MAKING MALA MALAITA IN SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1870s–1930s MAKING MALA MALAITA IN SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1870s–1930s CLIVE MOORE PACIFIC SERIES Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Moore, Clive, 1951- author. Title: Making Mala : Malaita in Solomon Islands, 1870s-1930s / Clive Moore. ISBN: 9781760460976 (paperback) 9781760460983 (ebook) Subjects: Malaita Province (Solomon Islands)--History. Malaita Province (Solomon Islands)--Social life and customs. Malaita Province (Solomon Islands)--Civilization. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Front cover image: The chief’s brother at Bulalaha, southwest Malaita. Photograph by John Beattie, 1906. This edition © 2017 ANU Press Contents List of Illustrations . vii List of Tables . xvii Acknowledgements . xix Abbreviations . xxiii A Note on Spelling Malaitan Words . xxv Introduction: Malaitan Tropes . 1 1 . Malaita in Recent Centuries . 39 2 . Trade and Labour . 83 3 . Malaitan Christians Overseas, 1880s–1910s . 139 4 . The Melanesian Mission, 1877–1909 . .. 183 5 . Abu`ofa and the Exodus from Queensland, 1894–1908 . 231 6 . From QKM to SSEM, 1904–09 . 261 7 . Qaibala: Establishing `Aoke Station, 1909–14 . 301 8 . Labour, the Malayta Company and Catholicism . 335 9 . Koburu: William Bell, 1915–27 . 363 10 . Making Mala into Malaita, 1927–42 . 405 Conclusion: Tropes, Kastom and the Modern Solomon Islands . .449 Bibliography . 461 Index . 521 List of Illustrations Figures Figure Introduction 1: High Commissioner Sir Robert Stanley at the inauguration of the first Malaita Council in 1952 ......19 Figure Introduction 2: Salana Ga`a, the first President of the first Malaita Council, and some of its members in 1952 ..........20 Figure Introduction 3: Two of the Malaita Eagles, with weapons ....26 Figure Introduction 4: Destroying Dodo Creek Agricultural Station in 2000 .....................................26 Figure Introduction 5: Honiara’s Chinatown burning during the riots in April 2006 ................................27 Figure Introduction 6: Ishmael Idumaoma Itea (circa 1904–2005) at Sango, Fataleka, 1988. 30 Figure Introduction 7: Noel Fatnowna (1929–91) and Rex Ringi Angofia in Honiara in 1988. .30 Figure Introduction 8: Three east Fataleka leaders in the Bubuileli Council House, 1976. 31 Figure 1.1: Malaitan plank-built ocean-going canoe from Langalanga Lagoon ..................................49 Figure 1.2: Malaitan women and children in dugout canoes near one of the artificial islands, possibly in Lau Lagoon ..........50 Figure 1.3: Maasupa Village, Maro`umasike (Takataka or Deep Bay), east `Are`are, 1970s ...............52 Figure 1.4: Langalanga women using hand drills to make holes in the process of making akwala`afi shell wealth in 1933 ......57 vii MAKING MALA Figure 1.5: Langalanga women grinding shells to make akwala`afi during a 1998 demonstration of shell wealth manufacture for tourists on Gwaelaga Island .........................58 Figure 1.6: Lobotalau rolls up his bata after a mortuary feast for the death of Na`oni`au at `Ai`eda in east Kwaio in August 1996 ...58 Figure 1.7: Porpoise hunting at Bita`ama, north Malaita, early 1960s. 60 Figure 1.8: Gwali Asi of Sulufou artificial island was an important bigman in Lau Lagoon early in the twentieth century ........61 Figure 1.9: A large hamlet in central Kwaio, inland from Sinalagu, in `Oloburi Harbour’s watershed. Two men’s houses sit at the upper reaches ..................................62 Figure 1.10: A well-built hamlet at `Ai`eda, inland from Sinalagu in Kwaio, at 853 metres (2,800 feet) above sea level ..........68 Figure 1.11: `Are`are woman wearing traditional jewellery and smoking a pipe, 1969 .............................69 Figure 1.12: `Are`are woman and child, 1969 ..................70 Figure 1.13: Bush women at Roas Bay, south Malaita, 1906 ........72 Figure 1.14: Sacrificial altar at Ferasubua Island in Lau Lagoon, 1906 .................................77 Figure 2.1: Christie Fatnowna with the model ship made by Jack Marau ......................................84 Figure 2.2: John Renton managed to get this piece of wood with its message on both sides to the Bobtail Nag in August 1875. 