The most integral part of the Fanla Festival is the grade-taking ceremony. During this particular ceremony, two of the eldest chiefs will progress from grade 11 to 12 (there are 13 grades in total).
Grade taking is a hierarchical series of initiations in which greater religious, political, spiritual, and mythical authority is earned. These grades are earned over a life time and carry over into the realm of the dead.
In order to increase your grade, the man has to kill a very valuable pig. The higher the grade, the more pigs they have to kill. Pigs are the standard of value and all other values are related to the pig.
The pig’s value goes up based on its tusks. This is very sad to write and I am sure many of you will be appalled, but I am just reporting the tradition. The locals remove the upper teeth of the pig so that the lower tusks grow up and back in through the skin forming circles. This entire process takes 12-14 years.
When the pigs can no longer eat, due to the curvature of their tusks, the master will mush up its food and hand feed it.
These are considered the most valuable and are highly sought after. They are basically domesticated boars which require considerable financial wealth. These two pigs below belong to one of the chiefs who performed the grade taking ceremony today.
Deity or Man?
With each grade, the man acquires a named rank, the right to display certain insignia, the right to perform certain rituals, the right to buy and make ROM masks, and the right to wear certain plants and flowers during ceremonies.
The erection of some kind of monument or tiki or tam tam is made after each grade taking ceremony,
Once a man, usually a chief, reaches rank 10 or higher they are considered significantly wealthy and are usually powerful sorcerers. They hold much respect and prestige amongst the communities.
In Ambrym, these two men who have reached level 12 are considered living dead. They have already achieved the status of their ancestors. The red flower is a sign of power and authority and the tuskers (each wore 4 at this event) represent their high grade level.
You can easily tell the ranking or grade of the elder by the number of tuskers that they wear. At this grade level, they are paying anywhere from 200-300 tusks.
These two chiefs, at grade 12 choose to completely isolate themselves. They live in “secret” houses, they cook their own food, and they do not associate with others. Visitors are not allowed. It is considered the utmost offence to visit these chiefs who are in isolation. They can come out when they want, visit their wives and families, but they most often decide not to.
Part of the reason for the isolation is fear. They are very wealthy and have a considerable amount of power. They are afraid that someone will try to poison them. The other reason why they isolate is because they no longer wish to associate with ordinary people as they get closer to the spirit world.
The Grade Taking Ceremony
The grade taking ceremony consists of several dances including the Lepie and Bata dance. During this dance, each chief performing the grade taking goes up on a man-made platform and performs a special dance.
Then they will dance around the other nambas (men) with their special bamboo stick decorated with their specific plants to their grade.
The carvers that wish to honor these chiefs will pay great amounts of money to make ROM masks or carvings in the likeness of the chief. These artifacts are then placed in the nasara (ceremonial grounds). They are said to be filled with special powers from that chief and they help elevate him during the ceremony.
After the ceremony the figure is left on the nasara as it has already served its purpose. The supernatural power of the figure will slowly decrease as the figure disintegrates over the years.
Types of Chiefs
They have two types of chiefs: Traditional Chief and Community Chief. The traditional chief handles the ceremonial, cultural, and heritage events. Their rank is by lineage and passed down from father to son.
The community chief is selected by the community and handles the government laws. For example if someone breaks their law they will be forced to pay with a pig and will be whipped with a stinging plant.
The Guests
On the first day, we felt that the events were put on for show for the tourists. I do believe that this is truly part of their culture, but I am not sure they would have done it had it not been for the 18 white people paying for it.
However, on the second day, the day of the grade taking ceremony, over a hundred local villagers came to watch because this ceremony has not been done in most of their life times. It was a rare and beautiful gift to witness the passing of tradition and culture.
The good thing was they did not do the pig killing ceremony because the pig that was selected ran away. Thank goodness as I could not stand to watch that.
They did invite all of the guests to come up and dance with the chiefs and elders. It was surprisingly tiring stomping on the ground and chanting.
Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events. This grade taking ceremony occurred on 12 July 2024. Did you read about our black magic and sand drawing experience in our last blog?