Meet the natives
Sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalists of Quezon City
January 10, 2010
By Bob Guerrero
Recently I was quite smitten by the documentary series that ran on Nat Geo channel entitled “Meet The Natives.”
It stars five tribesman from the Island of Tanna, which is part of the Republic of Vanuatu on the South Pacific, west of Papua New Guinea.
The Tannese tribesmen are from the Yaohnanen tribe. The men wear little else but penis sheaths and the women go topless with grass skirts. They reside in huts, grow pigs and live on vegetables and fruits from the surrounding forests.
The show’s producers shipped off the five tribesmen, named Yapa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi, to England, where they stayed for a month. Only one of the Tannese, JJ, speaks English, and he serves as the translator for the group and the narrator of the show.
Their stay was filmed and turned into a three-part series. Hence the “natives” they are going to meet are none other than the natives of England. It’s an exercise in what could be called “reverse anthroplogy.”
In England they stay with three different families from the different social strata of that country; the working class, the middle class, and the upper class.
They start with a middle class family in rural England, who are pig farmers like them. They live in a spacious, clean, house which the tribesmen find remarkably cluttered. “They have so many things they don’t need,” one of them remarks.
The group also visited the pigs in the pig farm and were surprised at how large they were. But one aspect of pig rearing in England shocked them; artificial insemination. Their host showed them a large plastic receptacle of pig semen that had been shipped in. The receptacle was in the form of a penis, and was to be used for impregnating the sows.
“But what if the female pig is not satisfied?” asked one of the tribesmen.
“Well, she better be satisfied with it, because that’s all she’s going to get!” answered the Englishman with a laugh.
The natives were appalled at the practice, saying it was “against nature.” However they enjoyed their stay at the middle-class home and regaled their host family and their friends with a traditional Tannese dance in full costume.
Next stop was to Manchester, where the group stayed with a mixed-race working class couple. There they washed a car, drank beer, played darts, enjoyed videoke, and walked down the busy streets of the city.
There they saw homeless people for the first time and were dumbfounded. In Tanna, one of them explained, everyone has a home no matter what. The entire village joins in to help build a home for a new family, without any expectation of payment. Sort of a South Pacific bayanihan practice. They simply could not comprehend how some could not have homes in spite of the obvious wealth of the city.
The Tannese were also touched when they heard the story of the brother of the their host, who was once homeless himself. His testimony drives one of the tribesman to tears and they all embrace him.
The Tannese tribesmen are relentlessly cheerful and friendly. They have smiles perpetually planted on their faces and are always ready for a laugh. They find it very odd how people in the modern world seem so fixated with work.
In one scene they take a walk during rush hour in the center of London. The cheeriest of the lot, Albi, remarks “look at them, they are all walking so fast. And none of them is smiling.” Naturally he has been smiling at the strangers all along.
According to my research on the Internet, the island of Vanuatu recently won a “happiest country on earth” contest.
The last family they visit is an upper class family living in a castle. The head of the family, an elderly duke with white hair and a genteel accent, shows them all the medieval implements in the castle. They also have a white-tie dinner with other aristocrats. The dinner ends with the tribesmen once again giving a traditional dance while wearing their tribal attire.
The group also attends a British foxhunt. But it’s a politically correct hunt where no foxes are actually hunted. Instead the hounds follow an off-road vehicle that mechanically places fox paw prints on the earth instead. Naturally it’s all rather strange for the Tribesmen.
The show is full of humorous moments when the tribesmen struggle with the strange new world and everything about it. But there is also remarkable insight into how bizarre our world really has become. How twisted our values are, how we spend so much time on the strangest things, and how enjoying life seems to have taken a back seat. It was a truly absorbing show and I watched it religiously.
But the story doesn’t end there. The Yaohnanen tribe have one more peculiar trait. Their religion is what is known as a cargo cult known as the Prince Philip Movement. They worship Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, as the son of God.
This belief started in 1970 when Philip visited Vanuatu and was feted by the locals. The Yaohnanen chief, Jack Naiva, supposedly saw the Prince all dressed in white and enthused that he must be the Messiah that their faith had been promising them.
The tribe eventually sent Prince Philip a traditional club. The prince sent back a photo of him holding that club on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. That photo has become an icon to the tribe.
The Tribesman also believe that the people of Tanna and the Englishmen were once one people, and that Prince Philip will one day come home to Tanna, his true birth place, and reign over a world of peace, love and understanding.
The tribesmen speak about their belief earnestly to the Englishmen and Englishwomen they meet. Their faith is unshakeable and sincere. It’s amusing to see the English, polite as ever, struggle to put up a brave face through it all and instead smile and comment at how interesting that belief is.
Incredibly, through their connections with the aristocratic gent whose castle they stayed in, the tribespeople finagle an audience with the Prince themselves.
They can barely contain their glee as they dress up in off-the-rack suits and ties. The day arrives and they have a special meeting with the Prince, off-camera, where a new picture is taken with the balding Son of God and the entire group.
Eventually they go home to Tanna, and tell of their month abroad to an enthusiastic village.
For me what the show impressed on me most was how strong their faith was. They truly believed in the deity of Prince Philip.
Their religion may seem like quackery to us, but in reality, it’s no stranger than any other religion on earth. Mormons believe that their founder, Joseph Smith, found several ancient golden plates featuring writings from American prophets. Smith was directed to these writings by the Angel Moroni, who prodded him to translate these plates into a book that became the foundation of Mormonism. That sounds far-fetched yet millions believe it.
Muslims affirm Muhammad was given the word of God in a cave in Arabia through the Angel Gabriel over 23 years. It was transcribed into what is now known as the Koran. Strange, but true for billions around the world.
Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret Revelation 14 to mean that the number of Christians going to heaven is limited to precisely 144,000, who will rule with Jesus as kings and priests over earth. The remainder have the hope of living forever in an earthly paradise. Bizarre? Try telling that to a witness.
And those crazy Christians? Well they believe that this dude Jesus, magically born from a woman who never even had sex, is the son of God. Their God is absolutue love, but he must have been a pretty vindictive guy because he still needed the bloody sacrifice of his own son, as payment for the world’s sins. Every Sunday, they chow down on their God and quaff his blood.
But these beliefs have a purpose. To bring hope and joy to people. To give them a sense of purpose. To give their lives meaning.
Every religion I know of has an eschatological, or end-of-time component, where they world as we know it ends with a God triumphing over evil and creating a world of lasting peace, or with a heaven full of happiness and joy.
In other words, there’s always a happy ending. Religion is Disney, not film noir.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I may not believe in Virgin births or gold-plates, whispering angels, blue-eyed princes or an exact number of heavenly occupants.
But I do believe that my faith gives me strength. Gives me a reason to wake up every morning and give this world another whirl. Gives me the hope to carry on.
I believe in a God but I also believe in the power of humanity as a force of good. An optimism that somehow we have in our hands the capability to effect a greater world.
That is my faith. As a native of the UU tribe of in the island of Facebook in 2010, I affirm this. I hope you don’t find it the least bit strange.