Tanni Cultural Tour

Custom Attire of Tanni Males

Tanni is one of the Islands in Vanuatu.  

  The males in the Tanni culture wear the attire you see in the picture above and the Women wear long grass skirts, as seen to the right.

  The cultural tour sent us away with some interesting facts surrounding their culture:

1. 1969 was the last recorded cannibalism on the Island.

2. It is custom for women who are married to have their front teeth knocked out (I guess so no other men will look their direction).

3. They use spider webs to catch fish.  There are no poisonous spiders or snakes in Vanuatu.

4. They use ants to determine if the fish they are going to eat are poison or note (ants apparently will not eat poisonous meat).  They use to use dogs but they could not always find them....BAD!

5.  The coconut tree is considered The Tree of Life.  We were taught all the different uses of coconuts and how they store them in case of a monsoon. 

Custom Attire of Tanni Females, Basket-Weaving

  6.  Vanuatu is the last country that continues to hand weave their baskets.

7.  There apparently is no concept of age, since the instructor believes his grandmother was 160 when she died. Wow, what do you think?

8.  There are only medicine men and many different plants with purposes from delivering children to remaining malaria free.

Tasting the Mango, Coconut, and other custom treats.

Le Meredian