Going to See Sandroing in the National Museum of Vanuatu

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When I was forced to change my travel plans from the Great Barrier Reef to Vanuatu, I quickly looked up things to do there. Aside from its UNESCO Heritage Site and Espiritu Santo, I didn’t know much else about Vanuatu. But I knew from experience that just because you don’t know much about a country, doesn’t mean that it has fewer interesting things than countries you hear about often. And sure enough, after trawling through relatively generic island holiday itineraries on Pinterest, I stumbled upon one that described sandroing.

I was intrigued. The whorls and lines of the sand drawings seemed intricate, but they’re also supposed to have meaning behind them. The art form is recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

I wondered how often they held a sandroing demonstration at the Vanuatu National Museum. It seemed like an art that had to be experienced in person. Or perhaps, maybe there would at least be finished examples of sandroing there. Whatever, I thought. I’ll just get there, and I’m sure I can figure it out.

Discovering sandroing

So what’s sandroing? And why does the Vanuatu name for it sound exactly like what it is – a sand drawing?

To explain the second part, that’s because Bislama, the official language of Vanuatu, is basically a pidgin language primarily based on English. There are Melanesian and French words in the vocabulary, but it is mostly English with very simplified grammar. I suppose it’s like if Malaysians made Manglish our official language. But unlike Manglish, which is just speaking English with Asian grammar and loan words, the reason why so much of Bislama vocabulary is English, has a sad history.

Nonetheless, it does explain why sandroing sounds exactly like sand drawing.

As for what sandroing is, it is basically a Vanuatu storytelling art. The drawing is made while a story is narrated, for example when a parent is teaching children a cultural concept. As he gives the lesson, he will draw on the sand without pause. The lines curve around and around, extending out and back on itself, until it becomes a symmetrical drawing that ties together the lecture with symbolism.

Where to see sandroing in Port Vila

Most people would visit Vanuatu via the capital, Port Vila. This is the most convenient place to be if you want to see sandroing. The National Museum of Vanuatu is located here, opposite the Vanuatu Parliament. It’s not directly opposite, though, but off to the side next to the National Library. There are sandroing performances at the museum, but it seems the guides who can do the sandroings are only there in the mornings.

It took me three tries until I was finally successful. The Vanuatu National Museum was among the places I went to on my first walk to orient myself after arriving in Port Vila. However, it happened to be a Vanuatu public holiday, so the museum was closed.

I went again the following day. For reasons I cannot remember, I arrived a little past noon. The museum was open, but the museum staff on duty informed me that the sandroing guide had left for the day. The duty staff was a well-spoken Ni-Vanuatu man, with a scholarly manner universal to museum curators everywhere.

“Why don’t you get a ticket now anyway? I can show you around. Keep the ticket and come back on Saturday, you can see the sandroing show and won’t have to pay again.” Apparently, a cruise ship would dock in Port Vila later in the week, and there would be a performance on Saturday for the cruise ship tourists. I agreed to his suggestion and paid the 1,500vt.

Vanuatu National Museum

It was my first time visiting a museum for Melanesian culture. In fact, Vanuatu was the first Melanesian country I visited. I didn’t know what to expect. But after my past trips further into the Pacific, I wondered how much of Vanuatu culture would likewise be familiar to a Malaysian.

The answer is mixed. Part of the artefacts reminded me of our Borneo peoples, yet others bore no similarity at all. I don’t know if the museum would be as interesting to other foreigners, but as a Malay and Malaysian, I found my first experience of Melanesian culture fascinating.

In fact, it reinforced a feeling that I had since my first day, that even though Vanuatu is clearly very different from Malaysia, something about its worldview awakened a sense of kinship in me, such that I found it much easier to describe the country using my native language rather than English. It was the first of my casual Facebook travel albums where I share my trips with my friends, where I posted primarily in Malay and only secondarily in English.

That in itself was fascinating, because Vanuatu showed those things to me using English! It’s just that where they seemed vague, I could guess what the original might be, because we struggle with translating it too! And there were cultural anecdotes that translate far more satisfyingly in Malay, but loses colour in English. To this day, I still ponder why it was Vanuatu that made me feel this way, rather than any other country, even in my own region.

Tamtam, the beduk of Vanuatu

The slit drums drew my attention immediately as I went further into the museum. At the time, I didn’t know they were slit drums. But I did connect them with similar standing wooden poles that I had seen on my walks around Port Vila. They were tall and slender, often irregularly shaped rather than fully straight. Though some were hollow, others were not, but both types were carved.

The ones in the museum were exceptionally tall. It took some doing to find an angle to get all of it in frame. I asked the guy what they were for. Finally, I would find out what these things were.

