the outer islands) asked me if I thought it was appropriate for the women to twist, braid, or otherwise decorate their hair. Modern ni-Vanuatu marriage ceremonies will be the topic of another post in this series, but here I emphasize the uncertainty of the acceptability within the culture for women to fix their hair in non-traditional (read: Western) ways. Some accept it without hesitation, whereas others are quite uncomfortable with it, assuming it to communicate something rather less than desirable. Too, I have been asked many times over the past 9 years whether the wearing of jewelry or having tattoos are at all acceptable. For tourism purposes, many otherwise “modern” villages participate in custom dances where only traditional clothing is worn (thus basically naked), and many question the appropriateness of Christians participating or watching these events.

This mis-mash of beliefs and standards makes Vanuatu a difficult place for a Christian to ascertain what is right, especially when the populace has become so transient (villagers visiting town regularly). While there are biblically-mandated standards regarding our dress and other ornamentation, culture certainly plays a significant role in determining the acceptability of many practices. When society itself is so “up in the air” regarding what is and is not appropriate, it forces us to really think through things (especially when those of “us” who are often called upon to provide counsel in such disputes are not in our original culture to begin with). As Christians, we all have to walk the balance between Christian influence, cultural sensitivity, and personal freedom. And currently, that is a fairly difficult venture for ni-Vanuatu Christians.

It becomes abundantly clear that the cross-cultural worker must, if he is to be truly effective (regardless of whether is task is educational, agricultural, health, financial or religious), have a proper respect for the cultural nuances with which the locals are dealing. An understanding of cultural anthropology is not easy, especially in a dynamic society, but it is an undertaking that will ultimately pay rich dividends.