Makira's Gem

Star Harbour – Makira’s Hidden Gem

I’ve always travelled to the Star Harbour region of east Makira by boat. And the scene from Tawaroga looking east towards Namuga always fascinated, if not thrilled me. During low tides, the long reefs there extend several kilometers out to the north causing awe, inspiration and at times wow rippling effects! But in early 2012 and a few more trips in 2013 travelling by air to Santa Ana airstrip was when the stunning beauty of the area smacked me. With its white sandy beaches and long coves, long reefs and many islets, the area is poised to be the tourism centre of the Makira-Ulawa Province. The very first trip, March 2012, was truly beautiful – there was no single cloud - only blue sky! We crossed from the Pihuru point of east Wainoni on the mainland for Santa Ana Island and the outline of Star Harbour to our right was stunning. There were the long points of green amid white sandy beaches and very gentle waves that even from the air were very evident. No white washes whatsoever on the shore line – indeed an unforgettable sight!

This magnificent sight extended from the mainland to the twin islands of Santa Ana and Santa Catalina, northeast, immediately past the last point of the mainland.

Soon our flight touched down on Gupuna airstrip and we walked to Gupuna village with our luggage and rested at Obed’s Rest House. After a very brief welcome and morning tea and snacks we headed to the seaside to travel across to Santa Catalina, our destination. As usual, and always, the people welcomed us and helped carry our few bags to where we were to put up for the night.

In this eastern area of the Province, you see white sands on the coastlines mostly it makes you feel they are the cause of the mostly blond haired people you find here. Anyway, after having settled and discussed with the local house of chiefs of the island, we decided to take a trip to Namuga in the Star Harbour region, west of the island.

Namuga is the government sub-station for east Makira. We landed near the wharf there and were led to a spot where Queen Elizabeth II first landed when she visited Solomon Islands in early 1972.  Her very first trip to the country! The spot is marked by a small squared piece of concrete cement which did not look like what it should be.  (In order to preserve that historic visit and importance of where she first delivered her speech in the country, I personally expected something more significantly built and protected). Anyway, the main reason we landed there was to check out the new mini hospital being built by the support of Dr Chris of Australia who married a local of the area and supported by Australian and Canadian friends.

After taking pictures we asked about a Star Beach Resort of the station and were advised to go east from where we landed.

As soon as we reached it, I asked one of the workers where the owner was and she pointed towards the sea side, west of the resort.

This was beside a locally designed leaf hut held together by mostly carved posts that bore the many totems of the people of the area. As soon as I went past there, I saw someone swinging on a black hammock that faced an expanse of white sandy beach and very windy.

When I reached the hammock and asked whether or not he was the owner of Star Beach Resort, he smiled, nodded yes and asked why I was asking. I explained and then asked if he could share a little bit about his set up.

Alfred Murray said his resort was there for more than 15 years. When I asked why he chose to be swinging on a hammock and not in his office, he brought out his biggest smile and said he was just relaxing. Then he also added around the resort, wherever he chose to sit, was where his office was. We both laughed at his comment.

But seriously, the Star Beach Resort is the longest surviving one in the whole of east Makira. Murray said he decided to start that up because he felt the area is most ideal for tourism and needed someone to make a start.

When asked whether or not visitors ever came to the place he said mostly surfers and local government workers.

“Our surfs here have been highly rated. Two or three years ago, we had professional surfers visit to see if there is any good surf here. And guess what, the two blokes who came said we have world standard surfs! Apart from the surfs we have stunning sceneries, ideal for visitors who crave for somewhere they have everything to themselves. I have some write ups overseas, done by some friends who came here in the past. But, in short, as you can see, the area speaks for itself,” he smiled once again and looked out to the vast reef that’s slowly being swallowed up by a young tide coming on.

Murray also added that the hospital being built in the station will become a big attraction itself for Namuga.

