Chief Roi Mata's Domain

It took four attempts and five years for us to finally visit Vanuatu and Chief Roi Mata’s Domain, thanks to Covid, issues with Air Vanuatu in the lead up to it going into administration and the recent earthquake. Luckily though, it was only in the aftermath of the earthquake that I came across M Resort, a luxury resort that opened in March 2024, just outside the site’s core zone on the northeastern coastline of Efate.

I thought a visit to the Chief Roi Mata’s Domain would be easy from the resort - it was literally in the buffer zone. But during the earthquake, landslides largely destroyed Fels Cave, probably the most memorable part of the site. The remaining section of the cave cannot be visited for now (or perhaps permanently) due to the danger of further falls. Plus I discovered that visiting Hat Island and the burial ground is considered taboo by local chiefs. The local boat trip we took wouldn’t visit it, but we did meet a small tour group that was intending to visit it - probably some tours from Port Vila disregard the taboo. 

However, quite by chance at first, we ended up visiting the former village and residence site, Mangaas. Our resort owner recommended walking to the nearby sandy beach, King’s Beach, and afterwards we realised it was the third corner of the core zone. It was only a 10-15 minute walk from our resort, so we later returned and explored the area thoroughly. …

Roi Mata is undoubtedly the biggest chief in Vanuatu's history. The "domain" inscribed is a triangle including his old tribe village, his burial grounds, as well as the cave where he supposedly died. Before you take the tour, and a tour is required, you should head to Vanuatu's national museum to not only learn about the chief and the domain, still listed as "attempting to inscribe" in the panels, other Vanuatu history, but also about Vanuatu's intangible heritage of sand drawing (better to wait for a tour of this to start but I think they only do this if enough people or if you come with a tour guide).

I was leaving in the afternoon and the typhoon was coming in anyway so I asked the tourist information to book a shorter tour without the village lunch. I don't know what they show you around the village but from having to drive there to get on the small boat I don't think there is much to see and a lunch just for myself would have been overkill. In the end I think this was a great choice.

Taking off to the appropriately hat island, the guide will tell you about the history of the place. They maintain the burial grounds here although it is only a small square. Unfortunately there was still plenty of trash washed ashore. Next stop is the fels/feles/fele's cave on Lelepa Island. The entrance is rather interesting to see the eroded walls. Inside you …

I visited this WHS in December 2017. As can be seen my the UNESCO map of the inscribed property, this WHS is actually made up of 3 main locations: Fels Cave on Lelepa Island, Roi Mata's graveyard on Artok (Hat) Island and Roi Mata's Domain, Mangaas, on Efate.

Since I wanted to make sure I could visit the paintings inside Fels Cave and cover all locations easily, I organised a WHS day trip with Atmosphere Tours. After picking me up at my hotel, we headed towards the rather rudimental museum in Port Vila. The most interesting section apart from the masks and chief roi mata sections, was the sand drawing UNESCO intangible world heritage with a live drawing.

Next we headed to Mangaas near Mangaliliu down a steep unpaved road to Roi Mata's domain. From there we crossed over to Roi Mata's graveyard on Artok (Hat) Island with a local guide where we actually walked to the few burial stones and shells. After that, we went to Lelepa Island. After a number of steep stairs, we reached Fels Cave which is only open if you book in advance. The cave is literally disintegrating and eroding at a quick pace. We could actually see constant dust falling from the cave's entrance which already suffered a major collapse during one of the last earthquakes. The rock paintings are immediately visible just after the pile of rocks from the recent collapse. Make sure to bring your own torch with you as everything is …

I arranged a half day trip fro Port Vila through Island Holiday Tours to Chief Roimata's Domain at short notice. For 10,000 vatu I was taken by private bus to Mangaliliu village and from there along a rough track to Roimata's former village of Mangaas. Here I met my guide, who showed me some sacred stones and drums dating back to Roimata's time.

From Mangaas I was taken by boat to Lelepa Island and made the steep climb up to the entrance of Fels Cave. There was evidence of fairly recent rock falls but the guide and I entered and with the aid of a torch he showed me a number of ancient rock drawings of fauna, flora and village scenes.

Roimata's grave area on Artok (Hat) Island is tapu and only accessible by local villagers on special occasions.

We landed on Efate Island in August 2010, the 14th. Just four days after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake which epicentre was only 35km from Port-Vila. We didn’t know about it, the earthquake was very impressive to local people because of its proximity but nothing seemed to be destroyed.

Nothing? … hum well … unfortunately the WHS of Chief Roi Mata has suffered a landslip just at the entrance of the Fels Cave in Lelepa Island (just north-west of Efate). Of course it was prohibited for us to get into the cave during our tour. The guide told us that a Unesco representative would come and see what can be done. I don’t know what is the situation one year later …

Nevertheless, we had a very pleasant guided tour. Let me explain what you can expect:

-Introduction to the Chief Roi Mata story at the museum in Port-Vila.

-Visit of the domain where Roi Mata lived, a dance show is performed by local people.

-Entrance in the cave where he died (if you are luckier than us).

-Boat trip to Hat Island where he was buried with hundred of its followers.

-Lunch in a village with local people.

I won’t tell the story of Chief Roi Mata here cause you can find it easily on the net, but I can tell you that this WHS was very pleasant to visit as it is one of the very few cultural Unesco site in this part of the world. Everything looked well …