Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands stretches south-east from Bougainville in a double chain of mountainous, forested islands, among them Guadalcanal, Malaita, Makira, Santa Isabel and Choiseul, with hundreds of islets, atolls and reefs around them. Between the chains runs New Georgia Sound, which wartime sailors called the Slot. A double barrier reef encloses the Marovo Lagoon, Lake Tegano spreads across raised coral Rennell in the south, and Kavachi, a submarine volcano, sometimes breaks the surface.

Papuan-speaking peoples were already present when Lapita potters arrived some three thousand years ago. In 1568 the Spaniard Álvaro de Mendaña named the islands after King Solomon. In the late 1800s labour recruiters, often by trickery or force, shipped islanders to plantations in Queensland and Fiji, and Britain proclaimed its protectorate in 1893. The battle for Guadalcanal in 1942–43 was a turning point of the Pacific War, and near Gizo two island scouts rescued John F. Kennedy after his torpedo boat sank. Independence came in July 1978.

Most people farm taro, yams and sweet potato in village gardens; they speak dozens of languages, with Pijin between them. In the Langa Langa Lagoon of Malaita, families make shell money, strings of tiny red and white discs paid as bride price, and Malaitan panpipe bands play bamboo pipes in tight harmony. Round logs long led exports; tuna canned at Noro, copra, cocoa, palm oil from the Guadalcanal plains and gold from Gold Ridge bring in the rest.