“As chairman of the local working committee here at Namuga, I am very happy with the idea to have the hospital here. We are so far away from KiraKira - two or three hours away to the west by OBM. When this completes, all our people of east Makira will have easy access. I wish to thank all the parties who had put their hands together to make this happen. East Makira has the highest population and the hospital’s presence here would really help our people. Even visitors who come and need medical attention would easily have access too. This is good. However, I urge other wantoks to continue to support the hospital. It’s a blessing that generous friends from overseas have rallied to help us. But we have to do our part,” he stressed. Murray also advised those who may be interested in tourism to join the industry to make sure “we enjoy these beautiful things before the sea covers them what with the rapid changes happening to our world and sea”.

After a few more words, I thanked him and walked back to the new hospital area, out to the wharf and then waited for a relative of Naruka village to come and meet me. As soon as he came, he urged that we go with him to his village. We then hopped onto the OBM boat and drove inland through a bay along which nothing but thick mangroves covered it some tangling into the sea. As we travelled further inland we touched the leaves and branches, at times pushing them away to create our way. As soon as we came to the landing spot, we anchored the boat and walked for almost twenty minutes to get to Naruka village east of Namuga. Once we met his family and bade them farewell, we walked back to our boat and took off from there straight back to Santa Catalina.

 The Star Beach Resort is being joined by a new one on nearby Frigate Island and near Tawaroga at Têra and Ioo Islet. Two residents of Santa Ana and a few on Santa Catalina also host family rest houses. The Frigate Island one is the brainchild of John and Joyce Murray, owners of the Sanbis Lodge at KiraKira station. It’s expected more people of the area will go into this industry as it is most ideal for tourism.

Two flights travel to Santa Ana weekly, Wednesday and Saturday, and there are privately owned boats on Santa Ana to hire to travel to any of these destinations. There are also boat trips operated by MV Takana and MV Kesoko, a government subsidized service for the weather Coast of Makira Island travelling east to Santa Ana and Santa Catalina. Another cargo service boat, MV KCBII, makes regular trips to east Makira. Telephone communication is not a problem. The area is served by two towers owned by Our Telekom - above Namuga station and on nearby Santa Ana Island.

Makira's Gold

BANANA GOLD

By Julian Mak’a

Makira-Ulawa Province is always called a banana land. And those who come from it are either labelled ‘banana boy’ or ‘banana girl’. This is not derogative. The label alludes to the Province having the most variety of bananas in Solomon Islands. And is the main staple of the people there. This label naturally, causes embarrassment to some, if not most people from the Province. 

But health experts and scientists are finding out that some of the banana varieties there have some healing qualities. They claim that consumption of certain colored bananas such as yellow or brown can prevent some major non communicable diseases such as heart attacks, hypertension or cancer.

A local chemical scientist in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services in Honiara, Dickson Mangongi, told me in 2005 after he attended a regional food scientists meeting in Nadi, Fiji, that scientists have discovered a yellow banana has the most healing qualities. Some people in the Makira-Ulawa Province call this variety, toroka or toraka.

Four overseas scientists who visited the Province in 2007 were reported as affirming this belief. John Murray, owner of Sanbis Lodge in Kira Kira, capital of the Province said the team held a meeting there and publicly encouraged the people to eat more of the yellow varieties, especially the toroka. There are five or six varieties of the toroka in the Province. Unlike other bananas bunches, the toroka’s stands upright. But the colour of the inside part of the fruits of all the varieties is yellow.

The scientists also visited a banana plantation at Manivovo Rural Training Centre, RTC, in the south eastern end of the Province in which more than one hundred varieties of bananas had been planted. Principal of the centre, Francis Wehi, who initiated the idea, told me that his intention was to find out the total number of banana varieties in the Province. He said he’d discovered there are around 106 varieties. However, when the trees yielded, he found that although different in name, two varieties were the same as one he’d already identified. Mr Wehi also said the idea to plant the varieties was to improve food security for the school.

“Imagine 100 bananas ripening at the same time. It’s a huge amount. Ripe bananas are available all the time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s great - really good, actually. And there’s a big improvement in student performances too. Some time later the Kastom Garden Association in Honiara learned about the plantation and supported us with promotions both locally and overseas,” said Wehi.

Mr Wehi also referred to the four scientists who visited last year and said they will again be visiting there in May this year.

