The Crafts of the Solomon Islands

The artifacts of the South Seas are very genuine. That is to say, they are worked with the simplest tools, often with none, and by hand only. Their materials are taken direct from nature, are generally living, and fashioned with small preparation - merely in most cases that of water and the sun. The imagination brought to the work is fresh, unaffected by the visual platitudes of the West. The things made are part of everyday life: they are created to be used, the notion of selling them being only recent. And they have the dignity of this tradition: even a humble woven basket for rubbish can be beautiful. Few manufacturing industries exist; everybody to some degree must make what they need, what they use daily.

In the Solomons in particular the handcrafts are varied and rich. The best known are the highly-finished carvings in wood, and the shell money also.

It's convenient to think of their crafts as divided broadly into Melanesian and Polynesian. The islands themselves enclose the world's largest atoll - 250,000 square miles of sea; they form a thousand-mile chain which stretches over seven parallels of latitude, double this of longitude. In the north, the zone is Melanesian, to the south it comes within the region of Polynesia - covering as a generalisation, the crafts of carving and weaving, which happen to belong to men and women respectively.

The range of the materials put to use is wide, perhaps the broadest spectrum of the Pacific. In addition to those first offered by the sea and the land - shell, wood and leaf - there are many others, gathered under fibres from bark and vine, and bone and stone. Most come fairly easily to hand; and this in uncommon in the South Seas where many islands may be quite lacking in wood, or even without stone, to say nothing of fresh water. Most of the Solomons are covered with forest and many types of hard and soft woods are found, from ebony to the durable milky pine used in fishing floats. Bamboo is employed more than usual in this region, clam, oyster and many other shells, the carapace of the turtle, all parts of the serviceable coconut, pandanus, many barks and fibres on unclear species. The possibilities are thoroughly explored, and exploited too with freedom and fantasy.

A circumstance that has protected Solomons craft and kept it from corruption is the late development of the islands. Their discovery by outsiders however came early. It was in 1568 that the Spanish explorer Mendana reached their shores and named them after Solomon, claiming - not for the last time in the Pacific - that they gave a foretaste of Paradise, and adding wishfully that they were full of gold. They were virtually ignored for a couple of centuries until Carteret rediscovered them almost exactly 200 years later. And there followed another long period of oblivion until the second World War brought with its bitter fighting a revelation of the power of the West and the schisms of the twentieth century. The period revived beliefs in cargo cults, where, as natives had seen, riches could drop from the skies with the right incantations. It implanted fossil scraps of metal from planes or guns into local handcrafts. This violent irruption was however relatively recent and the crafts that had long existed in isolation suffered till then little degradation by outside influence.

The ways of working exemplify the purity of the approach. Almost the only tool used is the cutting edge or the sharpened point. A saw is rarely seen here in craftwork, and the chisel and plane never. Metal of course is generally in service these days, but it does not demand a great deal of imagination to visualise the obsidian in use before Captain Cook and to find only small differences of technique. Almost no glues are employed: indeed it is significant how quickly true craft languishes in the presence of modern adhesives. There are few joins. Few are in fact called for in handcraft: the simplicity and truth of a piece is usually marred by the necessity for a join or fastening. The types of craft in the Solomons vary by the regions. This has much to do with the poor communication between the scattered islands, never good in the past and still hindered today by relative poverty.

The large number of different languages spoken throughout the territory helps to preserve this variety. The shell money of the Solomons come from the large island of Malaita; its concomitant in bride-purchase, the celebrated red-feather money, derives also from the East, from Santa Cruz, a small isle with two others nearby known for making the traditional fishing floats and dancing sticks from dyed wood. The finely polished inlaid wooden carvings are made best in the Northwestern islands. Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomons with the new capital of Honiara, is the source today of the transplanted crafts - the Buka-ware basket-making that probably originated in the North, in Bourgainville, now part of Papua New Guinea, and the bamboo musical pipes and shell containers. Turtle shell jewellery is also made here today. From the Polynesian settlements on often tiny islands as Tikopea, Bellona and Rennell come the fine and complex patterns of the coloured pandanus shoulder-bags and large mats which women weave, almost unaware of their busy fingers.

The Solomon Islands embody a rich region of handcrafts. They flourish vigorously there as a part of everyday life, with all the men and women in a village addressing themselves naturally to making things for their own family or for others. Ideas come spontaneously, are appreciated and applauded. This vitality, allied with the richness of the materials employed and a true pride in the work, enables the country to offer a singularly rewarding variety of artefacts.

