History and Ethnic Relations
The first discoverers of the Solomon Islands were the island peoples themselves. They settled the main islands and developed land-based communities, first with agriculture and then through animal husbandry, particularly pigs. They also developed fishing and other marine skills, especially in the lagoons.
Subsequent migrants, finding that the big islands were occupied, settled on the outlying islands, most of which are coral outliers. Sikaiana, Reef Islands and the Temotu Islands. These migrants were mostly Polynesians, and they mastered fishing and navigation.
The first contact with Europeans was in 1568 with Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira. Mendaña left and returned a second time in 1595 with the intent to settle. He died of malaria, and the settlement was short-lived.
Until 1767, when English explorer Philip Carteret landed in the islands, contact with outsiders was limited. It was in the 1800s, when traders and whalers arrived, that contact with Europeans became constant and enduring. Entrepreneurs, church missionaries, and the British colonial government officers soon arrived thereafter.
Before Britain proclaimed protectorate status over the islands in 1893, there was no single centralized politico-cultural system. What existed were numerous autonomous clan-based communities often headed by a male leader with his assistants. Unlike Polynesian societies, there had not been a known overall monarch ruling the islands.
Within the islands, there was intercommunity trading and even warring networks. These networks were further cemented by intermarriages and mutual help alliances.
With the arrival of churches and government, communication was made easier between the islanders, and further networks then developed. The British also put an end to intertribal warfare and conflicts. As a result, the predominant cultures of Melanesia and Polynesia were deeply intertwined with the cultures of the different churches, and both urban and rural lifestyles. Added to this was the introduction of western popular culture.
Emergence of the Nation. The emergence of nationhood came late to most Pacific nations so that the Solomon Islands was given political autonomy from Britain only in 1978, in a peaceful transfer of power. Calls for political independence, however, preceded the 1970s. Starting in the 1990s, Solomon Islanders made several attempts at independence through indigenous movements. Government was an anathema to the leaders of these movements because they did not see why they had to pay taxes when they received little in return from the government.
National Identity. In the Solomon Islands, national culture developed from the convergence of a number of factors. One of the most important is the high level of tolerance and comity developed between different churches in the last century. Unlike the government, church missions have done a lot for the people. They have provided schools, clinics, church buildings, and overall good will. The churches have enabled different cultures to assimilate such teachings as the social gospel of sharing and caring.
Another factor that congeals national culture is the sharing of a lingua franca, the "Solomon Islands pidgin English." Although pidgin English is not a compulsory subject in schools, it is the social glue that cements relationships particularly in a country with multiple languages.
Concomitant with the above is the concept of wantokism. Wantokism is a rallying philosophy that brings together, in common cause, people who are related, those who speak similar languages, those from the same area or island, and even the country as a whole. Its social malleability means that it can be applied in more than one situation especially when one is new to a place or unfamiliar to a group of people. It is a concept in which mutual hospitality is shared among and between different individuals and groups. The concept also traverses national boundaries. It is shared particularly among the three main Melanesian nations, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea.
The development of a national culture was also influenced by the battles Solomon Islanders experienced during World War II. Although the "war was not our war," the fact that many Solomon Islanders had common experiences, including putting their lives at risk to save their country from the enemy (the Japanese), helped unite them into one people.
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