Chief Roi Mata’s Domain

Roi Mata was the title of the paramount chief of what is now central Vanuatu. Its last holder, who lived around 1600, is remembered for ending the long era of island-wide conflict known as the Great Efate War. He is credited with extending naflak, kinship through the female line, from land tenure to the rules of marriage, urging clans not to fight members of the same matriline, and introducing peace feasts.

The property links three places from his life and death: his residence at Mangaas on Efate, Fels Cave on Lelepa, where oral tradition says he died after falling ill at a feast, and his burial site on Artok Island. The cave walls carry red and black paintings, and radiocarbon dating places one black image in Roi Mata's time. Excavation of the grave on Artok in 1967 found a central figure surrounded by 50 burials of men, women and children.

After his death Mangaas was abandoned, and Artok has been sacred for 400 years, with grazing and gardening forbidden. The lease of the whole island to a foreign investor in 1994 was the greatest threat to the site, but in 2008 it became the first property in Vanuatu inscribed on the World Heritage List, as a place where oral tradition and archaeology meet.