Wehi had spent more than 20 years working as caretaker of Manivovo, a very remote Catholic Church station located at the south eastern tip end of Makira-Ulawa Province. Within that time, the church and the government decided to turn the station into an RTC so he became the Principal from day one.

Banana has always been a staple food for the people of Makira-Ulawa Province. The people either roast it on an open fire or bake it in an oven or mix it with sweet potato, yam or whatever other crop was available and was to their liking in a pot and boil it. Or leave it to ripen for a family to enjoy.

For hundreds of centuries, the toroka had been and still used for custom feasts and other traditional food exchanges among tribes or villages. Family members and relatives always contributed bananas during such occasions. In fact, without bananas, no traditional feast could be regarded as complete on Makira-Ulawa. And although not recognized for its healing qualities by the people, the toroka always featured during these revered occasions.

During the colonial period, it was said, a certain family from the then Western Solomons arrived there with their father, a police officer. One day the wife went to the Kira Kira market and bought some toroka fruits. The next day, the mother rushed to the hospital and agitated to a nurse that a strange illness had affected her family. All of them, she had told the nurse, peed yellow. Instead of being worried, the nurse calmly asked whether or not she had bought any yellow bananas at the market the previous day. The shaking mother had nodded yes.

”That’s the cause of your fears, my dear,” the nurse smiled at the still very agitated mother. The nurse further explained that everyone that ate the banana experienced the same thing. It’s normal, so don’t worry. It will go away after one day,” the nurse was said to have told the mother.

Actually, out of all the different varieties of bananas in the Province, only the toroka does this. That is the consumer’s pee will turn yellow as though he or she has hepatitis B.

But the scientists told the crowd at Kira Kira during their talk last year that it’s the yellow liquid in the toroka that prevents heart attacks and other such diseases. The scientists, it was claimed, also told their audience to eat more of the yellow leafed cabbages, yellow kumara (sweet potatoes) and bananas. They are really good for the body the scientists were reported as telling the people.

“A lot of people here felt really proud after they heard these revelations,” said John Murry, owner and operator of Sanbis Lodge in KiraKira. “The ‘banana’ label is a good and proud one to have,” he said. “Maybe those who use it to amuse themselves or degrade us will sit up straight and think again,” said Murray.

The Makira-Ulawa Province is in the eastern part of the country and is about eight to ten hours by boat from Honiara or 35 to 50 minutes by plane.

Time, Aorigi's Master Carver, tells all

Face to Face with Aorigi’s Master Carver

He says hello as I enter his semi dark house.

 I say thank you and he invites me to sit down.

Next to him sits Matthew Sau, his nephew, a young but expert carver himself.

This is Tawaroga village.

 Not Santa Catalina or Aorigi.

As I sit down, he extends his hand and we shake hands.

He then says he is happy I was interested in visiting him.

I told him I was interested in writing a short article about him.He chuckles and then excuses himself as he moves away to get all his carvings out from a corner of his house and lines them up on the bed on which I sit.“These are just a few of my works. I learned to carve at a very early age. Look and learn. That was the only way,” he said.

His name is Time. Old man Time, is how he prefers to be called.Mr Time says he became interested in carving at an early age because it was the custom. It was a prestige to be a carver on Aorigi.  The way the community expects most of the young men of the island.

He adds that since his young days most of his work was sold at the BJS Agencies.“I would get invited by that company to go and work in Honiara. I lost count of the number of carvings I’d made and sold.  And also how many times I’d done that; but at the same time, I must say I also gained money for me and family. I don’t know what year I’d started but it was when Honiara was still a very small town. Betty who works there knows me. I don’t know whether or not she still works there. But she was the one who always asked me to go and work,” he said.Asked whether or not he’d saved some money, he laughed and said all the money he’d generated went for goods from shops and sea fares. Saving is a new thing. There was nothing like that at the time. So the money I’d received went for the needs of my family,” he said.

