$Unique_ID{COW03280} $Pretitle{294S} $Title{Solomon Islands Chapter 1. General Information} $Subtitle{} $Author{Stephan B. Wickman} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{islands percent government population solomon groups new first social british} $Date{1984} $Log{} Country: Solomon Islands Book: Oceania, An Area Study: Solomon Islands Author: Stephan B. Wickman Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1984 Chapter 1. General Information Political Status Independent state (1978) Capital Honiara Population 251,000 (1984 midyear estimate) Land Area 28,530 square kilometers Currency Solomon Islands dollar (SI$) Major Islands Malaita, Guadalcanal, and Island Santa Isabel, Groups Choiseul, Makira, New Georgia, Santa Cruz Islands, Rennell, Bellona, Russell Islands, Florida Islands, Ontong Java Physical Environment The country of Solomon Islands consists of a double chain of islands and island clusters stretching over 1,400 kilometers; the islands of Bougainville and Buta, at the northern end of the geographical chain, belong to Papua New Guinea (see Papua New Guinea, this ch.). The country itself has about 1.3 million square kilometers within its EEZ (see Glossary). The five largest islands make up 73 percent of the territory (see fig. 8). All the large islands of the main chain and most of the outer islands were formed by volcanic activity, which still occurs in a few areas; the last serious eruption was on Savo Island in 1840. The mountains are generally rugged, except on Makira. Guadalcanal has extensive plains along its northern coast, but the other islands have little flat land. The river systems tend to have straight and swift courses that can flood the coastal areas during heavy rains. Rennell, the largest coral limestone island in the country, is a fine example of a raised atoll. The climate is almost uniformly hot and wet. The southeast trade winds predominate during the driest season, from April to November, and are strongest and of the longest duration in the southern islands. The northwesterly monsoonal winds can bring stormy weather and gales from January to April. Cyclones pass through the islands but seldom cause serious damage. Rainfall averages 3,000 to 3,500 millimeters per year for the country as a whole and about 2,200 millimeters in Honiara. Temperatures average around 30C, falling to about 25C during the night and in the higher elevations. Tropical forests, consisting of hardwoods, lianas, orchids, and various other epiphytes cover most of the large islands; the dense cover resembles that found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Some of the forests have been destroyed by slash-and-burn farming and have been covered over with grasses. Many of the river deltas have formed mangrove swamps. The animal life is similar though less varied than that in Papua New Guinea but includes the cuscus, a monkey-like marsupial. There is a distinct break in the fauna between the main chain and the Santa Cruz group, which has fewer of the indigenous species of bats, pigs, and dogs. Insects, including the malarial mosquito, abound. Historical Setting Historians conjecture that hunting and gathering Papuan-speaking peoples first came to the islands about 10,300 years ago. Around 2000 B.C. neolithic peoples speaking a variety of Austronesian languages displaced or mingled with the early settlers. These peoples were skilled agriculturists who planted taro on shifting plots and raised chickens, dogs, and pigs. They were able to build sturdy outriggers to cross from Makira to the Santa Cruz group, where the Lapita pottery culture later flourished (see Prehistory, ch. 1). It is unclear when the Polynesian descendants of Lapita culture settled the outlying islands. In 1568 Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana de Neira became the first European to discover the islands, which in South America were rumored to be the legendary "Islands of Solomon." Some 25 years after his initial exploration, Mendana returned but was unsuccessful in establishing a permanent settlement in the Santa Cruz group. A second Spanish settlement effort also failed in 1606. Except for some passes by Ontong Java, it was more than a century and a half until other Europeans rediscovered the islands; not until 1838 were they identified as those first explored by Mendana. The explorers who passed through the islands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had little contact with the indigenous population, but by 1830 whalers and traders had begun to frequent the area. The first Europeans to go ashore for any length of time, however, were a group of Marist Catholic priests, who founded a mission on Makira in 1845. The mission failed after several of the priests were killed by the local population. Cautioned by this experience, the Anglican missionaries who worked out of New Zealand decided to bring some select Solomon Islanders home with them for training. The Anglican recruits returned and set up a successful mission in the Reef Islands. Despite the murder of the first Anglican bishop to the Solomon Islands, the missionary effort expanded steadily and soon incorporated other denominations. The missionary effort was aided by the importation of Solomon Islanders to work plantations in Australia and elsewhere, a type of trade that was called blackbirding. The Solomon Islanders suffered under the trade but were exposed to European culture and religion in their new environment. Back home, blackbirding caused violent clashes between the islanders and the Europeans, although the missionaries opposed the trade. Violence and lawlessness caused Britain to establish a protectorate over the islands in 1893; Santa Isabel, Choiseul, Ontong Java, and the islands off Bougainville remained in the German sphere of influence. In 1899 an Anglo-German agreement brought these islands into the British protectorate. The establishment of civil order and the development of a modest plantation economy characterized the efforts of the British administration up to World War II. The task was arduous, being interrupted by World War I and limited by the small number of administrators willing to take up residence in the islands. Head-hunting raids and blood feuding were endemic on New Georgia and Malaita. The last of the main islands, Choiseul, was brought under full administrative control