'The Land Will Eat You': Land and Sorcery in North Efate, Vanuatu

Abstract

In Vanuatu the word ‘sorcery’ is most closely associated with the use of blak majik (black magic) known as nakaemas in Bislama, although there is a diversity of practices consistent with the extreme linguistic and cultural diversity found across the archipelago. Nakaemas is defined in this chapter consistent with contemporary usage in North Efate, not as the broader practice of magic that is sometimes associated with discussions of sorcery or witchcraft in the academic literature, but as nefarious practices of poisoning and other magical practices that cause bodily harm and untimely deaths.1 Recent accounts of nakaemas in North Efate include incidences of poisoning, bodily possession, transformations of people into dogs and devils, control of bodies and minds and ultimately nakaemas-related deaths. Many accusations of nakaemas in North Efate occur in the context of land disputes and are made with reference to a broader cosmology of sacred power, or what I refer to here as the kastom power of place. Show more