La afectación a los derechos del niño cuando la prueba de compatibilidad

Frederick Wootton-Isaacson, 1903. (MAA P.70201.ACH2)

outside the community and brought a new and different form of ancestral efficacy with him (Sahlins 1985).

As previously noted, Solomon Islands societies were involved within a developing pre-colonial economy and trade in European goods prior to the establishment of the BSIP. While trade in Western goods characterised the interactions between Solomon Islanders and traders, and later government agents, the trade and exchange of indigenously made commodities continued between indigenous groups. The sea routes travelled between islands to acquire heads and/or captives were the same routes used by Solomon Islanders to trade between centres of manufacturing, for example between Roviana (shell valuables)

and New Georgia and Guadalcanal (wicker shields).17 Although not visible on the geographic landscape these sea paths formed a vital link between communities and played an important role in the dissemination of material culture across the region. Although trade was predominantly carried out by gopu, specialised trading vessels that lacked the shell inlay embellishments and raised prows of tomoko (Aswani & Sheppard 2003:s57), the policy introduced by Woodford of destroying all tomoko and the burning of other canoes during punitive raids had a significant and disruptive impact on interisland trade. While the larger and more valuable tomoko were hidden from colonial eyes in anticipation of an attack, time may not have allowed for the removal of smaller trading canoes. Yet the destruction of these smaller canoes had as equal a negative impact on society as the destruction of tomoko: their removal severely disrupted interisland trade networks.

At the heart of Western Solomons village life, both physically and spiritually, was the canoe house (paele) (Waite 2000:116-121). These were equally as sacred as the tomoko they housed, and women and children were banned from entering them. As with tomoko, paele were rendered sacred through a series of consecration rituals (see Appendix IV for an account of a consecration ceremony for a new paele, as recounted to Woodford). The size and wealth of a village dictated the number of canoe houses present – for example Ingava had three canoe houses, each containing several tomoko at the time of Woodford’s 1886 visit. These houses also contained ceremonial food troughs, and displayed on the interior rafters were the heads of sacrificial victims, required for the inauguration of a new tomoko or canoe house. Woodford also photographed these materials in the interior of a canoe house in Nusa Roviana (see Chapter 4). In effect paele served the dual purpose of acting as a seat of power for a chief and his elite men, and also as a display of the wealth and ancestral efficacy for a chief and his people.

While paele were houses or containers for the power and efficacy of a living chief and his men of rank, ancestral skull shrines (hope) were the resting places for deceased chiefs and people of rank (Plate 10).18 In essence, shrines were among the vehicles through which a chief acquired his power and ancestral efficacy, and the ancestral remains they contained transformed the deceased into an efficacious spirit through the addition of shell valuables, either attached to the skull or placed in proximity to it within the shrine in order

17

On more local levels trade continued between coastal and inland groups: for example trading fish for taro or other commodities. See Blackwood (1935:442-444) for a listing of commodities and goods traded for.

18

The shrines of males contained shell valuables and articles associated with warfare, while female shrines also contained shell valuables but lacked items associated with warfare: it is thought they may have once contained barkcloth and other items associated with female agency (Walter et al. 2004:150).

to create a good tomate (ancestral spirit): ‘the effect of lashing rings to the skull was to give the new tomate an efficacious ‘skin’ comprising new eyes and ears with which to take in the world’ and which through offerings could intervene for and assist descendants (Thomas 2003:322). Shell valuables acted as signifiers of wealth and status, and were used in political and warfare spheres, where they acted as signifiers of political alliances and also as bride wealth. The importance and role of shell valuables within Western Solomons cosmology are perhaps best described by Walter & Sheppard (2000), who highlighted their connection to other physical things which through their creation and use were enmeshed in Western Solomons spiritual and cosmological understanding of the world:

Shell valuables are enmeshed in the same webs of symbolism that surround shrines, wharves, canoe houses, and other architectural forms. And their power and meaning are often most potent by their association with these structures. What is more, these artifacts are an integral part of the contemporary landscape, and are today reorganized and manipulated by the people of Nusa Roviana (Walter and Sheppard 2000:310).

Within all these material forms the immaterial cosmological understanding of Western Solomons Islanders were embodied. Whereas skull displays acted as quantifiable evidence of the prowess of a warrior, shrines were sacred places where carved sculptural representations of deities and/or ancestors were placed, often under covered structures, with offerings of shell charms and rings, and skulls (Plate 11).19 Occasionally they also took the form of small house-like structures, often raised above the ground on wooden stakes and located close to the village in which the skulls of revered chiefs were placed together with shell valuables and other objects which the deceased may have placed value upon (Walter & Sheppard 2000:302). Spirits of ancestors, known as tomate, were believed to reside in shrines or in the bush and sea, making these sites potent and dangerous. Through offerings, incantations and rituals they could be controlled and encouraged to work on behalf of the living.

A completed tomoko was the instantiation of the cosmological beliefs held by Western Solomon Islanders, but was also a visual representation of the wealth and power of a ruling chief. Each was a work of art (Waite 1990:46) and one that ‘articulated

19

Nagaoka has divided shrines into four broad categories: (1.) ancestral/skull shrines; (2.) shrines with production associations; (3.) shrines which had associations with particular spirits or ancestral gods; and (4.) shrines used in acts of purification and cleansing (1999:61; Walter & Sheppard 2000:301).

communal identity – each was differently detailed and finished’ (Kupiainen 2000:49). Canoes and their associated objects were rendered sacred through a series of rituals carried out by the village priest, and by the ceremony used to launch either a new canoe or canoe house, signifying the importance of their role in male initiation, headhunting, and trade.20 Writing on the manufacture of war canoes on Simbo in 1908, the anthropologist AM Hocart (1931:308) noted that each war canoe was given its own proper name.21 In a further discussion of fishing canoes from Simbo, manufactured using the same plank construction and with similar high bows and prows, Hocart noted that incantations were spoken at various stages of the manufacture; incantations which were just as important as the other rituals that accompany canoe manufacture (1935:98-99). A large tomoko, which could take over a year to build and decorate, was capable of carrying between 30 and 50 warriors (Haddon & Hornell 1975:105). As the vehicle through which people attempted to communicate with and gain access to ancestral efficacy, it formed part of the wider interconnected regional cosmological, political, and ritual belief economy.22 The model tomoko created for Mahaffy serves as an index for all these elements embodied within one object. The destruction of a tomoko therefore was a serious blow not just to a chief’s power and wealth: it was a loss for the entire community – again in material and spiritual terms. As will be discussed below, Woodford recognised this fact and through his programme to suppress headhunting he struck at the very heart of Western Solomons cosmology and culture.