Mortuary Feasts

The mortuary feasts is ceremonial that honoring the spirit of the deceased and other ancestor spirits, at which these goods are given to heirs of the deceased in acts of public, ritual generosity. With the help of enchantment and custom, Vanatinai people amass awesome amounts of stylized assets, pigs, privately made family products, and sustenances, for example, yam and sago starch so as to host a years long arrangement of elaborate morgue feasts. The feast is a way for the Vanatinai people to communicate with the ancestor spirits. The assets exhibited at the zagaya and at all previous mortuary feast events, including the funeral, are trades between the living and dead. If the feasts is properly done all mourning taboos are clear from individuals

Any individual on Vanatinai, male or female, may try to become known as a gia by choosing to exert the extra effort to go beyond the minimum contributions to the mortuary feasts expected of every adult. He or she accumulates ceremonial valuables and other goods both in order to give them away in acts of public generosity and to honor obligations to exchange partners from the local area as well as distant islands. There may be more than one gia in a particular hamlet, or even household, or there may be none. A woman may have considerably more prestige and influence than her husband because of her reputation for acquiring and redistributing valuables. While there are more men than women who are extremely active in exchange, there are some women who are far more active than the majority of men. Giagia of either sex are only leaders in temporary circumstances and if others wish to follow, as when they host a feast, lead an exchange expedition, or organize the planting of a communal yam garden. Decisions are made by consensus, and the giagia of both sexes influence others through their powers of persuasion, their reputations for ability, and their knowledge, both of beneficial magic and ritual and of sorcery or