They cannot be folded into a wallet or withdrawn from a cash machine, but ancient forms of currency such as pig tusks and seashells are undergoing a renaissance in the South Pacific.

As much of the world indulges in a frenzy of consumerism during the traditional Christmas shopping frenzy and January sales, the tiny nation of Vanuatu appears to be stubbornly heading in the opposite direction.

The former Anglo-French colony, known as the New Hebrides until independence in 1980, is spurning the cash economy and instead reviving traditional forms of exchangeable wealth such as pigs, woven grass mats, and shell necklaces. The government declared 2007 the Year of the Traditional Economy (“kastom ekonomi” in Vanuatu’s quaint brand of pidgin English) and has now extended the campaign into next year.

The initiative has been driven by concerns that the harsh imperatives of capitalism could destroy Vanuatu’s centuries-old way of life, based on subsistence farming and complicated cultural exchanges.

There are fears that a growing emphasis on development will lure islanders to shantytowns on the outskirts of the capital, Port Vila, where most will encounter unemployment and poverty. In rural areas, by contrast, hunger and homelessness are unheard of.

“The traditional economy has served us well for thousands of years,” Ralph Regenvanu, a former head of the Vanuatu Cultural Center and a driving force behind the campaign, said. “We’re trying to preserve our cultural heritage in the face of development.”

As part of the renaissance, schools and clinics are allowing villagers to pay fees in kind — for instance with sacks of vegetables or bundles of kava, a peppery root that when mashed and mixed with water produces a narcotic drink.

Two years ago, the national council of chiefs decreed that cash could no longer be used as “bride price” for weddings and that young men wanting to get married should instead make payments in goods such as pigs and yams.

Among the most prized of Vanuatu’s traditional currencies are pigs with curly tusks — villagers knock out the animals’ upper teeth in order to let the tusks grow unimpeded. The objective is for the tusk to loop around twice or, in rare instances, three times.

Even more esteemed are hairless pigs from the southern island of Tanna and, in the north of the country, a rare breed of hermaphrodite pig — animals with both male and female sexual organs. “These pigs are much sought after,” a 2005 Unesco report found. The study, by British anthropologist Kirk Huffman, called for “the revitalization of the production of traditional wealth items.” With Unesco’s help, officials are setting up “banks” for traditional forms of payment and studying how to set an exchange rate with the national currency, the vatu. Big tusker pigs are used on some islands as payment to clan chiefs by villagers wanting to take part in secretive tribal dances, which would otherwise remain tabu (the origin of the English word “taboo”).

The locals’ reliance on a modest but healthy subsistence diet was one reason why Vanuatu was named the world’s happiest country in a 2006 “Happy Planet Index.”

In the words of one islander: “We’ve realized that money isn’t everything.”