Efate, Lelepa and Artok
Posted on 07/09/2008 9:40:21 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Vanuatu, the archipelago country in the South Pacific once known as the New Hebrides made its first splash on the world's map of cultural landmarks Monday when a UN committee put the spotlight on its famous 13th-century ruler and a gruesome burial practice of the times. UNESCO's World Heritage Site committee designated places on three islands - Efate, Lelepa and Artok - associated with the life and death of Chief Roi Mata, the islands' last paramount chief in the 1200s.
His "mass burial site" that included 25 other bodies was "closely associated with the oral traditions surrounding the chief and the moral values he espoused," the panel found.
According to the encylopaedia Britannica, Roi Mata's death was followed by an "elaborate ritual" of burying alive one man and one woman from each clan under his rule.
Although UNESCO's website did not go into such detail, it said that the new World Heritage site "reflects the convergence between oral tradition and archaeology" and bore "witness to the persistence of Roi Matas social reforms and conflict resolution, still relevant to the people of the region."
The archeologist who found the mass grave in 1967 apparently drew upon oral legend and folklore to find it.
(Excerpt) Read more at earthtimes.org ...
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Celebrate diversity.
Roi Mata: “I yam, what I yam and that’s all that I yam.”
I’m certainly proud that none of my ancestors engaged in such brutal ritual killings when a ruler was interred. They were so much more civilized...Wait...what? Celts practiced human sacrifice and buried slaves alive with their dead kings?
Never mind!
His subjects just loved him to death.
Rabid Roi
That graveyard boy
He too much for one grief
You know they gotta get an extra stack of islanders
Piled up with their buried chief
They get a couple from each clan on Efate
From Lelepa and down Artok way
So that Roi can always be a happy dirt-packed chieftain
With some graves to govern every day
Efate, Lelepa and Artok
Vanuatu .... did Olivia Newton-John perform there?
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