I ask why he now lives at Tawaroga and not Aorigi.“I am originally from this village. This is where my ancestors started from. So at this age I decided to come back to my roots and spend the rest of my days here. I am very sorry to do this as I should have done that at an early age. I would have made a lot of quality carvings. However, I am still producing carvings using all the hard woods that are plenty here. Most of the works you see displaced here is from here. I am also sorry that I had wasted much of my works selling them in Honiara in those days. I should have just produced them and waited here to attract visitors here,” he says.Mr Time says working together with Matthew Sau, also from Aorigi but married to a woman from Tawaroga village on the mainland and now lives in the village, has rejuvenated his desire to carve.“We have a mission. We want to carve as many works as possible. I believe that this area in East Makira is a top spot for tourism. We are working on a small resort where we hope to produce more carvings. This way, we believe, we can be role models for people here to see it is important to not forget our culture,” he said.

Asked what the main items he carves, Mr Time says he does anything.“During my young days, what made me go to Honiara all the time was pictures which BJS Agency got from overseas collectors always sent back asking that new ones to replace damaged or destroyed ones be made. If those collectors asked, Betty would send word for me to go and look at the pictures and create new ones. In short, I carve anything – I don’t have any particular preference.”I ask him to explain about his current collection and he moved out of the bed on which he was sitting and walked over to the corner of the house to line them up on the next bed.The variety ranged from the sea spirit usually carved on that part of the island as well as shields and spears. He also had a collection of sea horse carved into several sized pieces of timber, decorated with shells.

Mr Time says most of what he carves nowadays still follows the traditional practices and styles.“The styles we follow on Santa Catalina are usually dictated by spirits. We don’t produce any style we want as that could cause problems for individual carvers. It’s not like other places. Our custom is still very strong so we have to follow the way our ancestors want our carvings to be done,” he stressed.Asked what year he was born, Time shrugs his shoulders, laughs a little and shakes his head to indicate he didn’t know. But he says he was a young man when the Second World War came around in 1942.

Today he and Matthew Sau have completed the resort he spoke about earlier and are making a lot of carvings which he says they hope to sell for visitors to the new Eco lodge.

A Christmas tale at east Makira

Our Simple Unvalued Pleasures

It was a very simple suggestion. And expectedly the number to turn up would be small. There wasn’t 

much planning. It was an idea someone threw into the pond. Everyone or at least, those who were told knew that something was to happen. The days went by one by one. Each one who knew about the plan remembered it at the back of their minds. And continued to work on their everyday plans, oblivious to what the man picked as the host was planning or intended on doing.

When the day approached, a single call came to us by mobile phone. ‘You’ll be picked up in a fibre glass canoe. Not OBM. It’s a small paddling one. The canoe which belongs to Godwin’ was all it was.

On Christmas Day, we headed to where we’d been told to wait. Soon, the blue paddling fibre glass boat approached, paddled by one man, Esau Masu and two young boys, his nephews. They came and came. Soon they landed and the three of us boarded. As the paddlers kept paddling us towards a thick mangrove forest, we could see single dugout canoes paddling ahead of us. One contained a single family. Another - slightly ahead of the one with the single family – perhaps with three or four people but we couldn’t tell as the dugout was too far ahead for us to properly make out. However, we kept going and soon, the nose of the boat touched mangrove branches that blocked the entrance of the river or stream we were heading into.

“Watch the twigs of the mangroves,” skipper Masu warned. We ducked. They kept paddling. We kept moving up what turned out to be a stream, bordering between stream and river.

“It’s not very big. But it seems so because of the high tide that’s coming on,” said Masu.

There was silence, the only sounds the paddles digging the river and spreading droplets backwards and driving us forward.  The three of us, who sat in front of the paddlers, could only imagine them getting wet from their hard paddling!

Our eyes peered ahead. There was still no sign of the eco lodge, Tagauraha.

“We’re nearly there,” our skipper assured.

Although the sun was really hot in the open sea, it was very cool because we were under tall thick mangroves trees that towered above us and extended for kilometers up and around the stream. The stream was silver slick and no waves so it was smooth sailing, as it were. They paddled. Each of us in the front seat was lost in our own thoughts. I marveled at the tall straight mangrove trees that kept going my eyes couldn’t reach their last line. I didn’t know what my other two family members were thinking, but perhaps they too were consumed by the natural smell and beauty of the place.

