Hundreds of tribespeople in the Pacific island state of Vanuatu gathered in ceremonies today to mourn the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, revered as a god-like spiritual figure in the archipelago.
For half a century two villages on Tanna island revered the duke as one of their own, believing that he fulfilled a prophecy that an islander would leave in his spiritual form to find a powerful wife overseas. The village chiefs offered a message of comfort to the Queen, saying that his soul would live on.
A formal mourning period began as the first ceremonies to remember Prince Philip got under way.
Yakel village chief Albi said it was unclear how Philip’s death would affect the religious movement, as his spirit was believed to be adrift and searching for a new home.
Many outsiders assumed that Prince Charles or Princes William or Harry would succeed Philip in the villagers’ devotions, but Albi said nothing was certain. “The spirit of Prince Philip has left his body, but it lives on. It is too soon to say where it will reside,” he told AFP.
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Other elders argued that Charles’s succession was guaranteed in 2018, when he was given a chiefly title, Mal Menaringmanu, during a visit to Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital. “The connection between the people on the Island of Tanna and the English people is very strong,” Chief Yapa of Ikunala village in Tanna said. “We are sending condolence messages to the royal family and the people of England.”
Villagers will come together to conduct rites for the duke periodically over the coming weeks. Philip is seen as a “recycled descendant of a very powerful spirit or god that lives on one of their mountains”, Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist, told the BBC.
He said that they would be likely to display Prince Philip memorabilia, hold a procession and conduct a ritualistic dance. Men would consume a ceremonial drink widely used around the Pacific made from the roots of the kava plant, which brings muscle relaxation and feelings of wellbeing.
A “significant gathering” will be held as the last act of mourning. “There will be a great deal of wealth on display,” which would mean yams and kava plants, said Dan McGarry, a Vanuatu-based journalist.
“And also pigs, because they are a primary source of protein. I would expect numerous pigs to be killed for the ceremonial event.”
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For years the Prince Philip Movement flourished in the villages of Yakel and Yaohnanen. Followers are believed to have numbered several thousands at the height of the movement but diminished in recent years.
The villagers have lived an unchanged, simple life for decades, mostly shunning technology such as mobile phones and preferring not to use currency. “They just made an active choice to disavow the modern world. It’s not a physical distance, it’s a metaphysical distance. They’re just 3,000 years away,” said McGarry, who has frequently travelled to Tanna, in the south of the archipelago, which is about a thousand miles east of northern Australia.
Anthropologists believe that Philip became linked to the legend in the 1960s when Vanuatu was an Anglo-French colony known as the New Hebrides. The villagers’ special interest in Philip included daily prayers for his blessing of their banana and yam crops.
The duke maintained a distant 50-year relationship with the group. In 2007 several tribesmen were flown to the UK for the Channel 4 reality television series Meet the Natives.
Five tribal leaders met the duke off camera at Windsor Castle, presenting gifts and asking when he would return to Tanna.
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According to the tribesmen, he responded somewhat cryptically “when it turns warm, I will send a message”.
