Solomon Islands | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

POPULATION 490,000
ANGLICAN 34 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 19 percent
SOUTH SEA EVANGELICAL (BAPTIST) 17 percent
UNITED CHURCH OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 11 percent
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST 10 percent
OTHER PROTESTANT 5 percent
TRADITIONALIST 4 percent

The Solomon Islands, an island archipelago in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, lies just east of Papua New Guinea. Its main islands include Choiseul, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Malaita, Guadalcanal, and Makira (or San Cristobal). The inhabitants are nearly all Melanesians, but some are western Polynesians.

As a result of missionary work since the midnineteenth century, the islands are almost exclusively Christian. The geographical distribution of denominations derives from an interchurch agreement in 1880. Guadalcanal is mainly Anglican and Catholic; on Malaita the South Sea Evangelical Church is concentrated in the north, while Anglicans are more widely spread. In the remaining larger islands the United Church (formerly the Methodists) is strong in the west, as are the Adventists, and Anglicans predominate in the central west and the east. Traditional customs remain strong in the country's 90 indigenous culture areas, and in some pockets traditional religion persists.

The constitution affirms freedom of religion. Interchurch relations are cordial, even if larger groupings have a history of mistrusting smaller Protestantism denominations (such as Adventism) and independent movements. In the case of serious conflict (such as the civil war at the turn of the twentyfirst century), tribal principles of revenge are readily invoked to justify armed action, and the Bible is often used to support such actions.

DATE OF ORIGIN 1857 C.E.
NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 470,000

When missionaries first arrived in the 1840s, Solomon Islanders had a reputation for fierce fighting (and even headhunting). The most dangerous area was to the west. The eastern islands appeared more promising, and after French Marist failures (1847–48), the Anglican Melanesian Mission had a serious impact there by 1857. After Britain took full colonial protection over the Solomons in 1893, other missions established themselves. French Marists arrived again in 1898, Australian Methodists in 1902, a branch of the Queensland Kanaka Mission (later the South Sea Evangelical Mission) in 1904, and the Seventh-day Adventists in 1914. In 1926 the Anglicans added New Guinea to their Melanesian diocese.

World War II affected the Solomons in 1942–43 when Japan invaded the islands, but the Japanese were repelled by Allied forces, and the threat to church growth was removed. Anticolonial sentiments followed the war, and the Solomons achieved independence in 1978, only to experience a civil war (1998–2003) that polarized inhabitants of Malaita and Guadalcanal.

Anglican George Selwyn (foundation bishop of New Zealand from 1841) founded the Melanesian Mission in 1849, and John Coleridge Patteson became the first bishop of Melanesia in 1861. The latter's death in 1871 at the hands of Nukapu Islanders (who had taken him to be a labor recruiter, or "slaver") spurred the first serious attempts by colonial governments in Australia and New Zealand to curtail forcible-labor recruiting in the islands.

Two early Solomonese Anglican leaders were George Sarawia (c. 1860–1901), the first indigenous priest, and Ini Kopuria (c. 1900–45), founder of the Melanesian Brothers. New Zealand Methodist missionary John Goldie stands out for his vociferous stance against trader's handling of local people. A Methodist Choiseulese, Leslie Boseto, was later to become the best-known moderator of the United Church (1973–80). Silas Eto, called the Holy Mama (1905–84), founded the separatist Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) on New Georgia.

English Anglican missionary Robert Codrington (1830–1922) wrote the first general work on Melanesian cultures. The first Solomonese writer was deacon Clement Marau (1858–c. 1910); a Banks Islander, he wrote an autobiographical account of his evangelistic work on Ulawa in the eastern Solomons.

Of the churches in the Solomon Islands, the Siota Cathedral on Small Nggela Island receives the most pilgrims. Others of interest are the Catholic Holy Cross Cathedral in Honiara; Anglican village churches on San Cristobal, which are traditionally timber-framed and decorated; and, on New Georgia, churches with unusual iconography combining Roviana and Wesleyan motifs (built by the independent CFC).

For most Solomonese the best-known sacred place is the martyr's memorial at Nipwa on the Polynesian reef island of Nukapu. This marks Bishop Patteson's death in 1871, discussed above under EARLY AND MODERN LEADERS. In pre-Christian tradition the notion of mana denoted sacred things and power, and it continues to be used to indicate dynamism both in the exertion of authority and in the events of life. People with remarkable gifts of leadership can have the term applied to them.

Apart from Independence Day and Liberation Day, the major Solomons holidays reflect Christian, especially Anglican, practice. These include Easter, Whit Sunday, Queen's Birthday, and Christmas (which is followed by National Thanksgiving Day on 26 December). The most colorful church celebrations connect tradition and church—for instance, when the arrival of the first missionaries is celebrated on a given island.

In leaving behind traditional attire for Western dress, the Solomons reflect the same massive shift experienced everywhere in Melanesia over the last hundred years. Little distinguishes the Solomonese dress, except in the case of the indigenous Anglican brotherhoods and sisterhoods. The Melanesian Brothers wear black shirts and shorts with a white sash and black waistcloth, symbolizing the light of Christ shining in the midst of "heathen" darkness.