only in 1941. The economy likewise only slowly slipped into the modern era. The government leased 78,000 hectares of land to a British copra processor, and smaller firms and individual planters began to settle the territory, though often at considerable risk. World War II overwhelmed the Solomon Islands. The Japanese invasion, which moved as far south as Guadalcanal in 1942, destroyed not only the colonial administration but also the myth of British omnipotence (see World War II, ch. 5). Solomon Islanders distinguished themselves in service to the Allied forces-nearly all Americans-as they recaptured the islands in 1943. For many it was the first time they had been treated as equals and with dignity, and a sense of both individual pride and nationalism developed. In the final years of the war, a populist movement swept the island of Malaita and spread elsewhere. Called the Marching Rule by the British, the movement was much more than a cargo cult (see Glossary). Its leaders organized the indigenous population into paralimitary groups and administrative organizations that simultaneously reconstructed the war-ravaged villages and opposed the reinstatement of British rule. The British acted forcefully to put down the movement when it became violent, virtually smashing it by 1950, but the trend was clear-the Solomon Islanders wanted greater responsibilities for government themselves. In 1952 the government set up local governing councils for the first time. Political developments intensified during the 1960s, and 1970s. The colonial administration established appointive legislative and executive councils in 1960 to replace the advisory council to the government. Beginning in 1964, elected members joined the councils for the first time. In 1970 a new constitution established a single Governing Council, the majority of which was elected. In 1973 all its members became elected officials, and one year later another constitution created the Legislative Assembly and a cabinet system headed by Chief Minister Solomon Mamaloni. In 1975 the official name of the territory was changed from the British Solomon Islands Protectorate to Solomon Islands. During the next year the responsibility for internal government passed to the Legislative Assembly, and the country set out on a direct course to full independence. In the decade preceding full independence on July 7, 1978, the pace of economic and social modernization quickened. Commercial agriculture diversified from copra into the production of palm oil, timber, and fish-usually with the aid and guidance of foreign investors. The government began to fill in some of the glaring gaps in the nation's infrastructure, building ports, roads, and telecommunications networks. Enrollment in primary education expanded rapidly; previously isolated groups became more mobile and expanded their contacts with others. The transition to independence, however, was not altogether smooth; the nation was divided over the issue of local government. The people of the western islands, who were economically better off than the rest of the population, were especially concerned about retaining control over their resources. In fact, when Bougainville attempted to secede from Papua New Guinea in 1975, the Shortland Islands threatened a similar action against the Solomon Islands government (see Papua New Guinea, this ch.). At the constitutional conference held in London in 1977, the western islanders demanded considerable autonomy. Although still expressing some opposition because of ambiguities in the plans for provincial administration, the western islanders eventually acceded to the provisions for independence. The ceremonies proceeded as scheduled, and the country became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations, having an indigenous governor general appointed by the British crown. The Social System Solomon Islands society has been fragmented into numerous linguistic and cultural groupings since the first influx of peoples millennia ago. According to the 1976 census, about 92 percent of the population of 196,823 remained scattered in some 4,600 villages or settlements averaging about 25 inhabitants each. Melanesians, who made up 93 percent of the population according to the 1976 census, were typically fractured into small cultural and linguistic groupings, the largest of which numbered perhaps only 30,000 people. The lowest estimate suggested that there were 30 mutually unintelligible languages in use around the country; the total number of spoken dialects approached 90. The presence of Polynesian, Micronesian, European (i.e., white), Chinese,and other ethnic minorities added to the complexity of the culture. Notwithstanding this cultural diversity, historical developments have forged larger social identities centered on specific islands or regions. Christianity, education, and the growing dependency of the people on the central government for a variety of social services have also united the divergent groups. The government, moreover, has lent its support to a spontaneous cultural movement that emphasized the value of traditional customs common to the majority of groups in the society. Social organization among the Melanesian groups varies considerably, although the extended family is the common basis for all groups. Descent lines can be patrilineal, matrilineal, or a combination of the two. The former predominates on Malaita, Guadalcanal, Makira, and Choiseul; matrilineal systems are common on Santa Isabel and in the Santa Cruz Islands. For most groups, however, land and material wealth are the major indicators of social status, which is gained through the ostentatious display of wealth in ritual feast giving. The most successful feast giver, the "big man," becomes the leader of the community or clan group by virtue of his skills rather than by hereditary ascription (see Melanesia, ch. 1). Also common to the Melanesian groups is the careful delineation of taboos and roles for each sex; the separation of the sexes, however, does not imply the subordination of one to the other. The Polynesians, who made up 4 percent of the population according to the 1976 census, are very different from the Melanesians (see Polynesia, ch. 1). They maintain strictly patrilineal, hierarchical, and hereditary forms of social organization. The Polynesian islands include, among