Someone told me some years back red snappers could be caught in the stream during high tides. I imagined someone catching one such snapper and dropping it into the canoe then pressing it down with a heavy paddle or whatever to whimper shake jump and then eventually die, much to the joy of the catcher.

“Some silly buggers cut trees into the river but don’t bother to clean them up so the paddling is is always disturbed,” commented one of the young boys behind us. The skipper and the second boy chorused in support. Then they continued paddling and paddling.

Soon, our eyes - always darting ahead - sighted the entrance to the eco lodge. It was a small opening and a dugout was tied or may be partly pulled up the shore.

“Here we are,” Masu said excitedly. “We are home. The others might already be there,” he said.

No sooner had he said this than we landed and disembarked slowly as our granddaughter was with us. And this was her very first ride on a paddled canoe. She’s used to outboard motors.

It was when we set foot ashore that it dawned on us. There were more people than expected. Luckily, they were all family, so it was all good.

David Masu, the eco lodger owner, told us gladly that the other family members were going to celebrate Christmas with us too.

Not long after that, he announced that the barbecuing should proceed immediately and then went to the house and asked for support to carry the fish he’d prepared for the BBQ. It was obvious he’d dropped a net the previous night or in the early morning.

It was a large dish full of fish already prepared for the fire. My family and I gave him a bottle of cooking oil, garlic and onions and rice then opted to take a walk around the compound. Built on a small patch of land between the stream and the sea less than 20km wide, the Tagauraha Lodge is surrounded by long lines of big fruit pawpaw trees, coconuts and mangroves.

It was obvious Mr Masu had cut down a few mangrove trees to build his lodge. To the north he chopped down a few more to create a footpath to lead to a sprawling wide reef that almost continued into the horizon!

“There’s no rough sea here,” he explained. “You see the small islets out there to the north, the waves break some metres away from there and then come ashore to fill up the dry land when the tide is high,” he added. “You’ll see it when the tide is up.”

In the kitchen, the women, men and youths worked to see that all the food was ready on time.

Some young boys who completed their assigned tasks jumped into the dark murky stream and competed swimming up and down  like Olympians.

Slightly after 3pm, all the cooking was done and lodge owner David Masu led the way in dividing the food for us.

He started by opening a hot stone oven in which baked taro, fish and cabbage in coconut milk lay since early morning. After that, he left the work to the women as the boys continued to chase each other in the murky stream which had expanded wider because of a fledgling high tide.

Soon, Masu called everyone to attention and then invited us all to eat.

Early morning sun out at sea

Barbecued fish, taro cooked in a stone oven with a bit of cassava, cabbages and some more fish cooked in the stone oven as well all made up our individual shares. Then green coconuts came last – our quenching drink.

That was our 2015 Christmas celebration at the Tagauraha Lodge of Tawaroga, east Makira.

BBQ Fish

Paddle Under Meandering Mangroves at Tawaroga

Tawaroga’s Namo – a great paddle

I have travelled to Tawaroga many times in the past. But I didn’t know there is a great place to paddle through there. In 2009 however, I got the biggest surprise. The paddle was almost 30 minutes upstream meandering under tall mangroves, maneuvering between their long black twisted and tangled roots.

As we paddled up the Namo, local for stream, just wide enough for a small dugout canoe - different types of fish jumped up and dived on either side of the one my cousin Esau Masuguria and I were traveling in. We were ahead of my nephew, Billy Nahunanga Jr. Soon, we saw a huge mud crab scurry for safety under long tangled roots of a nearby mangrove tree. A few minutes later, an iguana - afraid of my nephew Billy’s two dogs running on the banks, and not us - ran for its life and hurriedly climbed up a tall mangrove tree.

The stream meandered ahead and the ripples caused by our paddling twinkled in the long thin patches of sunlight that pierced through the semi-dark cover of mangrove leaves.