In the Solomon Islands pigs are the most highly prized domesticated animal, and pork is consumed in both traditional rites and at many church celebrations (except among the Seventh-day Adventists, for whom pork and coastal crabs are forbidden). Yams and taro are used in both customary and modern Christian festive practices.

Christian worship often appears artificially Western in this Melanesian context. Few distinctively Solomonese Christian rituals have developed, except in terms of charismatic phenomena and music. South Sea Evangelicals of North Malaita experienced a "revival" in the 1970s; it involved collective experience of the Holy Spirit, healing miracles, indigenous interpretations of the Bible, and prayers and dreams in the Spirit.

"Spiritistic activity" had already marked the independent CFC on New Georgia. When Silas Eto (the Holy Mama) broke from Methodism (1950–60s), the phenomenon of taturu (collective ecstasy and seizures during worship) was taken as the legitimating sign of a new ecclesial identity. A centerpiece in CFC worship is singing hymns to brass band music; the hymns invoke the Holy Mama as "the fourth man" (or aspect) of the Trinity. Eto encouraged people to pray in the open air before lines of strings made of traditional material while visualizing God (instead of certain spirits, as in the old times).

In a country where traditional initiations were by ordeals, the display of sacred objects in rituals, and a severe instilling of tribal rules, the Christian churches have few equivalents. The Christian ceremony of confirmation looks tame by comparison. Sometimes dramas are enacted to mark the seriousness of the transition to Christian life.

Nominalism—the willing attachment to a church, yet with little involvement—is a common problem. Christianity has come to express "the new life" and a new identity, but many old pressures (to enact revenge for deaths, for example) have not died. Efforts to encourage stronger involvement in the practice of the Christian faith have been most obvious on Malaita, with the South Sea Evangelical Church revival in the 1970s and the "Practical Holiness" movements that began in the 1990s. Members of the Practical Holiness movements identify themselves as Israelites, fly an Israeli flag, and sometimes accept circumcision.

The churches have a strong tradition of medical and educational services and social welfare in the Solomon Islands. The Melanesian Brotherhood has helped the poor and acted for peace—monitoring the relinquishment of firearms (2002) in the civil war and opposing the Guadalcanal-based warlord Harold Keke (2003), who had fought to drive Malaitians from the island. The churches have fostered special respect toward women and children and have sponsored sporting competitions as substitutes for armed violence.

Christianity has significantly changed marriage and family life in the Solomons. Traditional polygyny has virtually ceased. Infanticide is pro-scribed by both the churches and state. Compact village units have replaced dispersed hamlets in the bush and the separation of the men in cult houses for ritual and warrior functions; more nuclear families now sleep under the same roofs. Social policies to limit the number of children in families for the sake of women's health are given some support from church leadership, but they have been resisted by most males (who oppose the use of birth-control methods).

The Christian churches have had a crucial impact on Solomonese political life. Both the parliamentary and the public service elite typically appeal to a Christian basis for their activities. Political advantagecan accrue to political leaders through their denominational connections.

Revenge wars against enemies were expressions of group energy central to pre-colonial religious life in the Solomons, and the pull of warrior tradition continues. The "Christian peace" is always fragile because of the temptation to solve disputes by a show of force; those resorting to old manners are often called "skin Christians." The recent civil war has brought this controversial issue to a head. It is a challenge to the churches to help secure a lasting peace and the handing in of weapons.

Traditional religious practice remains intact only in a few pockets of the Solomon Islands, yet the distinctiveness of most cultures has been retained. Dances, designs, languages, and foodpresentation ceremonies have their place (albeit adapted) in church community-building, as well as in activities that promote a new national identity.

Introduced music styles include European hymns and choruses. Indigenous chants have been adapted for Christian praise, sometimes, especially in the west, with panpipes. Grassroots compositions have been promoted—as part of South Sea Evangelical revivalism, for instance, or as nationally disseminated string-band "spiritual songs." Churches often have art works that reflect traditional styles (for example, wooden Catholic crucifixes and designs on church facades).

Truly indigenous religious ritual is rare in the Solomon Islands. The isolated Kwaio of Malaita propitiate their ancestors and various local spirits through the sacrifice of pigs, the quest for prestige (mana) as gift-givers, and the observance of tabus (ancestral prohibitions passed down especially at initiations). In most areas churches have replaced ancestral shrines as centers for managing the fears and vexations arising from the old spirit world. Select traditional dances serve only to remind of the old days or are performed in modern competitions.

Since 1957 there has been one successful attempt to revive traditional lifeways: the Moro movement (which takes its name from its founder) in southern and western areas of Guadalcanal. They require that people live without Western clothes, Western food, and buildings. In the Moro movement there are signs of a collective hope that, through keeping the old ways, the ancestors will send untold riches.

Bennett, Judith A. Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800–1978. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1987.

Davenport, William, and Gülbün Çoker. "The Moro Movement of Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands Protectorate." Journal of the Polynesian Society 76 (1967): 123–75.

Griffiths, Allison. Fire in the Islands: The Acts of the Holy Spirit in the Solomons. Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1977.

Hilliard, David L. God's Gentlemen: A History of the Melanesian Mission, 1849–1942. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1978.

Keesing, Roger Martin. Kwaio Religion: The Living and Dead in a Solomon Island Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

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