Scary Black Magic in Vanuatu’s Tanna…..including circumcision!?
If you enjoy going back in time and meeting people whose lives have not changed in perhaps a thousand years, then Tanna, Vanuatu’s volcanic island is the place to go and its Black Magic Tour, the experience not to miss!
Be ready though to find it all a bit scary, with the initiation to the tour being a very realistic surprise…..and for that read massive shock, with our group being ambush by armed warriors, challenging us with their traditional weapons, with a great deal of shouting and spear waving – I now know how those missionaries that ended up in the cooking pot felt!
The Black Magic Tour in the highlands of Tanna Island, available through wholesalers and resorts in Tanna and it is a superb, authentic, non tourism experience, that gets you right under the skin of Tanna and the people of the islands and above all their traditions, including circumcision!
With the rituals of Black Magic on Tanna practiced by a Warrior Tribe, we experienced black magic secrets only recently revealed, with this tribe still living the same way their forefathers did hundreds of years ago.
So expect to get wet, perhaps even muddy and even rather smelly and also up close and personal with the warriors as you dance with them, before someone is chosen as Chief……and yes it was me!
I was hauled away by the warriors and I was not sure if they were going to cook me or not, or even perhaps perform a circumcision, and when they insisted I took my shirt off, it became more scary and remember this was not a sanitised hotel cultural event – this seemed rather real……and they do not speak any English!
Thank goodness, I did not appear to them to be too tasty, with the last cannibalism in Vanuatu fairly recently, but they allowed me to keep my shorts on and I was painted and gleaned in green leaves and arm bracelets and a headdress before having to wear a long grass skirt and being revealed to my people – aka the group [see above]
All of your senses will be aroused and your adrenalin will pump as you experience the Black Magic of Tanna and to join me in our Black Magic experience, click on the video box below – remember this is a fairly rough edit and compilation of a very surreal experience indeed. -
John Alwyn-Jones reporting on location from Tok Tok in Vanuatu – brought to you by Air Vanuatu
