Niyel ceremony, Yavenkula West Tanna, Vanuatu, 1991 (HD)

The Niyel ceremony is a big exchange ceremony that re-affirms social ties between lineages ('lines'). In this Niyel, Yavenkula and allies exchange yams for pigs and Kava roots with neighbouring clans. This exchange lasted all day. The visitors weree first to bring out pigs and Kava roots and Yavenkula finished by bringing out yams and lining them up for inspection. Throughout the night until the following morning the clans danced the night away competing with one another, the men fuelled by Kava beating out the dance rhythms on the hard nakamal with their feet. It is not unusual, particularly early in the dance season for the young men to dance so forcefully that they develop march haemaglobinuria and pass red urine. The older more experienced men dance more sedately! It is thought that the painting by Charles E. Gordon Frazer 'The Cannibal Feast' was of such a ceremony witnessed by him somewhere in the Port Resolution area in the late 1880s. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/1140...