Vanuatu's Very Active Volcano and John Frum Movement

As we explained in the last blog about Vanuatu, it is a pacific island nation. After we spent some time with the Namba people on the island of Malekula, we opted to take a puddle jumper airplane (grass landing strips and all) to check out the island of Tanna. We are told that this island may have been featured on a few television programs like "Lost," but despite any popularity, we had the place to ourselves.

As we've mentioned, we prefer to make arrangements "on-the-go," and fortunately, this was possible in Vanuatu because of their language of Bislama, a pigeon English with a vocabulary of around 8000 English and French words. Although very difficult to understand at times, the language was fascinating to study! Kelsi was so happy when an elderly man was surprised at how well she was hiking and shook (almost broke) her hand, excitedely saying "Yu SmatFalla!" ("You are a smart fellow!"). Here are a few common phrases and translations, complete with the original spelling as used by the people of Vanuatu:

Bae/Me lukem yu (Bye / Me look you (See you later))
Tankyu to mas (Thank you too much)
Nem blong mi Kelsi (Name Belong Me is Kelsi)

Here is a sign about AIDS prevention in the Bislama "pigeon english." See if you can get the meaning:

After a late landing on the Vanuatu island of Tanna and a night's rest in the island's main town (a sparse collection of a dozen buildings), we again thumbed a ride to Tanna's volcanic back country to see the famous and terrifyingly explosive Mount Yassur. We first had to cross a swollen river from the huge rains (it is rainy season here). Two big local guys helped Kelsi cross the waist deep raging river, while Rusty was able to cross with the help of one other guy. No other travelers were around since in the main town everyone was spreading news that the river wasn't crossable. That was partially true, but we like the adventure of figuring out how to make things work. The group of locals on the river's edge cheered for us when we made it. We had to leave all our bags behind with a villager so we wouldn't destroy our stuff if we fell into the river, so we spent the rest of the day and following night with nothing but the wet clothes we wore and our camera that we put in layers of all our baggies inside a pocket of Kelsi's rainjacket.

The climb up the steep, slipping and crumbly west slope of this volcano was scary enough, but nothing could prepare us for the exploding duel cauldrons of Mount Yassur, which often shot huge chunks of glowing, molten magma high over our heads. Although Kelsi claims that Rusty just caught her by surprise in this snapshot, it is pretty obvious (to Rusty) that she wasn't exactly relaxing into the experience:


After sliding and skiing back down the ash slopes of Mount Yassur, we hiked over to a nearby village where the locals are renowned for practicing a very interesting religion known as "John Frum." The John Frum movement is classified by some academics as a "cargo cult" which was developed as the islanders saw the inexplicable riches of cargo materializing into the hands of the European colonizers.

The John Frum movement took root when a man named John turned up and announced himself to the locals and told them that they would prosper if the Europeans departed and they returned to their traditional "Kastom" ways.  In some popular accounts, he wrote them a letter which ended in the signature of From, John, which the elders transcribed as "John Frum," and thus was a religion born.

In the beginning of the John Frum movement, the Vanuatuans used black magic, chanting, and dancing. During world war II, more cargo riches than ever began to pour into their lands. In response, they altered a few of their traditions and began to mimic many of the soldiers activities. The Vanuatuans reasoned that this must be the "magic" responsible for materializing the cargo riches they were seeing.

They cleared jungle and created bamboo airplanes and watch towers to "lure in" airplanes filled with cargo. They built bamboo wharfs to lure in ships with cargo from the sea, and even created a bamboo radio tower to send out orders for goods. The radio orders were sent using bamboo-made microphones and earphones which the chief would wear with a cord attached to an "oracle," which was generally an elderly village woman who would babble in response to the chief's orders.

To some of the John Frum people, the arrival of the Americans was a fulfillment of the John Frum prophecy. From that point on, the John Frum movement began to incorporate American Uniforms as their official clergy dress, sing traditional lyrics set to American battle hymns, and ceremoniously raise the American flag each morning.

Kelsi and I were greeted very warmly by the John Frum village, and personally received by the movement's leader, Chief Issak Wan. He not only took time to introduce us to his tribesmen and explain the religion, but even invited us to spend the night with him and participate in the Friday night singing and flag ceremonies the next morning. Friday night is the John Frum's "Sabbath", and we thoroughly enjoyed joining them for their all-night sing/dance along from Friday 6 pm until Saturday 6 am. The band was a gifted group of singing guitarists and drummers, and the villagers were equally talented singers and dancers. We especially enjoyed seeing the small children's natural sense of rhythm as they danced and clapped to the music ALL NIGHT LONG.


At 8am in the morning, we witnessed the morning flag ceremony, where the tribesmen marched like soldiers, even donning US army uniforms, and raised the American flag up over their village.

Rusty and Chief Issak Wan with the American flag and one of the US Military flags in the background.

Incidentally, Chief Issak Wan told us that he was taken to the US for a visit of LA, Atlanta, DC and a couple other places by some John Frum supporters. He said that it was terrifying with all the traffic and planes . . . This coming from a man who lives in the shadow of an active volcano that has constant 10 minute intervals of ground shaking explosions - on a calm day. Not to mention the "shark bay" practically in his back yard. We even saw the glow of the volcano in the background from his village music and dance evening.