Craft blong Solomone

Solomon Islands carvings are as old as man in the Solomons. They have their roots deep in the culture of the islands and their people. They were, and still are, part of their religious, economic and domestic lives.

Many original artifacts have been taken away from the Solomons as part of the collections of Europeans who have lived and worked in the Islands. A recent sale at Christies of London featured several Solomons items. Consequently, the exportation of old crafts items is controlled. But the basic skills remain and are developing as a result of constantly expanding world interest in Melanesian arts. The original designs continue and the method of production, though now assisted by modern technology, is little different from what it was hundreds of years ago. Crafts which were once in danger of dying and being forgotten, to be seen only in museums, are flourishing today in the Solomon Islands.

What comes from where?

The crafts produced today come from five main areas, each area specialising in its own distinctive product and design.

West (cavings, fans)

Munda and the villages of Marovo Lagoon produce highly polished carvings with distinctive shell inlay work. The best know of these is Nguzu Nguzu, the head of a sea god, which used to be attached to the prow of a canoe. Sharks and dolphins are also carved in the Western Province, and attractive feather fans are made by the Gilbertese (I-Kiribati) people who settled there in large numbers. A form of shell or stone money using fossilised clam shell used to be prepared in this region, in particular Ghizo Island. An ancient stone money factory can be visited near Gizo town.

East (cavings, red feather money)

The islands of Santa Ana and Santa Catalina of the Eastern tip of Makira (San Cristobal) and Ulawa to the north, are well known for a range of carvings made from a lightweight and light coloured wood which is painted black on completion. The carvings are often inlaid with shell. From Santa Ana and Ulawa come dancing sticks and fishing floats. A feature of the Eastern outer island of Santa Cruz (Temuto Province), is the red feather money, once made in rolls but now more usually attached to sticks. Like the better known shell money of Malaita it is a pre-Eurpean form of currency (see About Shell Money for more details).

Malaita (shell money, cavings, combs, baskets)

Undoubtedly, Malaita, one of the largest and most densely populated islands, is best known for its shell money made from discs of shell threaded into necklaces, bracelets, and the ceremonial bride-price piece known as 'Tafuliae'. Shell money was and still is a form of currency in high demand. The Malaita bride doll was eveloved over recent years and is a further sign of Malaitan preoccupation with marriage and the exchanges connected with it. War clubs made on the island reflect the violent nature of the island. Useful Ioya cane baskets with black and brown decorative deisgns also come from this island, along with very attractive combs with finely woven red and yellow designs.

Guadalcanal (Baskets, bamboo work, turtle shell jewellery)

Guadalcanal is unusual in that few carvings are produced. Any carving which does take place is done in Honiara by other islanders who are living in the capital. The main contribution from this island is the Buka or Buin type of baskets, trays and mats. The origin of the name and craft is uncertain. Buka and Buin are place names from the island of Bourgainville in Papua New Guinea. Buka is an island to the north, and Buin an area of settlement to the south, a few miles from the Western Solomons across the Western passage. It seems likely that this type of basket is not indigenous to Guadalcanal but came from Bourgainville either as copied designs or the result of migration of people who until very recently did not accept the existence of a border. From Guadalcanal also come decorated bamboo lime containers, used by betel nut chewers, and bamboo panpipes which are a feature of the custom music of this island. Turtle shell jewellery is an interesting example of craft developed by expatriates from Marau Sound using Solomon Island materials.

Polynesia (carvings, bags, mats, tapa cloth)

On the outer rim of the main Melanesian islands lie the Polynesian islands of Rennell and Bellona, Sikaiana, Ontong Java and Tikopia. The people of Rennell and Bellona are particularly skilled and inventive carvers and weavers. Their carvings are distinctive and cover a range of subjects. Fine quality inlaid masks are made, along with spears, clubs, walking sticks, turtles and shark hooks. Shark hooks are particularly interesting reproductions of original fishing equipment made from an unjointed bend of a branch or root. Figure carvings, often depicting crocodiles or snakes, are a speciality. Unlike Melanesian carvings, which are stylised in design and decoration, these Polynesian carvings are extremely natural and lifelike - often alarmingy so! Model Polynesian outrigger canoes with accurate detail are also made.

In addition to the carvings, Rennell and Bellona produce finely woven shoulder bags, used widely by Solomon Islanders today, and thin quality mats made from fine strands of white panadanus leaf with checkered patterns or geometric borders. From Tikopia occaisionally come traditional Polynesian Tapa Cloth made from bark, originally used as a loin cloth.

