Culture
Santo, with many wrecks and reefs to be explored, is a very popular tourist destination for divers. Champagne Beach draws tourists with its pink sand and clear waters. The "Western Side" of the island contains many caves which may be explored, and cruise ships often stop in at Luganville.
The local people make their living by supporting the tourist trade, by cash-crop farming, mostly copra but some cacao and kava as well as peanuts, or by subsistence farming and fishing.
Most Santo people are Christians. The largest church groups on the island are the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Melanesia (Anglican). Also active are the Apostolic Church, the Church of Christ, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and others. However, in many villages, particularly in Big Bay and South Santo, the people are "heathen", a term that in Vanuatu has no pejorative connotation — it simply denotes someone who has not embraced Christianity. Customary beliefs of a more modern sort are found among followers of the Nagriamel movement based in Fanafo.
For almost all Santo's people custom plays a large part in their lives, regardless of their religion. The chief system continues strongly in most areas.
The people of Santo face some health problems, especially malaria, and tuberculosis . Although there is a hospital, most locals consult either their own witch doctor or medical clinics set up by western missionaries. Kava is the popular drug of the island, although alcohol is becoming more prevalent. With the rising number of adults using alcohol, there is a rising crime rate, especially involving violence toward women, and tribal warfare.
Read more about this topic: Espiritu Santo
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“Unthinking people will often try to teach you how to do the things which you can do better than you can be taught to do them. If you are sure of all this, you can start to add to your value as a mother by learning the things that can be taught, for the best of our civilization and culture offers much that is of value, if you can take it without loss of what comes to you naturally.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)
“I’ve finally figured out why soap operas are, and logically should be, so popular with generations of housebound women. They are the only place in our culture where grown-up men take seriously all the things that grown-up women have to deal with all day long.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)