In the Solomon Islands, making amends in the name of conservation

Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with the Kwaio people for years, and two of them speak the language. But they’re now on new ground in just about every sense.

At an ancestral shrine deep in the forested mountains of the Solomon Islands, with no vestiges of themselves as individuals, the scientists are simply representatives of their tribe — in this case, Australia. The trio has set out on a path toward mending a long-simmering rift with the Kwaio, represented here by their Kwaio friends, who have invited them to this sacred space.

Mammalogist Tyrone Lavery remembers being “very nervous.”

“There was very much a different atmosphere to the place and it felt very tense,” Lavery said. He wasn’t altogether sure that everything would work out for the best.

For more than 90 years, the Kwaio people living on the island of Malaita have been haunted by the memory of a handful of violent months in 1927. That’s when a group of Kwaio led by a warrior named Basiana, chafing at having to pay a new tax levied by the colonial government, led an attack that killed two British officers and 13 local enforcers sent to collect.

In reprisal, Australia sent a naval ship to the island, and British administrators dispatched a militia of the Kwaios’ local rivals on Malaita to hunt down Basiana. An expeditionary force bent on vengeance, they desecrated sacred Kwaio sites and objects, and by some accounts, they slaughtered several hundred Kwaio. The bloodshed ended only after Basiana and his men turned themselves in and were executed by the British in Tulagi, the colonial capital.

The events have cast a pall over the last nine decades for the Kwaio. They’re now divided into those who have converted to Christianity and those who maintain traditional Kwaio ways. The violence left unhealed wounds in the hearts of many traditional Kwaio and, as they see it, in the restless souls of their dead ancestors.

Ultimately, the leaders of the Kwaio, some of whom stood with the Australians that day in July 2018 at the rain-soaked shrine, were still living through the lasting impact of the 1927 conflict. In their view, it has threatened their existence, their way of life, and the very land and forests they inhabit high in the mountains of Malaita.

“We think about the future of the Kwaio people. They’re starting to lose their culture especially,” said Esau Kekeubata, a Kwaio leader and community health worker. The first step, as he sees it, is healing these old wounds. “I really want to see the minds of the young people forgive and forget about the past.”