Design

The Solomon Islands are widely scattered. Travel between islands and different parts of islands was, and still is, difficult. This geographical separation in the past gave rise to suspicion and contact between groups of people was often violent. thus, the people of different island groups and districts developed separately with their own languages and customs. This separation is also reflected in their crafts, with each region developing its own styles. There is, however, an interesting similarity in the designs used to decorate the crafts, as the inspiration came from a natural world common to all islands.

Stylised birds and fishes are the predominant forms.the unmistakable angled wings of the frigate bird, the most common sea bird found in the Solomons, is frequently represented, as is the hornbill. Sharks, porpoise, bonito and the long-snouted garfish have easily recognised shapes. Paddles, sometimes presented as decorative carvings have fish-shaped blades. The handles of bowls often have fish (prawn) and shell-shapes. Human heads and figures, sometimes a mixture of man and fish, are often the theme of a carving. Many carvings and most weavings feature regular geometric designs. Christian influence, a major force in Solomon Islands life, can be seen in the frequency in which the cross appears either as a carving or a design on a carving.

Recommended reading is a lavishly illustrated book "Images and Islands - Grass Roots Art of the Solomons", published by Pacific Publications.

Other Crafts of the Solomon Islands

The traditional, or custom, dishes and bowls of the Solomons are distinctive. They are black and white carvings of complexity, the black being in fact dyed softwood and the white produced by inlaid shell or, in the less ornate articles, incisions into the light-coloured base. They are the traditional carvings of the Eastern islands: the Western specialise more in figures. Their carving is founded in discipline of the past, though it should be said that less are being offered for sale today, perhaps since their appeal is more to the collector than the average tourist. More significant probably is the fact that all the art in the past of the Solomons was created in the service of religion, the relationship of man with the gods. Emphasis nowadays shifting to the relationship of man to man, the work put into artifacts is more perfunctory.

The bowls are counted within the largish range of custom money and have long served as a medium of exchange. Their original purpose though was as sacrificial vessels in the cult of ancestor worship which, underpinning every aspect of daily life, made symbolic use of sharks, bonito fish, frigate birds and all other creatures vital to island people. The decorated dishes were used to contain food offered publicly to the protecting deity of the family - private ceremonial dishes were plain. They were also invariably employed in great village feasts, for which they would often be carved in large size, up to three metres long. These feasts were held to commemorate ancestors and were elaborate in preparation and ritual, neighbouring villages being invited and vast quantities of food consumed. Their focus was the canoe house, where meetings and worship took place, almost the church in fact, where the sacred bonito canoes were kept - their stems being richly decorated - and also ornate caskets holding the bones of ancestors.

House posts are another important art - to many carvers the most important part. They were and are generally made for either canoe or commemorative houses, those of the first being more concerned with Pacific religion and with a god demonstrating his special powers. The posts of commemoration tend to the secular and may illustrate legends, with unreined imagination, fishes and birds, or some event of note in the village. The same love of carving, often more detailed, is shown in the fishing floats and dancing sticks.

Music plays of course an important role in island life. The conch shell is used throughout the Pacific - as more rarely in the Mediterranean - and sounded to summon assemblies or in defiance. Livelier in tone are the bamboo pan-pipes, which have reached a remarkable development in the Solomons. They are often played in assemblies, particularly in Malaita, which preserves seven kinds of group with distinct polyphonic parts. Bamboo finds a further musical use in the stamping tubes, a complete set being ten, tuned to a pentatonic scale. These are sounded by impact on stones which produces a similar effect to the xylophone, one player being able to hold four in each hand, with the two lightest grasped by either big toe and hit on smaller stones. Another bamboo instrument is made from 25 large culms cleared of their joints, whose ends are struck with a coconut husk to produce a soft deep resonance. Flutes from bamboo are made and played, but seldom using a larger scale than the pentatonic; they are more often found as one- or two-hole instruments. Rattles are frequently used, attached to the legs or arms or held in the hand. They are made with nuts or teeth.

Carved clamshells occupy a position between religion and commerce. They were used as money in their simplest form of rings (or more rarely as thin cylinders) but in more ornate styles found a place as personal decoration in ceremony, and also as grave ornaments. They were prized on account of their considerable hardness and difficulty to work - which qualities caused them to be used as adzes. Pendants are made by grinding down shells to a thinnish disc, which was then engraved with either a flint or the tooth of a particular rat, metal being used now; a common design is the symbolised frigate bird. A heavy armlet was used in battle by warriors.