Adorning the body is one of the most important modes of creative expression in Solomon Islands. More than just decoration, personal adornment conveys the status of the wearer and can transform the body for ceremony, enhance an individual’s ability to communicate with ancestors, and provide protection. Much of the value of adornments is related to the physical properties of their materials and the effect that the adornments have on the body. The shimmering effects of light reflecting off nacreous pearl shell, combined with the glossy sheen of oils rubbed into the skin of the wearer, act as a focus for spiritual energy and strengthen connection to the power and spiritual presence of one’s ancestors. Things that shine brilliantly or glow and resonate with radiance are understood to be signs of well-being within the community and evidence that relationships are healthy and strong. By contrast, a dull or ashen appearance lacks vitality and is therefore inauspicious, suggesting a level of disarray or weakness. Personal adornments fabricated from materials drawn from the land and ocean also help enact kastom—the ceremonial, religious, and economic traditions of Solomon Islanders.
The Solomon Islands are a double chain of islands lying southeast of New Guinea with a landscape ranging from mountainous and densely forested inland regions to coral atolls and sheltered lagoons. The first humans arrived in the region around 30,000 years ago when sea levels were lower and the islands were connected by a land bridge to New Guinea, allowing Papuan-speaking ancestral populations to walk into the Solomons chain. Around 3,000 years ago, people of the Proto-Austronesian Lapita culture, arriving from the west, settled the southeastern Solomon Islands, including the Reef and Santa Cruz Island groups. Then, some twenty-six generations ago, ancestral Polynesian navigators journeyed from the east, where a distinct Polynesian culture had begun to develop, and settled the outlier islands of Tikopia, Ontong Java, Rennell, and Bellona. The diversity and wide-ranging influences of the many environments, languages, and cultures of Solomon Islands are vibrantly expressed in the richness of the region’s adornments.
A pair of armbands ; highlight the close relationship between physical and spiritual wealth and the potency of specific materials. The bands are composed of small shell beads arranged in dynamic geometric designs. Each bead is a piece of shell that has been sanded down to form a disk, polished, and individually drilled; the resulting beads are highly valued for their visual qualities and the labor required to make them. The individual beads are strung on natural-fiber string to create a cuff with ties that can be worn on the upper arm. Such armbands are worn by men and women throughout Solomon Islands, where they act as not just adornments but also currency in the form of shell money. The beads for armbands are smaller and finer than those used for money; in some cases, they may have been repurposed from a length of worn shell currency. The contrasting colors of red, white, and black recur throughout Oceanic art and are associated with power, animating properties, and ancestral presence. Red shells are particularly valuable as the color is understood to be highly potent, and the brightest shells are sourced from the deeper parts of the ocean. With the arrival of European traders in the region, glass beads became a popular alternative to shell disks for use in armbands, but the geometric designs and color palette of red, white, and black or blue remained popular.
Europeans first arrived in the islands in the sixteenth century and were quickly drawn to the qualities of the adornments they found. The Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña sailed to Solomon Islands in 1568 with the objective of finding the lands of gold of the biblical King Solomon, for whom the island group is named. According to a popular anecdote, Mendaña’s crew was so captivated by the shimmering stones used to make the spherical heads of wari hau batons that they thought they had literally struck gold. In fact, the stones were carved from iron pyrite, known popularly as fool’s gold. European explorers also mistook the batons for clubs. But wari hau were not weapons; rather, they were a type of insignia worn by warriors, suspended from a cord around the neck and hung down the back. When carried in war, they were said to offer their bearer supernatural power and protection.
Wari hau could only be worn by men who were authorized to claim payment for an execution, such as those undertaken during headhunting raids. Headhunting was once a vital practice in Solomon Islands. Warriors would raid other villages, often as reciprocal acts of revenge, and claim heads to acquire the mana, or spiritual power, of an individual from a rival group who was killed. Rather than destructive, this act was seen as generative, as the energy and power of the victim would in turn be channeled into the consecration of war canoes and the overall protection and health of the village. The level of detail required to inlay the finely cut pieces of nautilus shell and bind the stone head in plaited fiber of the wari hau shows the high status and value associated with military prestige and the honorific act of taking a life.
