Birds and Kastom Banyans of South Pentecost: Kastom in AntiColonial Struggle

Abstract

In the traditionalist villages of south Pentecost, kastom has long been a bulwark against European influences, both Christian and secular. However, their retention of the famous gol land dive ritual has brought the south Pentecost people under pressure from tourism, whose great allure masks the risks of a rise of kastom as commodity, packaged for sale, and of the erosion of kasfom's centrality as living practice. Pressures to conform to a pure kastom (i.e. unadulterated by any non-indigenous elements) distort the realities of a dynamic kastom that has long incorporated useful elements of alien material culture into everyday living.