The island of Ureparapara in the Banks Islands group of TORBA Province, one of Vanuatu’s most northerly islands, hosted its first-ever arts festival from the 9th to the 12th of August 2005.
Hosted in Dives Bay, the village at the end of the large semi-circular bay that defines Ureparapara, the festival showcased the cultures of the people of Lehali (on the west of the island), Dives Bay and Rowa. Rowa, also known as Reef Island, was decimated by a cyclone in the early part of this century and most of its descendant population now live in Dives Bay. Rowa was the centre for shell money manufacture in this area, supplying all the surrounding islands of what is now TORBA Province with shell money in exchange for food and other valuables.
Activities ... included contemporary string band music shows, traditional games, traditional cooking and food preparation, traditional dances, story telling and singing, cultural site visits, carving and weaving demonstrations and shell-money-making demonstrations.
The 1st Ureparapara Arts Festival was officially opened by the Secretary-General of TORBA Province, Baldwin Lonsdale, after speeches by the Chairman of the Organising Committee and Festival founder, Chief Nicholson Dini, and the Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Ralph Regenvanu. Activities over the four days of the festival included contemporary string band music shows, traditional games, traditional cooking and food preparation, traditional dances, story telling and singing, cultural site visits, carving and weaving demonstrations and shell-money-making demonstrations.
A special “grade taking” ceremony to give status to men within the traditional leadership structure was performed to give the first grade (out of a total of five) to David, a Dives Bay local. This was the first time this grade-taking ceremony had been properly performed for at least a generation and signals the commitment by the community to revitalize their traditional leadership system in favor of the current “chiefly” system, which is not entirely indigenous.
At the Festival also, a meeting was held between representatives of the Cultural Centre and the Province with the descendant community of Rowa, to discuss protection of Rowa island and its resources and the revitalization of shell-money-making. It was agreed that a meeting will be held on the 9th of September in Dives Bay to bring together the descendants of the families of Rowa living on Ureparapara, Motalava and Vanualava, to enable them to agree on common objectives for the island and its resources and for the Rowa community as a distinct cultural group. The holding of this meeting – and the revitalization of shell-money-making - is one of the objectives of the “Action Plan of the Workshop to Recognise and Promote the Traditional Economy as the Basis for Achieving National Self Reliance”, the first outcome of the Cultural Centre’s “Traditional Money Banks” project.
