This paper presents weather magic practices from the islands of Tanna and Aneityum, in southern Vanuatu, and highlights how this phenomenon is a critical domain of Indigenous environmental knowledge, particularly knowledge involving plants. Recent literature suggests that diverse cultural systems, such as music, can be viewed as domains of environmental knowledge, and we propose that magical systems should be afforded the same recognition. Although anthropological work in Melanesia has historically featured various magical practices, relatively little has been said about how these have been used to influence or understand the weather, and even less has been presented directly by Indigenous weather magic practitioners, who are co-authors on this paper. In this contribution, we intersperse anthropological and ethnobotanical commentary with verbatim narratives provided by three local experts in weather magic from southern Vanuatu, including oral histories, contemporary narratives, and the results of ethnobotanical surveys. The detailed knowledge that weather magic practitioners on these islands hold regarding their local environment represents an important means of transmitting not only cultural heritage, but also botanical knowledge, the maintenance of which may be critical for current and future conservation efforts. This research documents rich cultural traditions of local and global significance which are worthy of the attention and preservation afforded to other forms of Indigenous environmental knowledge. The goals of magic and those of science are not necessarily inherently opposed, and we show that magical practice can indeed involve and even preserve a detailed and powerful mode of knowing the environment.

Indigenous knowledge systems that uniquely encode environmental knowledge are vanishing globally in tandem with environmental changes and globalization. In this paper we explore knowledge and uses of the palolo polychaete worms (Palola spp.) in time-reckoning, as documented in the anthropological literature on Polynesia and Melanesia. We then introduce preliminary findings from three contemporary cultures, the Raga-, Vureas-, and Netwar-speaking peoples of Vanuatu. Use of the palolo worm as an element in traditional time-reckoning is well-attested in both historical and contemporary literature, and our original research reinforces the notion that it is still a crucial part of ni-Vanuatu ecological calendars. Within the cultures discussed, the annual appearance of the palolo worm is an important temporal event within very complex systems that incorporate plants, animals, agriculture, celestial bodies, the ocean, and human health for the purposes of organizing human activities. These systems, and the place of the palolo worm within them, must be given proper attention in ongoing efforts towards environmental conservation and the documentation and revitalization of traditional knowledge.