Lisepsep…Paama’s phantom troll people

During my time here in Vanuatu, I’ve storied with the Ni-Vanuatu about custom medicine…using leaves and herbal remedies to cure ailments (my host papa is often called upon for this), black magic…curses can be put on people using spells cast on that victim’s hair (for example) and recently I’ve been hearing about Lisepsep…Paama’s phantom troll people.

The story goes that there is a colony of people who live in the bush of Paama. They’re described as small, troll-like people with long hair, are naked except for leaves covering their tabu areas. There are families of Lisepsep people…papas, mamas, kids, babies who live in caves or underground (I picture a naked Barney Rubble with long hair holding a spear and mama Rubble with baby strapped to her back.) My papa claims, I mean , says that he often sees their footprints around the house and are known to sneak in the kitchen to take food out of the pots while leaving a trail of crumbs (not that the kids here don’t mostly go barefoot and drop their food all about).

You can laugh or think this outrageous but recall we have tales of bigfoot, UFOs, the lochness monster…so believe it or not…

Think I’ll journey on a Lisepsep hunt into the bush one of these days…