95 Figure 2.3: An illustration of the Peri survivors being picked up by HMS Basilisk off the coast of Queensland in early 1872 ...104 Figure 2.4: Recruiting at Maanakwai in north Malaita ...........108 Figure 2.5: Malaita men in the 1920s at the age typical of labour recruits ...................................108 Figure 2.6: This photograph from Bundaberg in 1889 is of the Helena, a 126-ton schooner, which made 40 voyages from 1882–99, and the May, a 237-ton schooner, which made 15 voyages from 1888–94 ............................114 viii LIST OF ILLUstrations Figure 2.7: There are no known photographs of accommodations below decks. On the early voyages it would have been much more basic. This sketch is by William Wawn, who was a captain in the labour trade from 1875 to 1894. It probably depicts one of his 1880s ships ...............................117 Figure 2.8: Men from Guadalcanal and Malaita on Foulden plantation at Mackay, Queensland, in the 1870s ...........118 Figure 2.9: At Mackay, Hugh Hossack owned one of the larger ‘Kanaka stores’, shops that catered predominantly to Islanders. They bought their trade boxes and their contents there, and were allowed to store their possessions there. The photograph shows how central Islanders were to Hossack’s trade, and his relationship with them. 122 Figure 2.10: This photograph, of a Malaitan canoe in Fiji, presumably manufactured and decorated there, is one of the most remarkable from the overseas plantations. The image, from a collection by A.M. Brodziack & Co., was probably taken in the 1880s. The canoe is in Walu Bay, an old local shipping area and Solomon Islander settlement ............137 Figure 2.11: Malaitans at Innisfail in north Queensland early in the 1900s. The slit-drum and the bows and arrows would have been made in Queensland ........................138 Figure 3.1: Queensland Kanaka Mission baptism by full emersion, Johnstone River, Geraldton (Innisfail), 1906 ..............146 Figure 3.2: Students at Mary Robinson’s Anglican Selwyn Mission when it operated from Marian in the Pioneer Valley west of Mackay. The photograph dates from the 1890s when William Wawn visited ...............................154 Figure 3.3: Many mission photographs are of groups of men, though women and children also attended services and classes. This group is at the Selwyn Mission in 1905. 156 Figure 3.4: The congregation at St Marys Church at Pioneer, outside Mackay, in the early 1900s ......................157 Figure 3.5: One of the Islanders’ grass-roofed churches in north Queensland, possibly the one at Cordelia Mount ...........158 ix MAKING MALA Figure 3.6: The Churches of Christ Mission Hall in the Isis, with John Thompson’s house alongside ..................167 Figure 3.7: Rev. McIntyre with his Sunday school class, Presbyterian Mission at Walkerston .....................168 Figure 3.8: This photograph is thought to be of the Methodist mission to Islanders in Fiji ............................174 Figure 3.9: Kwailiu Fatnowna and his wife Orrani and family at Mackay in 1906, not long before his death ..............181 Figure 4.1: St Andrew’s College, Kohimarama, Auckland, New Zealand. A small number of Malaitan students were there between 1862 and 1867. 198 Figure 4.2: The Melanesian Mission school at Uru, east Malaita, 1906 ..................................200 Figure 4.3: Clement Marau and Joseph Wate`ae`pule in about 1890 .....................................205 Figure 4.4: The new church built at Fiu, 1904 .................212 Figure 4.5: A food storage house at `Adagege Island, Kwaisulia’s stronghold in Lau Lagoon, 1906 ...............220 Figure 4.6: Rev. Arthur Hopkins’s mission house at Ngorefou, Lau Lagoon, 1906 ..................................222 Figures 4.7–8: Outside and inside the mission palisade at Ngorefou, 1906 ..................................222 Figure 4.9: St Barnabas College staff and students, Norfolk Island, 1906 ................................227 Figure 4.10: Interior of the St Barnabas College dining room, Norfolk Island .....................................228 Figure 5.1: Peter Abu`ofa in middle age ......................233 Figure 5.2: Men and youths of `Adagege, Kwaisulia’s island, Lau Lagoon, 1906 ..................................235 Figure 5.3: The final decision to close the Queensland Kanaka Mission and reestablish it as the South Sea Evangelical Mission was made at this religious convention at Katoomba, New South Wales, in 1904. .244 x LIST OF ILLUstrations Figure 5.4: The 12-ton lugger-style Daphne, which Florence Young brought with her in 1904. The ship served as the main means of transport for the QKM until the Evangel arrived in 1907. 245 Figure 5.5: Florence Young, superintendent of the Queensland Kanaka Mission and the driving force of the South Sea Evangelical Mission until the mid-1920s .................246 Figure 5.6: Mrs L.D. Eustace, holding classes at ‘Yungaba’, the Immigration Depot at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane,