Total population | |
---|---|
13,200 in 1999 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Solomon Islands | 13,200 [1] |
Languages | |
Kwaio | |
Religion | |
traditional ancestor worship | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Malaitan peoples |
Kwaio is an ethnic group found in central Malaita, in the Solomon Islands. According to Ethnologue, they numbered 13,249 in 1999. [1] Much of what is known about the Kwaio is due to the work of the anthropologist Roger M. Keesing, who lived among them starting in the 1960s.
Their main mode of economic activity was traditionally subsistence farming of taro, which could be planted and harvested continuously in swidden agriculture. Other important crops include yams and plantains. Birds, insects, fish, and cuscus were occasional additions to what was mainly a vegetarian diet. Taro production suffered in a severe blight in the 1950s, and has been replaced by the sweet potato, a food of much lower prestige. [2]
Kwaio settlement was traditionally in very small settlements dotted close together. Missionary activity, predominantly in coastal areas, has encouraged the growth of larger settlements.
According to oral tradition, the land was first cleared 1200 to 2000 years ago. The tracts cleared at this time are marked by shrines, and in effect established title for the clans descended agnatically from these ancestors. In practice, other non-agnatic descendants have secondary rights to the land, which may be strengthened by residence, especially during childhood, and participation in the descent groups' affairs. Because people can have claims in several different descent groups, land rights have some degree of flexibility. [3]
Kwaio have been more resistant than other nearby peoples in the continuation of their beliefs. The traditional religion is a form of ancestor worship, which recognizes the power of the deceased to intervene in affairs. There are strict rules regarding taboo (Kwaio: abu), and violations of them must be redressed with sacrifices. One example of a powerful ancestral force is La'aka, fear of whom led to the Maasina Ruru movement.
Kwaio were first brought into contact with the outside world in 1868, when two men were taken from their canoe, and then returned bearing steel tools, novelty items, and stories about their experience. Within a small amount of time, many young Kwaio sought the adventures, and were brought to sugarcane plantations in Queensland and on Fiji for their labor. The appearance of steel (replacing rough chert blades) and firearms revolutionized the Kwaio way of life, as leisure time was greatly increased by the new tools and blood feuds escalated. Kwaio also attempted to avenge the deaths of those who died overseas, and they earned a reputation as a fierce and dangerous group. Missionaries from the South Seas Evangelical Church were brought to support those in Queensland who had become Christians there, and enclaves were established in the lowlands.
The efforts of the Australian District Officer William R. Bell were to pacify the area and establish means to collect a head tax, and capitulate to the British colonial regime. On his fifth annual tax collection, in October 1927, he was killed, along with one other white man and 13 Solomon Islanders in his charge. A massive punitive expedition, known as the Malaita massacre ensued; at least 60 people were killed, [4] and nearly 200 detained in Tulagi (the then capital), where 30 further died from dysentery and other problems. [5] Furthermore, relatives of the slain Solomon Islanders sought spiritual revenge by the deliberate desecration of sacred sites and objects, which is seen by surviving elders as the origin of many of the struggles the people have suffered in recent times, including epidemics, the breakdown of traditional morality, and the Taro leaf blight. [6] Kwaio culture was greatly transformed, but after several years was able to regain its traditional practices and social structure. However, there is more personal independence for younger people and blood feuding is no longer practiced.
Roger Martin Keesing was an American linguist and anthropologist, most notable for his fieldwork on the Kwaio people of Malaita in the Solomon Islands, and his writings on a wide range of topics including kinship, religion, politics, history, cognitive anthropology and language. Keesing was a major contributor to anthropology.
South Malaita Island is the island at the southern tip of the larger island of Malaita in the eastern part of the Solomon Islands. It is also known as Small Malaita and Maramasike for Areare speakers and Malamweimwei for more than 80% of the islanders. The island is referred to as Iola Raha. It is called "small" to distinguish it from the much larger sibling. It is part of Malaita Province. South Malaita came under effective control of the colonial administration after the Solomon Islands was declared a British Protectorate in 1893. During the colonial days, the island was divided by the colonial government and missionary establishments into the Asimeuri, Asimae, and Raroisu'u districts.
Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the second largest island in the country by area, after Guadalcanal.