As he explained its use to me, a light bulb came on in my head. Beduk! Or rather, ketuk ketuk, since beduk or bedug now normally means just the hide drum. In Malaysia, both are now rarely found. But tamtam are still common in Vanuatu. Every tribe has their own design, he said, and does not have the right to copy another’s. Tamtam were erected in front of the house lawn, as visitors were expected to drum upon it to let the household know they had company.

Tamtam: Doorbell, drum, telegraph, now also church bells

“So, every house has one,” I concluded.

“Not every house,” he corrected me. “Every family.” For a family yard may consist of several houses. But that wasn’t all. They also used the tamtam as a musical instrument, for village dances.

There was a proper way for to drum as well. A visitor drums a rhythm specific to their own village, so that the host family knows roughly where the visitor was from. He demonstrated his own village’s signature.

“And also, to send messages to other people. For example, to tell others that someone has died,” he continued. “In the past, it was very difficult to travel from place to place. You know why? Because of this.” He made a gesture. “In the past, cannibalism was very common. So people send messages with this.” Yep, there sure was no such thing as solo travel back then.

He demonstrated what that rhythm might sound like. “Three times.”

I gasped. Though it was not exactly the same, the thumping rhythm – slower at the beginning, then gathering pace before tapering – sounded very like the striking of beduk still used in the more traditional mosques in Malaysia. “It’s… like… our beduk. But we don’t use it anymore. For us, we only use it to call people to come and pray.”

“Yea yea, that’s it,” he quickly replied with excitement. “Same, same thing. And also we call people to come pray or for meeting, this one. Do you also use this for meeting?” he asked. But he continued before I could reply, “In the church, this is how they did the gong for calling to church.” And the rhythm resembled ours even more.

Vanuatu’s surprising diversity

The next thing that struck me was the surprising diversity of Vanuatu. You wouldn’t think it, for a population only somewhere above 300,000. But there are so many, many different nations and tribes in Vanuatu. And they weren’t necessarily just slightly different tribes but broadly similar in culture either. The cultures could be totally different. To give an idea, there are 120 languages in Vanuatu. 120!

There are tribes where men and women have different money. As in, what is used as ‘money’ is different for men and women. There are those for whom coming of age for boys involves jumping off a tower, with only their ankles tied to liana – this custom was the inspiration for bungee jumping. And that isn’t even the only tower-based custom across Vanuatu!

Having to go twice to the museum turned out to be lucky. I got more interpretation from the sandroing guide, while we waited for the cruise ship group. I learned that boys are circumcised in Vanuatu, but this had been their practice even before they embraced Christianity. Edgar considered it to mean that Vanuatu people were already on the right way, even before Christian teachings reached them.

Everyday items of Melanesian culture

The section for everyday culture artefacts felt strange, like they ought to be familiar but at the same time aren’t. The hair combs looked like something our orang asli might make, for instance, except I’ve seen their combs and they’re not the same.

The woven baskets look the same as Southeast Asia. Later in the market, a basket seller told me that the pandanus were even imported from Indonesia nowadays, because the local supply is too slow. She asked whether we also call it pandanus; I told her in Malaysia, we’re more specific. We use pandan for the fragrant kind. The weaving kind, we call mengkuang.

Jewellery, money – all were made from the shells of snails and clams. A pair of thousand-year old clam shell bangles, bone white and still intact. Archaeological digs had found fairly advanced Lapita pottery, some of which were on display. Nearby was a display of strange-looking spears and clubs. And while the musical section had familiar instruments, there were also those that I could never have guessed how to play.

Death custom in Vanuatu

Many displays had labels or text that don’t fully explain the context. And maybe that’s asking too much from copy writing, when these things have probably always relied on oral transmission. But on my last visit, the sandroing elder led me to a part of the exhibit related to death customs that I hadn’t understood before. And they were unlike any I had heard of before.

For starters, in Vanuatu there is no importance attached to keeping the body intact. In hindsight, I guess this makes sense for a cannibalistic society. A belief that the body is just meat and bones after the soul departs is compatible with eating it, after all. When someone dies, they wrap the deceased’s body in woven mats, and leave it to decompose.

However, while the flesh isn’t important, the bones are. These are recovered following decomposition and arranged in a cairn. Skulls are especially important, and the skulls of leaders are specifically collected, for a tribe with many eminent skulls controls more territory. It was at that point that I wondered whether I have, in fact, heard of a similar culture, and whether the Iban headhunters thought the same.

