Indigenous Food and Water Preservation Methods

Methods of preservation of water were emphasised during the discussion. One method of preserving water in the highland was the storage of water using dried pumpkins. They dried the pumpkin fruit over time and stored groundwater from hand-dug wells to keep it fresh over time. They also used cleaned kerosene bottles to store water to use it during a disaster. Other participants also recalled how their grandparents and parents preserved food such as by drying fish bones. A respondent expressed his story of preserving fish in the following line:

“My father would go out fishing and come back, whatever the catch is, it goes on fire, and he smokes it. Yeah, he smokes it and when it dries there’s another wire basket above the fire and then we put it there and then it stays on for about a week. Even the bones, we don’t throw the bones away, my mother would take all the bones and keep them in a separate place, so when my father is not fishing anymore, because of the weather, you know strong winds and all that, we go back to the bones and then we cook it with the tapioca and so there’s no fish, no protein but the taste is there. You will taste it.”

Belief on Causes of Climate Change

Different perceptions were expressed as interpretations towards the cause of climate change. Some participants believed that climate change is caused by the actions of larger countries with larger industries. While others thought that it was caused as punishment from God and Witcraft or sorcery. As a lack of knowledge to justify the impacts of climate change, locals tend to explain the causes of climate change with existing traditional and religious beliefs. The spiritual background depicts gods and deities ruling over human subjects with the natural degradation of human morals, and the increased wickedness is seen as the cause of climate hazards such as floods and cyclones (Luetz & Nunn, 2020; Nunn et al., 2016; McKenna & Yakam, 2021).

Traditional tribal beliefs that climate change is caused by spiritual beings or witchcraft. They blame witchcraft or sorcery for the cause of deaths by natural disasters such as landslides and unexplained deaths from illnesses that are related to food security. In addition, the religious or Christian mindset that climate change is a punishment from God is ignorant and further puts society at risk. A respondent from Porobada recalled his experience when a strong Hurricane destroyed his home:

“I am one of the victims, my experience, I was there in the house and it was on Thursday and it was raining rainy season and my next-door boys, they were playing there, and some 5 minutes or 10 minutes and the wind was coming from that corner and the guys called out my name, can you see that sign? And I turned around and it was like this, inside, the inside of the cyclone was like an animal. It sounded like an animal coming and then my house was removed by the big wind was number 6 but it started from Red Scar, and it came like that to my house. When the wind got to my house, it threw it like rubbish plastic. Yeah, some distance from here and where the road is and the night it was raining. Big rain in the night.”