‘Kulture’ sits at the very centre of society with traditional singing, music and dance and craftmanship a mainstay of village life, handed down from father to son and mother to daughter.
One of the more curious annual events, the Shell Money Festival, celebrates hand-crafted shell money. In use long before bank notes and coins arrived, specially-crafted shells are still widely accepted as currency in Malaita Province, used primarily as a form of dowry payment, for settling disputes and land payments.
Malaita’s panpipe music, first ‘recorded’ by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, is an icon of Solomon Islands entertainment and known around the world – and in outer space too!
Recordings are carried on Voyager 2, the space probe launched in 1977, sitting cheek by jowl with Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky and other traditional musicians from all over the globe as examples of human culture.
Malaita’s clans include the ‘Salt Water’ people who live on man-made islands around the Langalanga and Lau Lagoons. The largest, oldest and most densely inhabited island is Sulufou, home to more than 100 families.
The Langalanga people are also renowned for their traditional boat building skills.
The province also lays claim to the ‘Kakamora’, a mythical race of tiny people who feature in in Walt Disney’s ‘Moana’.
Annual festivals in the Solomon islands include the extraordinary ‘Wogasia’ spear fighting in Santa Cruz as part of annual yam harvest festival celebrations.
The three-day event culminates with hundreds of spear fighters facing off in chest-deep water.
Malaita also hosts an annual banana harvest and in Choiseul Province, the Melanesian and Micronesian inhabitants celebrate the region’s famous ‘gnali’ nuts.
Temotu Province, famous for its ‘red feather’ money and kite fishing, annually celebrates its rich and very diverse culture, traditions, arts and crafts with an annual Tinakula Festival taking place in Honiara every July.
For more information on the Solomon Islands’ annual cultural calendar, visit www.visitsolomons.com.sb