La'aka is a powerful ancestress and one of the most widely propitiated of spirits among the eastern Kwaio on Malaita, Solomon Islands. She is seen as both a protective figure who exemplifies maternal virtues and the productive powers of women and as a warrior whose deeds rivalled those of the ancient Kwaio strongmen who, as ancestral spirits (adalo), are propitiated and confer power to the living. She is one of the great ancestors of about twelve to twenty generations ago, which do not represent the starting point of the deepest genealogies, but represent those believed to have founded the modern Kwaio way of life.
ꞌAreꞌare is the name of a people from the south of the island of Malaita, which is part of the Solomon Islands. Their language is the ꞌAreꞌare language, which is part of the Austronesian language family. In 1999 there were an estimated 18,000 speakers, up from about 8-9,000 in the 1970s.
The South Sea Evangelical Church (SSEC) is an evangelical, Pentecostal church in Solomon Islands. In total, 17% of the population of Solomon Islands adheres to the church, making it the third most common religious affiliation in the country behind the Anglican Church of Melanesia and the Roman Catholic Church. The SSEC is particularly popular on Malaita, the most populous island, where 47% of its members live; there are also smaller populations in Honiara and elsewhere on Guadalcanal, on Makira, and in other provinces.
William Robert Bell was an Australian-born official in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, who served as the District Officer of Malaita from 1915 until 1927. He was killed while collecting a head tax from the Kwaio of central Malaita. His death set off the Malaita massacre, in which several other colonial officials were killed in a Kwaio attack, which led to a punitive expedition in which many Kwaio were killed or incarcerated in retaliation.
The Malaita massacre inflicted a large number of deaths on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands in late 1927. William R. Bell, the District Officer of Malaita in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, and many of his deputies were killed by Basiana and other Kwaio warriors as part of a plan to resist the head tax imposed by the colonial authorities and what was perceived as an assault on the traditional values. A retributive raid was organised that ultimately resulted in the death of about 60 Kwaio, in addition to nearly 200 incarcerated and a systematic destruction and desecration of important Kwaio ancestral shrines and ritual objects. The event was of extreme significance for the Kwaio people, and has greatly affected their way of life.
A ramo was a warrior-leader among certain tribes on Malaita in the Solomon Islands. A ramo was recognized when he had killed an adversary in personal combat, and established an intimidating reputation. This was also believed to represent ancestral support, and their supernatural abilities contributed to their reputation.
Basiana was a native leader of the Kwaio group on Malaita in the Solomon Islands. He was a powerful and feared ramo, and came from a line of prominent leaders, feastgivers, and warriors of the Gounaile clan. He is known in the West as the killer of William R. Bell, the colonial District Officer, for which he and his co-conspirators were hanged.
Peter Ambuofa was an early convert to Christianity among Solomon Islanders who established a Christian community on Malaita, and a key figure in the history of the South Seas Evangelical Mission.
Captain Richard Cecil Rutledge Kane, MC was the United Kingdom's fourth Resident Commissioner of the Solomon Islands Protectorate, serving from 1921 to 1929. He had previously worked in Fiji as District Commissioner for Rewa, as well as serving in the colony's Legislative Council.
Lau Lagoon is a part of the Solomon Islands. It is located on the northeast coast of Malaita Island. The lagoon is more than 35 kilometers long and contains about 60 artificial islands built on the reef.
Laulasi island is an artificial island in the Langa Langa Lagoon, South of Auki on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands. It is believed that hostilities among the inlanders of Malaita forced some people into the lagoon where over time they built their islands on sandbars after diving for coral. The religion of the island was based on prayers and offerings to the ghosts of dead ancestors, mediated by priests who kept their skulls and relics in tabu houses. Some ancestors were incarnated as sharks which protected their descendants. Langalanga is also the main source of the shell money now made in Solomon Islands.
Langa Langa Lagoon or Akwalaafu is a natural lagoon on the West coast of Malaita near the provincial capital Auki within the Solomon Islands. The lagoon is 21 km in length and just under 1 km wide. The "lagoon people" or "salt water people" live on small artificial islands built up on sand bars over time where they were forced to flee from the headhunters of mainland Malaita.
Harold M. Ross is a cultural anthropologist who studied the Baegu community and culture on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands. He conducted his field research in the mid-1960s and summarized his research for his doctoral thesis, publishing his work and receiving a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1970. Following his research Dr. Ross taught Anthropology at the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana before moving onto positions in academic administration at multiple institutions.
The Kwaio language, or Koio, is spoken in the centre of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by about 13,000 people.
Kwaisulia was a prominent tradesman, strongman and blackbirder on the island of Malaita in the late nineteenth century, who for several decades held political control over the north of the island.