‘Natives revere the man who simply never could be king’

     

Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images

Imagine a Kipling story adapted for a Jamie Uys movie, and you’ll see the stranger-than-fiction truth of a tribe in the South Pacific that made the Duke of Edinburgh a focus of their worship.

Nothing wrong with that. Hey, Freemasons supposedly are obliged to tolerate all religions, so the veneration of Prince Philip there is perfectly valid. At age 97, he is the longest serving royal consort, having married HRH Elizabeth II in 1947—their wedding anniversary is next Tuesday—but laws of succession being what they are, Philip never could be king.

But he is a Freemason, the next best thing, having been at labor in The Navy Lodge 2612 since 1953.

Writing for The Vintage News, Stefan Andrews explains:


“He is venerated by the people who live in and around the village of Yaohnanen on Vanuatu’s island of Tanna. They worship the Duke of Edinburgh as their ‘tabu man.’ The designation attributes the 97-year-old royal such qualities that he is considered sacred…

“The islanders believe that the Duke of Edinburgh is the embodiment of an ancient mountain spirit. This spirit, the prophecy says, has traveled miles away to foreign realms of the world, has taken the form of a white man and has espoused himself to a pretty powerful lady….”


Click here to read the fascinating recent story of the good Tanna people.