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LOLO TONGA - Tongan Oil

Ingredients: 100% pure virgin coconut oil

This truly special oil is crafted with care in Nuku’Alofa, the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific.This wonderful, pure, unscented coconut oil is ideal for baby massage and the prevention of stretch marks during pregnancy. It is a lovely skin moisturizer known for its ability to soothe the skin. The healing propensities of coconut oil have been well documented.

Being a ‘tropical baby’ it likes to be warm in order to be liquid. It freezes solid at 18 Degrees and below in which case you simply melt a spoonful of the oil in your palms or by placing the jar in warm water. You can add a capful to your bath for a luxurious soak that will leave your skin silky soft and smooth.

Cost: 60ml = £8 (inc. VAT) plus postage and packaging

DVD titled: MASSANA - Moments in Yaka Play and Ritual - by I., J. & N. Lewis

How Yaka Pygmy children learn about adult ritual

Massana is a film about Yaka Pygmy forest hunter-gatherer's ritual and play. It was filmed in 1996 with the Mbendjele clans of Ibamaba, Republic of Congo. Massana is a Yaka word used to describe children's games, role-play and adult ritual. The activity of massana is based on the idea that by intention you can make things happen. So, for example, girls pretending to dig for yams will become expert yam gatherers and boys imitating animals and hunters will become expert hunters. Adult ritual stretches exactly this power of intention to its outer limits. The film explores in 6 sequences how massana is taught, practised and finally performed. The film shows aspects of everyday life and subsistence; children's games and role-play; gendered forms of ritual participation; the women's ritual of Ngoku and the men's most powerful forest spirit Ejengi - whose successful appearance in the camp demands perfect synergy between male and female ritual performance. Successful massana requires unified participation. During massana opposition and interdependence unify men and women in creative tension. The result is an increasing aesthetic and spiritual synergy.

I hope this film can contribute to begin to understand some of the elements central to egalitarian relationships. It is vital to re-establish such relationships if we are to change the way we live in today's world.

Cost: £15 (inc. VAT) plus postage and packaging