Técnicas de procesamiento y análisis de datos

The social and economic policies which Woodford had established during his tenure as Resident Commissioner continued following his and Mahaffy’s departure from the Pacific in 1914 and 1915. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s plantation developments and interests in the Protectorate expanded at the expense of indigenous land owners. Further copra plantations developed alongside rubber plantations and cash-cropping: this period also saw the arrival of logging companies into the Solomons (see Bennett 1987 for in-depth analysis of twentieth-century economic developments in the Solomons). Following the outbreak of World War II and the 1942 invasion of the Solomons by Japanese forces, most European settlers abandoned the Protectorate. It was many years before they returned.

In 1949 the district administration in Honiara, officially established in 1944 as the country’s capital city, organised an “Arts and Crafts Centre and Shop” ‘with the intention of acquiring artifacts from the different provinces’ (Kupiainen 2000:137).36 Following the

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Kupiainen (2000:138) stated that in the 1920s, while still Resident Commissioner, Woodford had attempted to establish a museum in Tulagi for the display of Solomon Islands arts and crafts, and that he had

departure of American troops at the end of World War II the “curio shops” established in Honiara to sell “tourist art” suffered a major lack of business. However, with the establishment of the above arts and crafts centre, and with the opening of the Honiara Museum in 1952 (which became the Solomon Islands National Museum in 1969), greater emphasis was given to art and craft development throughout the Solomons. These arts and crafts were sold initially in Honiara but, with the development of global tourism, smaller towns could also sell locally produced pieces (Kupiainen 2000:138).

When the Solomon Islands gained independence in 1978 the arbitrary grouping together of these ethnically and culturally diverse islands that had been created by the colonial government was continued in the new independent island nation. The cultural, economic, and governmental focus of the Solomon administration was, and continues to be, based in the capital Honiara, Guadalcanal, and on the more economically developed Malaita. The result of this was that islands and groups located away from the heart of economic activity and development became marginalised. Tensions between different island groups resulted in several spates of war or clashes, particularly in the late 1990s and into the 2000s, indicating that having a geographically “united Solomon Islands” does not necessarily result in having a “united people” (see Moore 2004).

Following rapidly on the heels of the establishment of the protectorate and pacification, and the effect these had on traditional beliefs and ways of life, came a relatively quick conversion to Christianity throughout the Solomons.37 Time which had previously been dedicated to headhunting and warfare, production of articles associated with them, trading networks and shell money production, and various pre-Christian and ancestral rituals was now spent on ‘religiously guided programs’ by the missions (Kupiainen 2000:72). While ‘many found solace and a rationale for the introduced order in the new religion, Christianity, and hoped to discover in it the key to the white man’s knowledge and power’ (Bennett 1987:124), many people also retained some level of indigenous spiritual belief. Hviding (1996:122) notes that within contemporary Marovo Christianity ‘kastom-oriented teachings … which stress ancestor worship, communalism,

his own collection on display in the government residency until his departure from the BSIP in 1927. However, Kupiainen does not provide any documentation to back up this statement. It is most probable, considering the numbers he collected, that Woodford did have objects on display at his residency on Tulagi, but to date I have found no evidence to support a claim that he officially displayed objects in his residency. Woodford had departed the Solomons by 1915, so it is possible that Kupiainen confused Woodford with one of his successors, CM Workman (Resident Commissioner from 1917-1921) or RR Kane (Resident Commissioner from 1921-1929).

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Missionaries had been active in the Solomon Islands for many years before this, but Christianity really took hold from the 1910s on.

and reciprocity’ and the pre-Christian concepts of mana and ‘tinamanae (empowerment, blessing)’ are firmly incorporated within religious thought and teaching.

The scale of social and economic transformation which took place throughout the twentieth century ultimately was reflected in material culture, especially items related to the now redundant headhunting. Tomoko construction had been banned by the colonial government and these vessels and their associated objects were no longer needed or manufactured for a ritual context.38 However, many missionaries encouraged the continued building and use of war canoes, with figureheads, as a means of transport, for use in races or festive occasions, and as a method of retaining some traditional crafts (Hviding 1996:178).39 The agency of canoes and their figureheads had altered, from one that embodied the cosmological beliefs upon which their ritual and political life was based to something quite different. The sacredness once imbued within them was all but gone. Not only did they fall into relative disuse, but so many war canoes and figureheads were either destroyed or collected by Westerners during the early colonial period that, not only were they symbolically removed from their material culture, they were physically removed too. By 1948 Russell stated that the war canoe had ‘all but disappeared from Marovo’ (1948:313).

Kupiainen (2000:1) stated that contemporary carving in the Solomon Islands is all about ‘aspects of tradition represented in wood carving’, and while this is true, the reasons for carving – all objects and not just canoe prow figureheads – has altered. Today in the Solomons, especially in villages that do not receive the same level of attention or funding from the government that towns or larger tourist resorts do, traditional crafts such as wood carving are encouraged as a means of subsidising the relatively low income cash-crop economy. The subdivision of specialised labour which marked the creation of canoe figureheads in the past no longer exists. Today, carvers inlay the shell decoration themselves and now use different types of wood for the figureheads. Traditionally lightweight local woods were chosen to carve figureheads, as the use of a heavy wood may have caused the figurehead to fall off during sea voyages (Plate 20).

38

One instance of the colonial approval of tomoko construction is discussed in Chapter 8.

39

Thomas (1991: 47) notes that ‘the Methodists encouraged the construction of “mission war canoes” used in races on sports days and perhaps attempted to appropriate some of the ritual significance and potency of the older canoes’.

Plate 19: A sign outside the medical centre at Gizo which uses the image of a Solomon Islands shield as an

emblem of protection. Photographed by A. O’Brien, November 2008.

Plate 20: Carving of a canoe prow figurehead making a telephone call. Minana Handicrafts shop, Honiara,

1993. (Kupiainen 2000: CD-Rom)

Plate 21: The Solomon Islands National Museum and Cultural Centre. Photographed by A. O’Brien,

December 2008.

Plate 22: Two of the eight house types from the provinces of the Solomon Islands, which are on permanent

display behind the main museum building, Solomon Islands National Museum and Cultural Centre. Photographed by A. O’Brien, December 2008.