On top of the tall mangrove trees, many varieties of birds chirped in unison with a deafening shrill of cicadas and crickets resonating around the unfathomable plantation of mangroves. I kept looking up at the tall slender mangrove trees, occasionally glancing left and right trying to see where the natural plantation of trees ended or began. But I couldn’t. The mangroves spread over a vast flat area of mud, home to a myriad of insects, crabs, iguanas and birds.

Because of the canopy created by the mangroves, the mid morning light was like evening and hence the amazing crescendo of cicada shrills and other insects that lived in the environment.

My cousin, Esau Masuguria, and nephew Billy Nahunanga Jr. said we were paddling up the Namo during low tide.

“During high tides the water normally covers the entire mangrove forest so paddling usually isn’t restricted to the Namo,” they said.

Another big fish jumped just ahead of us and they said it was a red snapper.

“A red snapper in the middle of the bush – I can’t believe it!” I interjected. But they assured me it was true.

The Namo is on the east coast of Tawaroga village, east Makira, which flows through a thick mangrove forest - a great paddle for the enterprising visitor to the area. Although it is narrow, the Namo is big enough to allow a small dugout canoe to travel up or down. Under lush green tall mangrove trees, it is a calming and soothing experience to paddle up and down it.

The good thing is there are no dangerous animals in the Namo so the adventurous visitor doesn’t have to worry.

There are two swimming pools and betel nuts or ripe bananas to enjoy at the end of the paddle.

It ends where nephew Nahunanga Jr. has his gardens of food, betel nut and kava.

To the east of the mouth of the Namo is a new tourist set up which David Masuguria, elder brother of Esau, and his brothers have started building last year. To date, Mr Masuguria has told me by mobile phone he’s completed this and is now adding an extension to it. He also said he’s expecting some funding for this initiative from the government around December this year.

On the sea coast, the white sandy beaches offer a relaxing atmosphere for those who prefer to meet locals who collect shells or fish for their everyday meal.

Although the area has many tourist attractions, it is still untapped because of it remoteness and lack of regular shipping services.

However, there are infrastructures in place already such as the Santa Ana Island airstrip or the Namuga wharf about twenty to thirty minutes away by outboard motor.

Solomon Airlines operates a three times weekly flight to Santa Ana and going to Tawaroga by outboard motor is less than an hour.

Maraufu - An Important Learning Process for Aorigi Boys

Maraufu: Makira-Ulawa’s Past Adolescence Grooming Process

James is a young Makira man who only reached standard six some years ago. Norman, his cousin didn’t complete his primary education. Andrew completed his primary school but had the luck of completing a Rural Training Centre training.

The same is also true for a lot of their peers. Today, they live in their village in Central Makira doing the same thing: alcohol, tobacco and or drug abuse.

Advices from their parents, village elders and parish priest fall on deaf years.

 They are now tired of talking. This, the elders reckon, is happening because of modern education. It is taking young children away from their customs and exposing them to introduced ideas.

When they finish schooling and go home, the young don’t know their customs and culture and therefore don’t care. The young instead live in the periphery of culture and the introduced culture and norms they learned in school.

This, according to Joseph Faerua of Santa Catalina Island, is also true for most school leavers of his island in east Makira.

In the olden days, he said, adolescent boys were required to go through a certain tradition called Maraufu.

This is a custom which helped young adolescent males to acquire the skills and norms of their society in order to become good citizens. This tradition was practised throughout Makira until Christianity arrived.

Mr Faerua added, it also used to be practised on Ulawa and Ugi Islands.

“But when Missionaries came in they regarded it as unchristian. Maraufu used to be a very important tradition because it acted like a bridge between adolescence and adulthood.

Faerua explained that before this ritual is performed, the community must fulfill several things. Firstly, they must build a custom house and carve a bonito canoe. These are the two most important things. Without them, the ritual could not happen.

The process starts when chiefs call a meeting to which all fathers are invited to talk about their young sons. Boys aged between 10 and 12 only would qualify to become maraufu.

“The chief would consult with men about the custom house. If the house was old and needed repairing, they would repair it. If they needed to build a new one, they would do it. Once these were completed, the chief would ask about the old bonito canoe. If there was a need for a new one, they would build it.

