The Islands of Love (2009)

The Trobriand Islands are the fabled, “Islands of Love”, one of the few matrilineal societies left on earth where women own the land and teenagers are given full sexual license. The power of sorcery – particularly love spells –is part of everyday life.

These islands are at the heart of one of the most influential anthropological fieldworks ever conducted. During WW1, Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowsky chose to study the islanders rather than be interred as an enemy alien in Australian New Guinea. His subsequent books, such as The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia written in 1922 became classics, with observations such as: “Chastity is an unknown virtue among these natives.” It is even claimed that Malinowski, with his ground-breaking study of the Trobriand culture, pioneered social anthropology as an academic discipline.

Since then the islands, situated east of the Papua New Guinea mainland, have been the subject of much mythologizing and fantasy among Western observers. A quiet, tropical paradise for most of the year, the Trobriand Islands turn into a colourful parade each year during the traditional Milamala festival. Here, the Trobriand Islanders celebrate the harvest of the prized yam after ten months of hard hardening. It is usually held around the second week of July and involves many unique rituals used to display the tribes' gratefulness for another prosperous season. However, thanks to this festival, Westerners christened this place “Islands of Love” after witnessing the apparently guilt free sexual freedom that is practiced and engulfs these islands during Milamala.

Natalia Gubareva spent two months going to these very remote islands, rarely visited by outsiders, where little has changed since Malinowski was there.