others, Rennell, Ontong Java, Tikopia, Bellona, and the Reef Islands. In 1976 Micronesians constituted 1.4 percent of the population; they were mostly Gilbertese and lived in or near Honiara (see Micronesia, ch. 1; Kiribati, ch. 3). The Europeans and Chinese, making up 0.7 and 0.2 percent of the population, respectively, also lived in urban Honiara, although a number of European and Part European plantation owners lived in Central Islands Province. Small minorities of indigenous Papuan-speaking people lived in the Russell, Santa Cruz, and New Georgia island groups. Traditional custom, called kastom in the Pidgin English that serves as the lingua franca throughout the islands, has become a rallying cry for many of the indigenous groups and for the government. The ideology of kastom first expressed itself coherently during the Marching Rule period but persisted after the nation's independence. As anthropologist Roger M. Keesing has described it, kastom is an all-purpose ideology that means different things to different groups or individuals. For some, such as the non-Christianized Kwaio of Malaita, kastom has been a potent political symbol in their resistance to the incursions of the Western religious and economic ideologies propagated by the government. For others it has represented a synthesis of traditional and modern systems of thought and behavior. The national political elite-mostly Christian and Western-educated-have used kastom as a symbol of national identity and as a way to legitimize themselves to the common people. Many have justified their preferences for various systems of law, local government, and land tenure on the basis of kastom, which retained its popularity precisely because of its nebulousness. Religion is a unifying force in the society; more than 95 percent of the population was estimated to be Christian in mid-1980. There were, however, inevitable rivalries between the denominations. About a third of the population belonged to the Anglican Diocese of Melanesia, and another 19 percent were Roman Catholic. The South Sea Evangelical Church, which originated in the community of Solomon Islanders working on plantations in Australia in the nineteenth century, attracted about 17 percent of the population, chiefly in the eastern and southern islands. The United Church, a union of Methodists and Congregationalists, served 11 percent of the population, particularly in Western Province. Seventh-Day Adventists made up one-tenth of the population, while indigenous and marginal Protestant churches, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, constituted the rest of the Christian community. Only 4 percent of the population might be called tribal religionists, including those affiliated with so-called cargo cults. Education, a major force behind the modernization and unification of the society, began under the pioneering efforts of the Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries. In 1980 about 19 percent of the primary schools and 29 percent of the secondary schools were still affiliated with churches. Some 300 primary schools were run by local councils, and in 1983 about 65 percent of the children at primary-school age were enrolled. The World Bank (see Glossary) extended the government a US$10 million loan in 1983 to build 300 rural primary-school classrooms by 1989 in order to raise enrollments to 85 percent of the relevant age-group. One study conducted in the early 1980s showed that about 30 percent of the 1,000 primary-school teachers were untrained and another 20 percent had received minimal training; a teachers college in Honiara trained about 100 teachers in 1977. Eleven provincial schools specializing in practical studies and six national schools having academic curricula served 35 percent of the relevant age-group in 1983. Only two of the academic schools were in rural areas; the rest were in or near Honiara. The small Honiara campus of the University of the South Pacific offered courses in education, culture, finance, administration, industrial development, natural resource management, nursing, paramedical skills, and fishing. The government, which had devoted 11 percent of its budget to education during the 1980-83 period, planned to invest 15 percent of its budgetary resources in this area in 1984. The adult literacy rate in 1976 was only 13 percent. The development of modern health and other social services has also emanated from the central government and the churches. The Ministry of Health and Welfare ran one major hospital in the capital and five less-developed provincial hospitals in 1980. Provincial authorities operated about 100 clinics. There were some 50 rural health centers and village aid posts; two hospitals and 23 clinics were affiliated with churches. In 1980 there were about 6,250 people per physician, and in 1976 the average life expectancy was 54 years. Endemic diseases included malaria, tuberculosis, and leprosy; in 1981 there were over 61,000 cases of malaria-more than double the number two years earlier. Diseases related to sanitation and hygiene were also common. About 70 percent of all rural households did not have access to safe water in the early 1980s, and three-quarters had unsanitary latrine facilities. In 1978 the government launched a 12-year program to provide safe water to 2,500 villages and build 50,000 sanitary latrines. The improvements in health care and economic development have resulted in changes that have significantly affected the society. Transportation development has increased the interaction between previously isolated cultural groups. Schools, plantations, and business establishments were replacing the family as focal points of social interaction. Modern kinds of employment were replacing traditional arts and handicrafts. Changing social mores have resulted in some problems, such as alcoholism, violent crime, and pregnancy out of wedlock, that could not be resolved by traditional means. Population growth per se was not a problem because land was readily available, but migration to Honiara in particular was overwhelming the capacity of the capital to provide the necessary services. The growing youthfulness of the population-about 65 percent of the total was between the ages of six and 16 in 1983-and its rising level of education made it imperative for the society to generate new employment opportunities.