Watching a sandroing show

I made sure to arrive nice and early on Saturday. A small stage had been set up in the museum hall, woven mats laid upon it. The flag of Vanuatu hung as the backdrop – red and green and black, bordered in yellow and black pall, and a yellow circular boar tusk upon the black chevron with crossed cycad fronds inside.

On the floor before the stage was another mat with a small shallow ‘sandbox’ on it. I guessed that it was for the sandroing demonstration. Rather than bringing the people to the sand, they brought enough sand to the people.

The museum staff acknowledged my ticket and introduced me to an elderly Melanesian man. He was dressed in the native way, which to me seemed nearly naked, for he was only covered in front and back with two knee length mats joined with a rope belt. But he had a calm and collected demeanour, moving in a way that made clear that in his context, this was fully dressed. On his feet were a pair of anklets full of shells, so that they tinkled as he walked. His hair was close-cropped, and around his neck were long necklaces of seeds and shells.

He introduced himself as Edgar from Pentecost, adding that his name in ‘his own language’ is Mata, a word that Malay people share. In fact, it’s shared throughout Polynesia from New Zealand all the way to Easter Island. But it must be ancient, this word, to be shared with Melanesia too.

“Thank you for visiting us in your second home,” said Edgar, when he learned that Malaysians, too, say ‘mata’ for eyes.

The first sandroing: cultural education

Another pair of tourists came in, also hoping to see sandroing. The cruise ship group was going to be late, Edgar told us, and suggested we wait. But the tourist couple could not wait, so Edgar decided to give us our own sandroing show.

Bidding us to be seated, he first went up to the stage. The opening act was a clarion call from a conch trumpet, followed by a welcome dance as he drummed on a kind of mini handheld tamtam. He finished with a few bars on a flute, before giving his introductory speech. Then he knelt at the sand box, and began.

In retrospect, I think I was lucky to have seen this one. The sandroing shows are different each time, you see. But for the first drawing of the day, Edgar chose to explain the cultural context of sandroing, and what they were for. He spoke of it as a mobile school.

He swept his hands across the sand as he narrated. “…after having your dinner, and lying down at night, before you go to sleep, if anybody, any relative, any neighbour…” He shook the sandbox firmly, causing his own strokes to vanish, “…want to talk about any story, he must draw or be writing evidence of it.” You can’t make a mistake in the drawing. If you did, you have to start again.

And with that, he began his sandroing. It was about love, for “Vanuatu really loves you to be here”. And indeed, right at the centre of the sandroing, was a heart.

The second sandroing: the totem animals

But the show has two sandroings, not just one. A sharp shake erases the first drawing instantly. Edgar began his second lecture, drawing again in the sand with his finger. Vanuatu is powerful only on three things, he said. “Here in Vanuatu we have the clan. Also in Vanuatu we have the tribe. But above all, we have totems.”

He described examples of totems, which I found hard to make out due to his accent. But then he mentioned octopus. “We call it hurita.” I perked up. That sounded a lot like kurita, the word Malays use.

You receive your totem animal at birth, he said, though he didn’t elaborate how. And you can’t eat your totem animal for the rest of your life, as the animal is your protective spirit. The sandroing was nearly done, depicting a sea turtle totem, or avua. He rose, explaining that at the birth of a baby, they would dance around the baby. He demonstrated how.

“Three times in a row,” he said. The first circle is for the ancestors, for though they have long gone, without them we would not be here. The second circle for those in the present, witnessing the birth, alive during the life of the child. And the third for the generation to come, who will be part of the world, but not for many years yet.

I found it insightful, that people here receive births by affirming the child’s place as a link in the continuity of generations, and giving her a spirit animal that connects her to the ecology around her. Perhaps, all sustainable cultures have beliefs that place the individual within generational time, and in relationship with nature. The theology that explains it may differ, but it needs to deliver both.

Watching another sandroing show

The mini show ended after the second sandroing. The other couple left, but Edgar told me I was welcome to wait until the next show as well. Having no other plans that morning, I lingered, taking the opportunity to ask Edgar the questions I had from my earlier visit.

While idling in the museum, I took another picture of the turtle sandroing, and pondered the performance I saw. It must take considerable practice to draw an unbroken, symmetrical design, while narrating your thoughts to an audience. In fact, watching a sandroing is almost hypnotic. I could imagine, in its original context, on a beach somewhere next to a fire at night, it would be even more so.

Perhaps, I thought, if you had to use your conscious mind to focus on the drawing, you would have to speak from your subconscious. I wonder if that is why they do it; for how could you speak untruthfully from your subconscious?

And as for the listener, watching the lines loop and spin hypnotically in the sand, you would also be remembering the message subconsciously. Indeed, had I not made recordings of the sandroings, I would not have been able to recall any detail. But I do remember the gist of the worldview from which the stories were told.

