The Turaga Nation and the Nagriamel Movement

Record summary

Nagriamel and the Turaga Nation on Espiritu Santo combine customary sovereignty, land claims, ritual symbolism, and critiques of the postcolonial state. Their history is connected in some accounts to the Santo rebellion and to wider Vanuatu movements sometimes grouped with cargo cults, although participants may reject that terminology. The lead is valuable for studying how ancestral authority and promised social transformation become institutionalized in modern political forms. Verification requires attention to movement publications, Vanuatu political history, and scholarship distinguishing Nagriamel from Tanna’s John Frum tradition.