In Africa, perhaps, yams account for multiple births. In the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific (east of Papua New Guinea) they reputedly account for a vibrant sex life. Each spring, the islanders hold a two week Yam Festival, celebrating the end of their annual harvest. Men whose yams grow the largest are considered to possess outsized sexual powers and prowess and the Trobriand women are said to award them appopriate honors. More importantly, Yam Festival time signals a period of profligacy – two weeks of free love – during which “anything goes” with anyone, anytime and anywhere. Marital ties are reportedly no obstacle to free sexual expression and, after the festival, all festive liaisons are said to be forgiven and forgotten. An enlightened approach to life, to say the least, and one which may have spawned the Trobriand’s familiar nickname, “The Islands of Love”. This is not a joke.
No, it’s not a joke–but it’s possibly an Urban Legend. I’d sure like to see some kind of scholarly, anthropological cite for that, Greenspan. From someone not connected with the tourism industry, say? Because all I can find on Google, offhand (admittedly, I haven’t had any coffee yet), are promotional squibs like this one:
http://www.niuginidiving.com/culture.html
Here’s the only serious anthropological cite I could find offhand.
http://www.roanoke.edu/history/Leeson/Anthropology/Trobriand_Cricket.htm
I’m not questioning whether they have a Yam Festival in the Trobriands. I’m not even questioning whether the Trobriand Islanders are more open about sexuality than other cultures. What I’m questioning is whether the annual Yam Festival is an all-stops-out “free love” two-week orgy, and that the guys with the biggest yams are indeed considered the most desirable.
http://us.altnews.com.au/print.php?sid=798
The key word here, I think, is “allegedly”. I notice you’ve got a lot of qualifiers in your post, too, Greenspan. 
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, Greenspan. This is a website devoted to Fighting Ignorance. You could help Fight some Ignorance if you’d post some kind of cite for your “legend of the Islands of Love”.
Sounds like a tourist industry UL to me.
The column being referenced is, What’s the difference between yams and sweet potatoes?.
Reminds me of a joke.
This man dies and goes to hell. He looks around, but doesn’t see any lakes of fire, and the people don’t seem unhappy. Another guy walks up, smoking a big cigar.
Newbie: Where am I?
Resident: Oh, you’re new here. This is hell.
Newbie: Why is everyone so happy?
Resident: It’s Monday. Do you smoke?
Newbie: Yeah, I like to smoke.
Resident: Then you’ll love Mondays. Monday is smoke day. You can smoke anything you want, all day long. It’s all free, and there are no “No Smoking” areas. Drop your ashes whereever you want, throw your butts on the ground - it’s all good. Here, have a light.
Newbie: (Lights up a cigarette) Thanks, this is great.
Resident: Say, do you like to drink?
Newbie: Sure, I like a good buzz.
Resident: Then you’ll love Tuesdays. Tuesday is booze day. You can drink anything you want, all day long. Beer, wine, whiskey, tequila - you name it, it’s free. Tuesday is great.
Newbie: Wow, this sounds like my kind of place. What happens Wednesdays?
Resident: Wednesdays are great. Wednesdays you can have sex with any woman you want, anywhere, all day long. Anything goes.
Newbie: That sounds great!
Resident: So, are you gay?
Newbie: (looks askance) No.
Resident: Oh man, then you’re going to hate Thursdays.
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
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Duck Duck Goose, the yam festival tradition is alluded to in Paul Theroux’ book “The Happy Isles of Oceania” (© 1992), in chapters 7 and 8. Paul Theroux also says that the festival is mentioned in a book by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages.
From chapter 7 - Paul Theroux is talking with a group of people from the village of Kaisiga on Kaileuna Island. Most people on the village are Seventh-Day Adventists, and their pastor is named John.
There are other references in the aforementioned chapters by people on several different islands in the Trobriands.
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 11-16-2001 at 10:58 AM]
Finally, to go back to the subject of Cecil’s column, Paul Theroux mentions in the book that in the Trobriands people eat a lot of yam and sweet potatoes. Could it really be both, or is that careless nomenclature from a non-botanist?
Let the doubters check out anthropologist Bronislaw Malinovski’s seminal work, “The Sexual Life of Savages”. He was the first to carry out in-depth research concerning Trobriand customs. Having visited the Trobriands out of season (not during the yam festival) I cannot add eyewitness testimony to his, but, in conversations I had with the islanders, I gathered that Malinovski’s claims (and those of others) are not without foundation.
