SOLOMON ISLANDS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

One of my biggest criticisms from my high school is that it seems like we spent a lot of time studying the American Revolution and the Civil War in history classes. Almost every single year. Those are important, but I feel like there are huge holes missing in my US History education. We glossed over topics like prison reform, labor history, much of the Western expansion (I mean, the taking of what we wanted), and pretty much all of the 20th century past 1918. WWI was the only major 20th century event we discussed. And obviously, I've heard of WWII and have watched movies and shows about it (who HASN'T heard of Hitler? – thanks, History Channel), but the details of that period are hazy. And here I am, 20 years after I've graduated from high school, and I'm just now finding out that the Battle of Guadalcanal (that I knew of in name only) took place in the Solomon Islands.

Their name (as we know it) was given to them by the Spanish, the first Europeans to arrive in this area. They named it after King Solomon from the Bible, falsely thinking these islands had great riches and that the wealthy city of Ophir was somewhere around there. Boy, were they wrong about that! Unless you count your wealth in coconuts or sand. As they were transitioning into independence, they went by "The Solomon Islands" before simply changing it to "Solomon Islands." As long as they don't start calling themselves "The Country Formerly Known as Solomon Islands" and change their name to a symbol, I'm good. 

The Solomon Islands are a group of six main islands and 900+ smaller ones east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. The Solomon Sea separates Solomon Islands from PNG while the Coral Sea stands between them and Vanuatu. Traveling further to the east, Nauru lies northeast and Tuvalu is almost due east from the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Because of the island's proximity to the equator, it enjoys a tropical climate all year round. They do have a rainy season and a drier season. And since they're also located on the Pacific Rim of Fire, they're also subject to earthquakes: they had one in 2007 that registered 8.1 and one in 2013 that registered at 8.0. That’s a big no thanks from me.

The earliest people are thought to have come over from Papuan and Austronesian areas, and later the Polynesians and Lapita people settled there too. The first Europeans to arrive were the Spanish during the mid-1500s, and Christian missionaries followed suit during the mid-1800s. Slavery and blackbirding (a new term for me: basically kidnapping people to make them do manual labor, in this case to work on their sugar cane plantations) caused the people here to revolt. After the UK ended their involvement in the slave trade, they counted the southern islands of the Solomon Islands as one of their protectorates. Over the next decade, they added a few more islands to the protectorate along with islands that were part of German New Guinea. The island of Bougainville, which is geographically part of the Solomon Islands, remained part of German New Guinea, which later became part of Papua New Guinea. Most of the planters and traders on the islands escaped to Australia with the onset of WWII. The island of Guadalcanal would be the location of an integral battle between the Allies and the Japanese. The next couple of decades after WWII were spent rebuilding their country and creating a constitution. They officially won their independence in 1978, although they are still part of the British Commonwealth and pay homage to the Queen. For about five years around the turn of the 21st century, Solomon Islands went through a period often called The Tensions (like how the Irish called theirs The Troubles). This was a time of quite a bit of civil conflicts between the Isatabu Freedom Movement and the Malaita Eagle Force. It was far more complicated than just saying it was an ethnic conflict; it rose to kidnapping government officials and got really ugly there for a while.

Honiara is the capital city, located on the island of Guadalcanal. The airport nearby was the actual battle location between the US and the Japanese in 1942. The riots during the early parts of the 2000s destroyed quite a bit of the city, especially in Chinatown. Today, the city is the center of government, commerce, transportation, and higher education. It has several museums, sports stadiums, and arts and music venues that entertain locals and visitors alike.

Most Solomon Islanders work in fishing or agriculture. Tropical timber used to be a huge export, but when the price fell (not to mention the massive deforestation they were causing), they looked for other areas of work. Today, copra and palm oil remain to be major cash crops. There is some mining done in these islands, mainly gold, zinc, nickel, and lead. Although their currency is the Solomon Islands dollar, shell money trade, and the barter system can still be found in some of the more remote islands. A few organizations have come together to develop a way of getting communities to use renewable energy sources (mainly solar, water, and wind) without having to put up a bunch of money to get a system in place. (That would be nice here in the US, too.)

Because of its British and German history, the main religion in the islands is Christianity, with the Anglican Church of Melanesia being the largest denomination. There are a number of other Christian denominations represented in the Solomon Islands, which is followed by nearly 92% of the people. However, there are also followers of Islam, Baha'i, and indigenous beliefs.

Even though English is the official language, a very small percentage of the people (around 1-2%) are fluent in it. Instead, you'll find that most people here speak Solomons Pijin, an English-based creole used as a lingua franca among the islands. Besides Pijin, Kwara'ae is the largest spoken local language; there are 70 spoken languages in these islands, and 11 of them have over 10,000 speakers. Because the islands are so spread out, the language groups vary. Melanesian languages are generally spoken in the central islands region, while Polynesian languages are heard on other islands. The i-Kiribati language, part of the Micronesian language family, is spoken by immigrants from Kiribati.

Many people associate blonde hair with Celtic, Scandinavian, or other European roots, but the blonde trait has been seen in many Solomon Islanders. Some people thought that perhaps it was due to sun bleaching or even mixing with Europeans, but geneticists have found that's not the case. Researchers found a gene in blonde Solomon Islanders that wasn't in brunette Solomon Islanders -- or in Europeans for that matter. So this study has really led to the need for more studies in genetic pigmentation among variations of other populations (like lighter pigmented Africans, for example). I think it's really cool. Perhaps we aren't who we thought we are.

