Cannibals and Cargo Cults

European explorers first arrived in Vanuatu in 1606.b Fierce tribes inhabited the islands, and cannibalism was widely practiced.

Christendom’s missionaries arrived in Vanuatu in 1839 and were promptly invited to dinner​—they were reportedly eaten as the main course! Many of their successors suffered the same grim fate.

On Malekula Island it is only in recent years that some villages have opened up to outsiders. The tribes known as the Big Nambas and Small Nambas live here. Once fierce cannibals, they reportedly ate their last victim in 1974.