The Hair Cutting Ceremony

The big excitement on the island yesterday was the hair cutting and ear piercing ceremony. Legend has it, that when Niue was attacked by Tongans or Samoans, they would kill the young boys and steal the woman and young girls. In order to save some of the young boys lives, they used to have them grow their hair long so they could pass as girls. When the invaders came, they couldn't tell the boys from the girls so some of the young boys managed to escape being killed, to go on later to be warriors and kill the invaders in turn. At their coming of age, they held a ceremony where their long hair was cut off and they became a man. The tradition holds and each year, there are typically 3-5 ceremonies on the island. The event has grown to a grand affair and has become somewhat of a banking system. The family holding the ceremony sends out invitations and the invited guests donate food and bring cash contributions. Each person's contribution is recorded and at the end of the ceremony, all the food that was donated is divided up between the guests, according to how much each originally contributed. The cash of course stays with the host family. According to some of the people we talked to yesterday, the event can raise as much as $60,000.00. The general feeling from the people doing the preparation work that I talked to was that the events are getting somewhat out of hand, with families trying to outdo each other.
Cathy and I had decided to go to the ceremony and we made our way to the pier just after 09:00. One of the guys helping out with the lift for the local fishing boats, offered to give us a lift so of course we said yes. He finished his morning tea (a can of Steinlager) and took us down the road. The family had decorated the house and yard and there was a lot of people helping out getting things set up. We wandered out to the backyard where the men were busy preparing the donated pigs. The preparation consists of first killing the pigs (done long before we arrived) then burning the hair off either in a fire or using a big blowtorch. The hair is then scraped off with sharp knives and the pig is cleaned up. The guts are removed and they cleaned pigs are taken down to the sea and cleaned off in salt water. All in all, 50 pigs were donated, slaughtered and cleaned up. Other food donations included cases of frozen chicken (probably close to one hundred cases all told), fish (whahoo, tuna, opau, swordfish). One of the swordfish donated was a good 4 meters from sword to tail. There were also donations of tarrow root, it looked a field of it. All this food was piled up and displayed so the guests could see how much the family had received. The family provided juice and cakes for all the guests and these were brought around during the opening speeches by the family, the local clergy, etc. Typically long winded, the speeches took the better part of an hour and half. In the meantime, the young boy and his sister were sitting on display waiting for the big event. The ear piercing was first and was a simple affair. She didn't flinch! The hair cutting ceremony took a lot longer. The young lads hair had been combed out and bunches of it were tied off in blue ribbon. In turn, people came up and cut off a piece to take home with them. We didn't stay to the bitter end but saw enough. The host family specifically invited their overseas visitors to get a close up view of the event which was very nice. Like everywhere and everyone we have met here, the welcome has been extraordinary.

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