Week 22: Jobwa Stick Dancing and Giant Clams (August 29-Sept 4)

Giant Clams!! I am officially part of a weekly dive group and excited that I can rely on them to take me to places that I have never dove before. I am closing in on 50 dives. One would think I should have more after 2 years out here:(, but it isn't always easy to get into a regular dive group. I am glad that I have my 3 buddies and this week they took me to a coral head near Victor Buoy, it is a location known for its giant clams. We saw several that were 4+ feet across. They are just amazing creatures and I can never get enough of the brilliant colors they display as they are resting open waiting for a chance snack. (Just so you know, I can't pass up going by any size clam with out trying to make it snap shut, the same goes for getting Christmas Tree Worms to suck in to their holes!)

The island was blessed this week with the performance of the Marshallese Jobwa Stick Dance. The Jobwa Stick Dance can only be performed with the permission of the high chief. The local king, Imata(?) Kabua, gave permission for the performance to happen here on Kwaj. It was an amazing site to see these young men performing and young women chanting, while sticks were flying up on stage.

Here is some background info from Yokwe Online
As told by Iroij (Chief) Michael Kabua to Jan Waddell, Hourglass Reporter

Jobwa Stick Dance started in Ujae Atoll and it is a very old story. A man went to sleep and slept for a very long time. He had no food or water.

As he slept, he started to dream, and a group of nonieap, which are spirits you can’t see but can hear, came to the man and showed him the Jobwa Stick Dance.

The man woke, and when the people asked why he had slept so long, he told them about his dream and taught them the dance the nonieaps had shown him.

When the men were performing the dance, a Dri ikjiet, which is a good spirit that lives under the ground, came up from a well.

He was a very handsome man.

The women, whose job it was to beat the drums for the Jobwa and chant, stopped paying attention to their drums and chants and started to pay attention to the Dri ikjiet.

When the women started to pay attention to the Dri ikjiet, their drumming and chanting became very bad, or dubwebie, which means their beat was wrong.

The Iroij became very angry that the women were paying attention to the Dri ikjiet and not to their drumming and chanting.

The Dri ikjiet was also paying a lot of attention to the women, which also made the Iroij angry.

The Iroij wanted to get rid of the Dri ikjiet, so he spoke with the Jobwa dancers and told them at the end of the dance, instead of holding their sticks to the sky to hold their sticks to the ground.

When the Dri ikjiet was dancing with the Jobwa stick dancers, he held his stick to the sky when all the other men held their sticks to the ground.

This gave the Iroij a reason to kill the Dri ikjiet.