Therefore, it seems to me that sandroing is an art that has to be witnessed in motion, as it is about far more than the pretty picture you get at the end.

Vanuatu welcome dance

The cruise ship tour group was finally here. Outside, a group of men dressed similarly to Edgar organised themselves. Some of them sat by some tamtam drums, laid on their sides on the floor outside the museum. As they played a rhythm on the drums, others went with Edgar and a young boy to greet the tour group, leading them up the path to the museum.

Once at the museum, they performed a welcome dance before inviting the group inside.

The third sandroing: custom dances of Vanuatu

Lucky me! Earlier in the week, it seemed harder than expected to actually get to see sandroing. But I had come fully prepared for the unpredictability of the Pacific. And not only did I get to see sandroing, due to the lateness of the tour group, I got to see four!

Edgar began by describing the custom of dancing in Vanuatu. That dances are different for men and women and children, and cannot be done by those they aren’t meant for, as it would spoil their beauty. Half the sandroing were complete, the pattern intricate.

He went on to describe dances among what you could consider ‘fraternities’, where the men would craft and dance with masked head-dresses. The sandroing filled in on the other side, mirroring the completed side.

He shifted gears, giving the example of two men sitting together, making masks from trees that had fallen in the forest. They vowed to work with their backs to one another, so neither could copy the other, in order to show off their individual skill. His finger moved to the centre of the sandroing, drawing a pattern on the bottom.

But because they had been doing it together for so long, narrated Edgar, moving to draw an identical pattern on top, when they turned around to see the other’s mask, they were surprised, because without knowing each other’s thoughts, they had been doing the same things in every little detail of the masks.

The fourth sandroing: blackbirding

Edgar changed it up for the fourth sandroing (second, as far as the tour group was concerned). He invited a young man to the sand box. Introducing him as a sandroing art apprentice, Edgar informed us that the apprentice would demonstrate his favourite drawing, that of a blackbirding ship. I thought it was such a youthful choice, for when you are young, you are more drawn to the stories of injustice.

The young man jerked the sand box clean, and began drawing the lines of the hull, and added the masts of the ship. But he didn’t narrate, Edgar did. “The story goes like this,” he began. “Around the 16th century*, there was a very, very huge sailing boat that arrived in Vanuatu at an island called Ambrym.” And he told us a story of when they went up to shore, looking for people, and how they tricked the native people onto the boats to work in sugarcane plantations for wages that were never paid.

I wondered if Edgar chose to narrate the sandroing, while the younger man drew, for diplomatic reasons. So that neither man’s subconscious would be telling the story, given their audience of tourists.

The origin of kava

But there was more. Edgar finished the show with a short concert. Rolling in the angklung, he described it as a kind of piano. He played a song upon it, which reminded me of a student performance I once attended in Thailand, except that each bamboo ‘key’ was played by a different student rather than being assembled together as a single instrument.

Then he moved on to the flute. His first melody struck me as incredibly familiar – the Vanuatu ‘tones’ sounded very Javanese.

But these were not just songs, for they told stories too, like the sandroing. Edgar paused in between melodies to tell us more about Vanuatu culture. His final song was about kava, the sedative drink of the Pacific.

There once was a rat who was so thirsty, that it began to chew on the root of a kava plant. The people saw that it became high, nodding off to sleep here and there, and became curious. But the rat revived, and since it did not die, the people at the time concluded that the root was not poisonous. So they tried drinking from the root themselves. And thus began the tradition of drinking kava, which then spread across the Pacific.

Kava makes you peaceful, said Edgar in closing. And that is why Vanuatu continues to be a peaceful country.

Notes:

* Later, I realised that the official era of blackbirding began in the 19th century. But Edgar definitely said 16th in his sandroing narration. I wonder if he misspoke, or oral history actually dates the practice as beginning much earlier than the recorded cases.

Carbon offset information to Vanuatu

My actual flights for this trip were slightly more convoluted. However, the best way to do this trip from Kuala Lumpur in the present day with the benefit of hindsight, is via Singapore and Sydney. This is because a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney or Brisbane is more likely to result in layover time in Australia that might exceed the 8 hour visa free transit period, requiring an eTA submission which has arbitrary results nowadays. This itinerary produces carbon emissions of approximately 4,605 lbs CO2e. It costs about $37 to offset this.

An alternative itinerary is to fly to Port Vila via Auckland, which is less risky since New Zealand allows visa free transit times that are more commensurate to Pacific flight connection schedules. This route produces slightly more emissions, approximately 5,462 lbs CO2e. It costs about $44 to offset this. 

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