Price of a porker's freedom in Vanuatu

By PETER CALDER

Possession is about eleven-tenths of the law in Vanuatu when it comes to wandering stock.

A small, but doubtless succulent, pig found that to its cost when it strayed into the small enclave that contained our bungalow. The news flashed through the group of houses within seconds and almost instantly the entire resort's workforce - barmen, receptionists and housemaids - was mobilised in its pursuit.

The benighted animal flashed along the fenceline and found its way into the vegetable garden where its small trotters proceeded to pock the heaped beds of rich volcanic loam and crush the vegetable seedlings.

This seemed not to add greatly to its pursuers' sense of urgency. Vegetables you can grow in a second in Vanuatu's year-round hothouse, but pork is something special, eaten only at great feasts in honour of very important visitors.

Lovelorn suitors soften up the father of their intended with a gift of a pig which, if it has to be bought, can push the bridegroom's family into penury.

But a trespassing pig provides a feed for a feed's sake, which accounted for the general mayhem which greeted this peripatetic porker.

The women hurled rocks which bruised and tormented the poor creature but did nothing to slow it down. Saliva hung in long curtains from its jaws as it dodged and weaved, panting in the pitiless sun.

The men, meanwhile, were playing a tactical game, slowly cornering the pig against a creaky piece of fenceline which, with a bit of a barge, would have busted wide open.

The pig didn't know that though, and in a few minutes it was captured, held down and not-very-surgically dispatched by the gardener using a pair of long-handled secateurs. The details may be best passed over but suffice it to say that the gardener was well aware of the first principle of pork butchery: the need to drain the animal's blood instantly.

I came across Mark out the back an hour later. He'd almost finished burning and scraping the bristle off the gutted animal. I asked him how long it was since he'd had a pig. He couldn't remember but he was looking forward to it.

I was, too. It was Thursday, the night when Solo stages a traditional Melanesian feast, which is a popular tourist attraction. I'd gone through the menu before as I was helping peel kumara and my wife was grating taro for the laplap (essentially a large starchy pancake).

But when the tables were laden there was no sign of the pig. It was, I reasoned hungrily, the Vanuatu way. Pig is only for very important people. And free pork was just for the family.