“When the canoe was completed, the young boys would go fishing. It was only the young boys, no one else. Once the young boys were chosen, they were not allowed to return to their families. They would stay in the specially built house – some way away from the main village – until they completed the rituals. Usually they would stay by themselves for nine months to a year.”

Meanwhile, he said, the fathers would convene and discuss about the things they should prepare for their sons. They would build special beds and then hold another meeting to decide on when the village would bring yams home. Once dates for collections were agreed on, they would ask the villagers to go and fetch them. The yams were carried home according to the ranks of the young boys. The head boy’s would be the first followed by his other peers’.

”As soon as all the yams were home, the men would work on decorating the specially built platform. The special platform – usually raised high above the ground - was where the boys were to be honored. Yams were, again, hung according to the ranks of the boys - on each one’s post, again marked according to their ranks. Each of the boys also had one pig tied to his post.”

He also added that before the decorations were made, the village would engage in making pudding and store them in big wooden bowls for the occasion.

“On the day of their adornment, the boys would be decorated with shell money, stuck custom combs into their hair, given a ‘maramaraitapa’(a basket full of all sorts of things, shell money and other valuables) to avoid the blood of bonito spilling onto their chests and clad in a tiny piece of loin cloth covering their genitals.

“Once all decorated, the maraufu were led by a chief walking in a style called ‘Watoparo’. This means he would put one leg forward for a few seconds with a certain hum then another step and hum all the way to the ladder of the raised platform.

“Once they reach the ‘Tara ano’ or the ladder they would climb up, (The platform was usually covered with betel nuts, leaves, cigarettes - all sorts of good things) one man would already be standing there waiting for them. Once the boys get up and line up next to their allotted posts, the boys would grab hold of the betel nuts, leaves and cigarettes and throw them down to the waiting crowd below. (You can imagine how the crowds react in trying to grab whatever they want at that moment. The strong ones usually were the lucky ones. Some old men and women fell down in the milieu).

“However, the maraufu would proceed to the centre of the platform and then descended the ladder slowly. And waiting on the ladder would be the aunt of the head maraufu. As soon as the leader, who was always ahead of the others, came down and reached her he must kiss one of her nipples – this was the tradition – a sign that the maraufu had come home.

After that, said Faerua, the boys would each go to their houses and removed all the decorations on their bodies before following the others to share the food with the rest of the community.

“The puddings they prepare for the maraufu are very special. Once they finish eating, their fathers would kill the allotted pigs for a big feast the following day.

“In the night following their adornment, the maraufu still kept their maramaraitapa (a basket full of all sorts of things, shell money and other valuables). At night the boys’ aunties would go and look for any girls of their choice – only girls were allowed to tear the maramaraitapa, not anyone else. After they finish tearing the woven baskets, the girls would go and hang the baskets near the women’s latrine or maamaru.”

The next day a big feast should take place. This would be when every house killed a pig and the pudding is divided up equally for the entire village to celebrate. On such occasions so many pigs would be killed.

The maraufu celebration used to be popular in the past to prepare young boys for manhood, said Faerua.

“I was a maraufu myself during my younger days before I went to school. Now I am an old man,” he added and smiled.

Mr Faerua stressed that this tradition helped young men of the community to know how to conduct themselves in society. How to build houses, how to fish as well as the customs associated with fishing, know who their clans are and understand the general norms of their society.

Today, sadly, he added, these qualities are vanishing because young Solomon Islanders learn introduced qualities so when they return to the village they are lost.  When they follow the introduced ideas, which are for the most part, do not exist in the village they are confused. And when they are confused, they end up in all sorts of unwanted behaviors - behaviors which are not acceptable in the eyes of the community leaders and members.

Mr Faerua, a former radiologist at the Central Hospital, is now retired and is living on Santa Catalina. A few years ago, he was chosen to be a chief of his tribe.

After he finished his tale, Mr Faerua sighed, looked down at table he was sitting next to and said unless the country looks back at its past and teaches it to future Solomon Islanders there may not be any hope of turning the current tide back.

