None of their houses will remind you of Solomon Islands because just like their dialect every aspect of their lives have been 'Fijianised'. Choose facial features and you’ll be in the right position to identify anyone with a Solomon blood because what you’ll find is many of them have blond hair and body structures that are typical of Malaitans. When Lifahus paid a visit to Wailoku, a settlement of Solomon Islands descendents outside Suva, interesting tales that stretch back to the black birding era were heard.
They had offered Solomon Islanders studying in Fiji invitations to join them to celebrate Solomon Island’s 31 independence anniversary earlier this year.
I and a group of friends made it a bit late for the program but it wasn’t a big deal as our ultimate aim was solely to discover the reality of what we had only come to learn in school.
The road leading to the village is comparable to the neglected pool-filled roads in Honiara. Situated in what appeared to be a waste land valley, Wailoku is a melting point of ethnic diversity especially from the island of Malaita where most of the looting in the so-called black birding era took place. As you enter the settlement from the bus stop, you will be walking through a spot settled by the Are’are descendents with the Kwara’ae settlers occupying the opposing hilly area over looking their settlement.
They do have areas assigned to To’obaita, Kwaio and Fataleka descendents although these languages are no longer spoken by the people. The revelations made the visit quite adventurous.
As we made our way across a tiny bridge that overlies a small stream, a group of barefooted children flashed their way through its semi-clean waters while an energetic party of boys braved the heat with a rugby ball on the bank. I did imagine how these young dudes’ worlds would be like if black birding hadn’t occurred-for at that age in the Solomons, soccer would take the place of rugby.
Just then a Wailokuan walked past us with a smile. He looked busy and in the rush he managed a short sentence in pidgin, “hao wantok?”-a phrase which I believe he had learned from one of the Solomon Islanders. But that was given less thought by us and we replied “set,set.”
Typical blond hair kids would walk up and down pass the hall every now and then where the celebration was held reminding one of the types of kids you’ll find on Malaita.
We arrived late and probably missed out on interesting parts of the program but we managed to catch some part of it.
“We are looking forward to a reunion with our relatives one day,” said one of the speakers who for some reasons decided to speak English after a long Fijian speech.
It was rather petrifying to stand there with little knowledge of what was going on especially when speeches were made in Fijian. But the smiles of the inhabitants made up for that and we enjoyed meeting the fellow wantoks.
I was told that these people are planning on staging a reunion with their relatives in the Solomons.
The blackbirding era began in Fiji in 1864 when the first New Hebridean and Solomon Island labourers arrived in Fiji to work on cotton plantations. Cotton had become scarce, and potentially an extremely profitable business, when the American Civil War blocked most cotton exports from the southern United States.
“ The Fijian government owed the Solomon descendents a lot...our people in the early days help put a lot on the streets of Suva,” said a taxi driver of Are’are origin whom I once boarded his cab to downtown Suva.
The celebration on the day opened a way for lots of Solomon Islanders studying in Suva to actually see how these people lived.
We had a lot of good times being around the area. While a few put to good use the chance to tap into a few bowls of kava with the kind Wailokuans, some indulged themselves with the betel nuts while all these were going on..."hi wantok, I'm from To'obaita etc etc.."
Comments
blackbirding
Can anyone who knows about this piece of history update us why recruiting of labourers happened only on a certain island (Malaita) out of the many islands in Solomons and out of the other islands in the Pacific? Why not from Temotu, Makira or why not from Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, etc?