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PAPUA NEW GUINEA: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

Papua New Guinea, at least for the things I end up reading, always seems to wind up on the strangest of lists. There have been several times when I’ve come across this country on lists of weird, bad, or dangerous things. Or really remote one-of-a-kind kind of lists, which aren’t quite as bad. I’m really hoping there’s more to this country than the scary human rights issues I’ve read about and poisonous animals. So, my mission is to find out what things are really like here and what kind of secrets I don’t know about yet. 

The name of the country as we know it didn’t come about until the 19^th century. The first part, Papua, is derived from the Malay term that refers to the frizzy hair of the people, especially anyone who’s from the Melanesian Islands. The second part, New Guinea, was named by the Spanish since they thought the people reminded them of the Africans they met in and around the country of Guinea. 

The country occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, which is located just north of Australia and is part of the broader Melanesian Islands. The western half consists of the Indonesian provinces of West Papua and Papua. Its easternmost island, Bougainville Island, is essentially on the northwestern end of the Solomon Islands. The Solomon Sea separates the main island of New Guinea from the Solomon Islands to the east while the Bismarck Sea lies to the north in the midst of the Bismarck Archipelago. If you go even farther north, you’ll run into Palau, Guam, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Because the country is on the Pacific Ring of Fire, it has several active volcanoes and experiences frequent earthquakes (sometimes leading to tsunamis). There are several rivers, highland areas, and rainforest areas while coral reefs surround the islands. Deforestation remains to be a problem for the country. Papua New Guinea lies just below the equator and is one of the few equatorial countries to also have snow (in the higher elevations).  

 

WWII plane in its final resting place in the waters of PNG

The first people arrived in Papua New Guinea as a result of one of the first human migrations in the world. Africans arrived in the islands somewhere around 45,000 years ago, and they developed agriculture in the highlands. Another wave of migration took place around 500 BC from various other tribes around the Southeast Pacific Islands. Portuguese and Spanish traders arrived during the 16-18^th centuries and introduced several vegetables, including the sweet potato, which significantly enhanced their agriculture. Many of them were after the plumes of the bird of paradise. The southern half of the island was handled by the UK and called British New Guinea. In 1905, the British handed that control over to Australia who renamed it Territory of Papua, but technically, on the books, it was still a possession of the UK. During the end of the 1800s, Germany controlled the northern side of the island, calling it German New Guinea; however, Australia captured and controlled it during WWI. During WWII, the Japanese, Australians, and the US fought a major battle where almost a quarter-million people died. After WWII, the two sides were united and referred to as Papua New Guinea. They gained their independence from Australia in 1975, although they do remain part of the British Commonwealth. In 1988, miners in Bougainville created an uprising concerning the fact that they were bearing the brunt of the down side to mining (illnesses, environmental issues), yet they weren’t compensated with a fair share of the profits in this. Even today, there has been some discussion as to Bougainville’s autonomy.

Port Moresby is located along the southern coast on the Papuan Peninsula. The city is named after British Naval Officer John Moresby, the first European to site the area where the future capital city would be. With only around 400,000 people, it’s also the country’s largest city. There are a couple of international schools, several sports stadiums, museums, libraries, shopping and markets, as well as its usual business district and high-rise apartments. While many of these features used to be in the downtown district, quite a few of them moved to suburbs and other neighborhoods during the 1990s.

The islands are rife with natural resources, both on the land and in the sea. However, there is also a lot of rough terrain, which makes it very difficult to access. Minerals (like gold, copper, and oil) make up nearly three-quarters of its export revenue. Palm oil is one of their major agricultural exports, even though the palm oil industry has increasingly become quite controversial over the past few years. (Watch this VICE video from Season 3 about the palm oil industry in Indonesia. I would suggest watching the entire episode, but you can skip ahead to the 16:00 mark for the story on palm oil.) Although PNG’s economy has struggled in the past, it has also made some growth over the past decade. They not only rely on mining, but they also have a growing oil and gas industry as well.

Christianity is overwhelmingly the majority religion in Papua New Guinea. Nearly 95% of the population adheres to some form of Christianity, with the majority of those following Protestantism. As far as the significantly smaller non-Christian population goes, the Baha’i religion has the largest following, followed by Islam and Confucianism. Animism and mysticism is still very much alive, especially in the rural areas. Several high-profile cases have made news in the past few years of women being tortured and burned alive on charges of witchcraft.

What’s unbelievable is that this relatively small country has more than 820 languages, but most of these languages have fewer than 1000 speakers, and several have already died out. The most widely spoken indigenous language is Enga, followed by two other Trans-New Guinea languages, Melpa and Huli. However, it is the #1 country in the world with the most languages. (Indonesia is second with 742, and Nigeria is third with 516.) There are actually four official languages in the country: Hiri Motu (a simplified form of the Motu language), Tok Pisin (an English-based creole; once used as a trade pidgin, it is entirely its own language now and serves as a first language for many), English (language of government and education but not spoken by many people in everyday activities), and Papua New Guinea sign language.

Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most remote areas. Not necessarily its physical location, but its accessibility to traverse the country. Because of its rough terrain, thick jungles, and swamps, there are areas few people have ever visited (save, perhaps, for some of the locals). In fact, it’s nearly impossible to build roads through some of these areas, and it’s easier to fly to where you need to be. I wonder what secrets lay in the jungles. Could the next cure for cancer lie within its green realm, or is its tight-knit foliage saving itself from exploitation?

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