There’s one famous tale concerning a cricket match held on one of the Trobriands, during which female islanders hid in bushes alongside the pitch, luring members of the visiting team into the bush for a romp. Whether or not this home team advantage caused the visitors to lose the game, I cannot say.
Several quibbles here.
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Paul Theroux is a travel writer, not an anthropologist. So the natives tell him anecdotes about their wild and crazy yam festival and he simply copies it all down in his notebooks and publishes it. This does not, IMO, make him a good cite. Sorry.
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I am very uncomfortable by having The Sexual Life of Savages cited as an authority for the fact that the yam festival is a two-week long orgy. It was written during the same time period as Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa, which has now been more or less discredited, as far as its tales of sexual freedom are concerned. The kind of cite I had in mind was something a bit more modern.
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I’m not questioning whether the Trobriand Islanders are more open about their sexuality than other cultures. What I am questioning is whether the Yam Festival is indeed a non-stop two-week long orgy. Does Malinowski address that in his book?
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The “cricket match” tale is just that–a tale. But, is it supported by the facts? Did it really happen?
This is a website devoted to Fighting Ignorance, and this is the Comments on Cecil’s Columns Forum. We’re not here for salacious rumors and unsupported stories about the sexual customs of other cultures–we’re here for facts.
Ducky, while I admire you for fighting the good fight, I think perhaps you are in error on the Margaret Mead thing. There has been a series of articles and letters in Skeptical Inquirer in the past year or so, and they are rather supportive of Margaret Mead. The main discrediter of Mead does not appear to be making his case.
Arnold, I think you just described my ideal vacation spot. Forget Club Med, I’m going to Trobriand!
And I think I’ve discovered a new insult for the boards. “You’re so ugly, you couldn’t get laid at the Trobriand Yam Festival!”
Well, okay, it’s just that the last media squib I remember hearing was, “Margaret Mead was–sort of–wrong about all those oversexed teenage Samoans”.
Heap big factoid stick-um memory, ugh.
Duck Duck Goose - granted, Paul Theroux is not an anthropologist. Nonetheless I am not aware that he has any special reputation for falsehood in his travel books. In any case, I"m sure he is at least as reliable as most of the websites that one could find through a Google search.
Considering Bronislaw Malinowski’s book: I haven’t read it, all I know is what Paul Theroux relates of it in the book I referred to above. But I think it’s bad logic to say 'another anthropologist wrote a book on that same subject, and I’ve read in the paper that some people are disputing the work of that anthropologist, so therefore no contemporary anthropologist discussing this issue is a trustworthy source."
Is the “yam festival” in the Trobriands a “non-stop two-week orgy?” If by that you mean that on the first day of the yam festival people immediately start copulating and for the next 14 days do not eat, drink, sleep, or do anything else but engage in the sexual act, then I also would find that very hard to believe. But do people during that time engage in a more than usual licentiousness? I am willing to believe the first-hand accounts of that behaviour from a travel writer that was there at the time.
Irishman - you might want to visit the Trobriands at some other time. To quote again from Paul Theroux’ book “Because of the danger of rape - and rape wasn’t a joke; it was exactly what it was anywhere, a violent assault, a humiliation - I went [to Omarakhana] in a truck with a friendly villager named Matthew.”
Concerning a visit to the Trobriands: they’re an out of the way destination, to say the least, and getting there is expensive. They’re also not a resort destination, and I’m not sure there’s a single hotel or organized lodge.
On the other hand, the people are extremely friendly (and that’s not a sexual allusion). I sailed to the Trobriands a few years ago, departing from Madang on the northern coast of from Papua New Guinea at stopping at several other Melanesian island groups along the way. Other than the roughness of the Bismarck Sea, it’s a fantastic voyage, revealing vistas whose romance transcend anything you can imagine.
One of the most fascinating subjects that comes to light on the oceanic traverse is the existence of the Kula Ring – a ceremonial trading cycle that molds the far-flung islands of the South Pacific into a “community” that, if I remember correctly, spans more square miles than the continental United States. These vast reaches are plied by islanders in sail-powered ocean-going canoes. If you lucky enough to see them in the middle of nowhere – as I was – you’ll have glimpsed at a reality so different from our own that it’s guaranteed to fuel your imagination for some time to come.
The Trobriands are but one stop on an endless adventure. Theroux, despite his innate cynicism, captures some of the spirit of this amazing part of the planet.
It’s entirely possible. There’s a native Asian yam that’s grown in the area, and sweet potatoes were brought in by Europeans a couple centuries ago and became a staple. At least, that was what happened in New Guinea. Since the Trobriands are nearby I imagine their diet is pretty similar.