Solomon Islands National Museum | |
 | |
| Formation | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Founded at | Honiara |
| Type | Governmental |
| Coordinates | 9°25′52″S159°57′15″E / 9.43111°S 159.95417°E |
Director | Tony Heorake |
Staff (2018) | 15 |
| Website | solomons.gov.sb/ministry-of-culture-and-tourism/solomon-islands-national-museum |
The Solomon Islands National Museum is the national museum of the Solomon Islands and is located in Honiara. [1] It is a department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. [2]
The museum officially opened in June 1969. [3] However, the museum was initiated in the 1951, when the islands were a British protectorate. The collection was formed by Geoffrey F. C. Dennis and James L. O. Tedder, amongst others, who were interested in the material culture of the Solomon Islands and combined their private collections. [4] The collections were exhibited in a number of locations in Honiara, including the Solomon Islands Teacher Training College, [5] until the Gulbenkian Foundation funded the purpose-built museum. [4] The new museum was organised by the Honiara Museum Association, which was mostly made up of expatriate colonial officers, however there was limited representation of the islanders from Solomon Dakei and Silas Sitai. [5] At this point Solomon Islanders began to donate some of their own items of cultural importance to the collection. [4]
In 1972 the museum became a government institution and expanded its site in Honiara, as well as expanding its activities to outlying islands. [4]
During the period of ethnic violence from 1999 to 2003, the museum continued to function, but was looted and many important cultural artefacts are lost: shell money valuables were removed for local use; other objects were sold to overseas collectors. [4]
The museum consists of a number of buildings, which each contain their own gallery, examining themes such as inter-island politics and Solomon Islands independence. [1] The museum's compound also contains offices and an auditorium, with outdoor stage. [6] The museum holds over two thousand objects and the collection includes natural science specimens, archaeological artefacts and objects relating to the Second World War. [3] It also holds marine and geological specimens. [5] In 1972 the museum began to collect contemporary sculpture. [7] In 1988 the museum collaborated with Osaka University to record and document music and dance traditions of the islands. [8] In 2014 the museum hosted an exhibition to commemorate Australian South Sea Islanders who were ""black birded" to work in the sugar cane fields of Queensland and Northern New South Wales between 1863 and 1904". [9]
The museum has an active archaeological research programme. This has includes several research excavation on Santa Isabel, most recently in the 2010s in the Kia area. [10] In 2016 the museum collaborated on a programme of archaeological excavation at Apunirereha, East Are’Are in Malaita Province. The site is a rock shelter used by prehistoric people and has deposits which included faunal remains, stone tools, shells and human remains. [11]
Due to a legacy of colonial exploitation of the Solomon Islands, important objects reflecting the country's cultural heritage are held in foreign collections. [12] Some of these institutions include: Horniman Museum; [13] the Cooper Hewitt; [14] National Museums Scotland; [15] the Metropolitan Museum of Art; [16] the Science Museum Group; [17] In 2019 the British Museum opened a new display on the history of collecting in the Solomon Islands, which exhibited five objects with five different stories of acquisition. [18]
In 1973 the Solomon Islands Museum requested the return of a shell-inlaid shield and other items from the Australian Museum. The request was denied by the Australian Museum on the grounds that "the shield was the only one of its kind in Australia, whereas other museums in the USA and UK each held several examples of better quality". [12] [19]
The British Museum has many objects from the Solomon Islands in its collections, including a feast trough which was stolen in 1891 in a punitive expedition by Captain Edward Davis. [20] Davis looted this and many other objects, later selling them in London; the British Museum has fifty objects it purchased from Davis in its collection. [21] [22] In 2018 the trough was displayed at the Royal Academy in its exhibition Oceania and at the time, the Solomon Islanders expressed a desire for its repatriation. [20] [23] [24] Another highly significant object in the British Museum is a war canoe from Vella Lavella, which is the largest watercraft in the museum's collections. [25] The canoe was built in 1910 by Jiosi Angele, who was commissioned to build it by a member of the colonial government. [26] It was purchased in 1913 by William Lever, brought to the UK and subsequently donated to the British Museum. [26] The museum and its academic partners invested in what was termed "digital repatriation" of the canoe, where the boat was scanned at a high resolution and the digital data transferred to the Solomon Islands. [26] However, many places in the Pacific, including the Solomon Islands, do not have access to the same digital infrastructure as Europe. [27]
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in the Melanesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean. This page is about the history of the nation state rather than the broader geographical area of the Solomon Islands archipelago, which covers both Solomon Islands and Bougainville Island, a province of Papua New Guinea. For the history of the archipelago not covered here refer to the former administration of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, the North Solomon Islands and the History of Bougainville.
Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons, is a country consisting of 21 major islands Guadalcanal, Malaita, Makira, Santa Isabel, Choiseul, New Georgia, Kolombangara, Rennell, Vella Lavella, Vangunu, Nendo, Maramasike, Rendova, Shortland, San Jorge, Banie, Ranongga, Pavuvu, Nggela Pile and Nggela Sule, Tetepare, and over 900 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, to the northeast of Australia. It is directly adjacent to Papua New Guinea to the west, Australia to the southwest, New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the southeast, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, and Tuvalu to the east, and Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia to the north. It has a total area of 28,896 square kilometres, and a population of 734,887 according to the official estimates for mid 2023. Its capital and largest city, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands.
New Georgia, with an area of 2,037 km2 (786 sq mi), is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 203rd-largest island in the world. Since July 1978, the island has been part of the independent state of Solomon Islands.
Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road (A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about 4.5 million items from every continent. It is the UK's largest university museum and serves both as a major visitor attraction and as a resource for academic research and teaching. It has around 430,000 visitors each year.
The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first established in June 1893, when Captain Herbert Gibson of HMS Curacoa declared the southern Solomon Islands a British protectorate.
Australian Aboriginal artefacts include a variety of cultural artefacts used by Aboriginal Australians. Most Aboriginal artefacts were multi-purpose and could be used for a variety of different occupations. Spears, clubs, boomerangs and shields were used generally as weapons for hunting and in warfare. Watercraft technology artefacts in the form of dugout and bark canoes were used for transport and for fishing. Stone artefacts include cutting tools and grinding stones to hunt and make food. Coolamons and carriers such as dillybags, allowed Aboriginal peoples to carry water, food and cradle babies. Message sticks were used for communication, and ornamental artefacts for decorative and ceremonial purposes. Aboriginal children’s toys were used to both entertain and educate.
Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners.
Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana were Solomon Islanders of Melanesian descent who found John F. Kennedy and his surviving PT-109 crew following the boat's collision with the Japanese destroyer Amagiri near Plum Pudding Island on 1 August 1943. They were from the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.
The Gweagal are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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.
The Fiji Museum is a museum in Suva, Fiji located in the capital city's botanical gardens, Thurston Gardens.
The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum is a museum in the town of Hanga Roa on Rapa Nui in Chilean Polynesia. Named for the Bavarian missionary, Fr. Sebastian Englert, OFM Cap., the museum was founded in 1973 and is dedicated to the conservation of the Rapa Nui cultural patrimony.
Te Umanibong or the Kiribati Cultural Museum, or Kiribati Museum and Cultural Centre, is a museum in Bikenibeu on the atoll of Tarawa in Kiribati. It displays artefacts and other items of cultural and historic significance.
The Musée de Tahiti et des Îles, Tahitian Te Fare Manaha, is the national museum of French Polynesia, located in Puna'auia, Tahiti.
The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC), also known as the Pacific Arts Festival, is a travelling festival hosted every four years in Oceania. It was conceived by the Pacific Community as a means to stem erosion of traditional cultural practices by sharing and exchanging culture at each festival. The major theme of the festival is traditional song and dance.
The National Museum of Vanuatu is located in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC) in Port Vila, Vanuatu. It specializes in exhibits relating to the culture and history of this group of islands in the South Pacific. It is unique amongst Pacific national cultural institutions for rejecting many aspects of European museology, and creating new ways of working which value kastom practices.
Honiara is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. As of 2021, it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and lies along the Kukum Highway. In 1983, a Capital Territory – comprising the 22 square-kilometre metropolitan area of Honiara – was proclaimed, with a self-governing status akin to a province, although the city also retained an older role as capital of Guadalcanal Province.
The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum is located in Brisbane, Australia. It houses the largest university collection of ethnographic material culture in Australia.
Tomako or tomoko is a large war canoe from the Solomon Islands. The name "tomako" is used in New Georgia in the Roviana language. It is also known as magoru in Marovo, niabara in Vella Lavella, mon in Bougainville, ora in Makira, and iola or ola in Malaita and Ulawa. Tomako were narrow and usually between 12 and 18 m in length. They did not possess outriggers or sails and were propelled solely by paddling. They were built by fitting planks edge-to-edge which are then "sewn" together and caulked with a paste made from the nut of the tree Parinarium laurinum. They could carry 30 to 50 warriors, and were used in raiding expeditions for slaves or for headhunting. They were characteristically crescent-shaped, with sharply upturned prows and sterns that were decorated with fringes of cowrie shells, nautilus shells, and mother-of-pearl, as well as intricate carvings. These carvings are usually of spirit animals or warriors like the kesoko and Tiolo. The body is commonly blackened to contrast with the decorations.
Tāoga Niue Museum is a national museum and cultural centre located in Alofi, Niue. It replaced the Huanaki Cultural Centre & Museum, which was destroyed by Cyclone Heta in 2004.
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