Culture
Kastom in Vanuatu: Customary Law, Knowledge and Ceremony
The body of custom, knowledge, rule and ceremony that governs land, standing and participation, island by island.
What the word covers
Kastom is the Bislama word for customary law, practice and knowledge. It covers land tenure, rank, marriage, dispute settlement, ceremony and the ownership of songs, designs and stories. It is not a single national system: it is local, and what holds on Tanna does not necessarily hold on Ambrym.
Kastom as law
The 1980 constitution names custom as a source of law and returned all land to customary owners. That is why land in Vanuatu is leased and never sold outright, and why a dispute over a boundary may be settled by chiefs sitting in the village. The Malvatumauri, the National Council of Chiefs, has a formal constitutional role.
Knowledge is owned
A design, a dance, a story or a technique generally belongs to someone — a family, a clan, a grade. Permission to perform or reproduce it is given, not assumed. This is the reason a request to photograph a ceremony may be refused without further explanation, and the refusal is the answer.
Grade-taking
In much of the north and centre, a man's standing is built through a sequence of grades, each marked by a ceremony involving pigs — particularly boars with curved tusks, which take years to produce and are the reason the tusk appears on the national flag. Women hold parallel systems in several places.
Visiting
Kastom villages receive visitors in many parts of the country, and the arrangement is made with the community itself. What is shown is decided by them.
The Malvatumauri
The National Council of Chiefs has a constitutional role: it advises on any matter concerning custom and tradition and may be consulted on legislation touching it. It is not a ceremonial body. Where a land dispute or a question of customary title arises, its view carries weight that no ministry can simply override.
Land
Article 73 of the constitution returned all land to customary owners at independence. In practice that means land is leased — typically for 50 or 75 years — and the underlying title never leaves the custom owner. Every resort, plantation and shop in the country sits on a lease, and when a lease expires the land returns.
Identifying who the custom owner actually is can take years, because ownership may belong to a whole line of descent and may be contested between groups with equally good customary claims. This is the single most persistent source of litigation in Vanuatu.
Kastom and the courts
Village and island courts apply customary process to disputes that would elsewhere be criminal or civil matters. A settlement typically involves exchange — pigs, mats, kava — and a public restoration of relations instead of a punishment. The state courts recognise these outcomes in a range of circumstances.
Where the limits are
The constitution also guarantees fundamental rights, and the interaction between those and customary practice is a live legal question, particularly on matters of gender and of punishment. Vanuatu resolves it case by case, not by declaring one system superior.
Kastom and money
Grade-taking, bride price and dispute settlement all run on pigs and mats, and the two economies are not interchangeable. A man with money and no pigs cannot buy standing, and that is deliberate.
North and south are not the same system
Saying kastom is local is precise, not a hedge. Across much of the north and centre a man's standing is built through a graded sequence, each step marked by a ceremony and by pigs, and the rank a man holds is the rank he has taken. Authority there accumulates. In the south the shape is different: on Tanna it runs through named titles attached to a place and a nakamal, held by the line that holds them, and a man speaks because of the title he carries.
The practical consequence for a visitor is the same in both, and it is why permission is the mechanism for everything here: the person who can agree to a request is not the person who happens to be present. On Ambrym the knowledge attached to carving and to magic sits with particular families, and on Malakula communities a few valleys apart differ in practice as much as they differ in language. An arrangement made in one village carries no weight in the next.
Sand drawing
Inscribed by UNESCO in 2003, sand drawing is practised across central and northern Vanuatu: a single continuous line traced with one finger in sand or ash, producing a symmetrical figure without lifting or retracing. Each figure is a record — of a route, a clan relationship, a creature, a story — and reading one is a skill distinct from drawing it.
Common questions
What does kastom actually mean?
Customary law, knowledge and practice — covering land, rank, marriage, dispute settlement and the ownership of songs, designs and stories. It works island by island.
Is kastom recognised in law?
Yes. The constitution names custom as a source of law, returns all land to customary owners and gives the National Council of Chiefs a formal role.
Can foreigners buy land in Vanuatu?
No one can buy land outright, foreign or not. Land is leased, and the underlying customary title stays with the owner.
Why can’t I photograph a ceremony?
Because the ceremony belongs to someone. Permission to record it is a property question, and a refusal is the exercise of that right, not an obstacle to be negotiated around.