But in 2013 and 2014 Mr Faerua was the leading figure in reviving this important tradition through a film called The Test. In this movie, written and directed by locals but filmed by a renowned French photographer, Laurent, Mr Faerua’s grandson, Ernest Faerua, the lead actor led a group of young boys in the revival. So today, this lost tradition is now restored and has become an additional attraction for the people of Santa Catalina or Aorigi as it’s known locally.

Aorigi or Santa Catalina Attractions

Attractions on Aorigi

Wogasia is the main attraction to Santa Catalina or Aorigi in East Makira. It’s the most well known because it happens every May when the whole of the island celebrates the yam harvest.

But that is not the only attraction on the island. Aorigi as it is well known locally is probably the only Island in the country that still very much practices its traditional customs one of which is the Wogasia celebration. 

There are so many others. For example, just a few metres east of where the Wogasia takes place annually, there is a little hut that contains the jaw bones of a famous warrior during the headhunting days. I was told by Gordon Raroinamae that although little – less than five metres high and just wide enough to fit one person – the hut is the ‘power house of Aorigi.

“If our priest asks for good harvests from the gardens, our fruit trees or good catches from the sea if we go fishing we will get them. No problems,” said Raroinamae.

“This little hut belongs to the ‘Gafe’ (Crab) tribe on this island. But only our priest gets to ask for us. It is our belief that without the blessings from this ancestor, we would not get the good harvests that we get year round,” added Raroinamae.

I met the elder or priest which Raroiname talked about after my visit to the small skull house. He is John Waapo, a tall wiry man past his 60s, and he confirmed what Raraoinamae had told me earlier in front of the little power house. Elder Waapo showed me two stone axes called ‘gira’ in the language which he said are the tools he uses every year to ensure the people of the island get bountiful harvests from the gardens and the bush as well as fish catches from the sea.

He said that he alone is the custodian of the powers that bring good fortune for the island. Elder Waapo also told me another person who challenged the ownership of those powers and the two stone axes took him to court but Mr Waapo won the case.

There is also another interesting little place on the island where stones said to be alive live. Matthew Sau told me that once the little leaf hut under which the stones live is broken or rots without any repairs, the stones will vanish. But as soon as a new house is built, the stones would return to live in it. 

“The stones are called Kou Kou in the language. And they are living things,” says Sau.

Sau added there are also many custom dances on the island. Some are for men only and others women only. Some of these custom dances are so sacred that you can only perform them after you have killed a pig! There are also many good carvers on Santa Catalina. And proof of this is outside nearly all the houses I visited there were these carvings of various sizes, types and lengths.

He also showed me the chains of a ship which sunk near the island in the 1920s. Mr Sau said it was purportedly carrying lepers to Hawaii. However, when it neared Santa Catalina in the 1800s, it met rough seas and sank on the eastern side of the island. The chains of that sunken ship still lie in knee deep reefs on the northeastern side of the island parts of which have been removed and kept by some people in their homes.

Aorigi is an ideal place for tourism but one of its main problems at the moment is a regular shipping service. It’s true there are not many resources to attract ships to Aorigi but there are many attractions which could bring visitors there to help improve the welfare of the more than 2000 people that live on the island.

Mr Sau also said good accommodation for visitors who flock to the island every May to see the Wogasia celebration is lacking. “There are a few there who are very keen in getting into that business but accessing resources to enable them move ahead with their plans is another hindrance.”

He himself too has already chopped down some coconut trees in his father’s plantation to build a good rest house which he hopes to build this year.

“I want to do something myself then seek support so people can say I am serious. There are others here who have already done what I’ve done but they want to get funds before starting. I don’t. I want to start and build and then hopefully along the way, someone can help,” he said.

Another of Mr Sau’s tales about his home island is phosphate. He claims some geologists who visited the island in the 60s drilled the only mountain there and confirmed the deposit.

“Today this has probably come up to the surface because the stuff is falling into the sea on the other side of the island sometimes,” he said.

For Aorigi though, the Wogasia is pulling in overseas visitors and Mr Sau says more than 10visitors visited the island last week.