The generative power of headhunting is also expressed in the way Solomon Islanders dressed human bodies and decorated canoes. A well-adorned warrior or canoe has the power to impress, intimidate, and overwhelm an opponent. In the western islands of New Georgia, Choiseul, and Santa Isabel, distinctive figureheads were mounted on large war canoes called tomako. Known as nguzunguzu in the Roviana Lagoon region of New Georgia and toto isu in the Marovo Lagoon area on the opposite side of the island, these figures feature an elongated human-like head with a pronounced jaw and shell inlay designs that replicate facial paint or tattoo markings . Such figures feature shoulders and arms clutching a bird or a human head in its hands or, as in the example above, pressing its hands together below the chin.
In addition to facial markings, the nguzunguzu has prominent ear plugs in each lobe that are further inlaid with nautilus shell. Both men and women wear such plugs in Solomon Islands . The plug is carved from a single piece of wood with the inlaid pieces of shell set into a base of dark sticky paste extracted from the parinarium nut (Atuna racemosa). Ear piercing occurs at a young age, and over time an individual will gradually increase the size of their piercings by wearing increasingly larger plugs to indicate their status.
Canoes were also elaborately adorned with large egg cowrie (Ovula ovum) shells, nautilus shell inlays, and other forms of decoration designed to shine brightly in contrast with the dark stain of the wood. The mirrored frigate-bird design seen in shell pendants from New Georgia was often replicated in the adornment of canoe prows. Sometimes referred to as the pirates of the sky, frigate birds will steal fish from other predators while on the wing rather than diving for their own food. They are recognized throughout the Pacific as symbols of strength associated with warriors and navigators, who can chart the winds by watching the elevation and flight path of these and other seabirds. The frigate-bird pendants, worn by both men and women, were sometimes tied to the prows of canoes as they were understood to increase the speed of the vessels and to ensure their safe passage on the ocean.
Frigate birds also herald the annual arrival of large schools of the bonito fish, which plays a vital role in the economic and ceremonial lives of Solomon Islanders. Every year during the hot and windy season, bonitos swarm to feed on smaller fish in the open ocean, causing the sea to roil with frenzied activity and attract birds that darken the skies. The activity also attracts sharks that are seen by islanders as powerful protective deities. Catching bonitos remains a fundamental part of initiation rites for young men, and being a successful fisherman is a key marker of distinction. In the eastern Solomon Islands, where headhunting was not practiced, a boy could not become a man until he had caught his first bonito. During the maraufu initiation, which would take place on Ulawa Island every five or six years, young male initiates were taken out on the water by seasoned fisherman. Upon making his first catch, the boy would hug the fish close to his body, covering his skin with its blood and oils, thereby imbuing himself with the bonito’s prized qualities. On returning to shore, he would undergo a period of seclusion in the aofa (men’s ceremonial house) before finally emerging dressed in a full set of regalia that included shell-money beads and delicately inlaid combs . The youth’s appearance, appropriately anointed and draped in shell money, signaled that he was now a grown man and ready for marriage. Having proven his adeptness at learning the special skills required for this dangerous fishing activity, he was ready to take on new knowledge and family and community responsibilities.
In the Santa Cruz Islands, one of the most distinctive forms of adornment are breastplates called tema made from the shell of the giant clam (Tridacna gigas) with an overlay of carved turtle shell. The lower part of this overlay is typically a representation of the frigate bird’s distinctive forked tail and M-shaped wings. Above the abstracted design of the frigate bird on the tema in The Met collection is a stylized rendition of leaping pairs of dolphins stacked nose to nose in three registers toward the upper perimeter of the breastplate. Originating from Ndende (Nendö) Island, tema would once have been worn by elite warriors and men of high status, the hard plate of the clamshell disk offering physical as well as spiritual protection. Today, they are worn by men participating in initiation dances and other ceremonial performances. In the nelo dance, for example, men wear two tema, one over their chest and one on their back. The adornments for the dancers’ ears and legs are likewise paired, along with the coordinated movements that make up the performance itself. The pairing is important as the nelo dance belongs to spirit gods, and should a performer dance solo, the gods will join them and dance their spirit away, causing potential sickness and other harmful effects.
The moonlike shape and materiality of the tema mirror the form of kapkap , a type of adornment found throughout much of Solomon Islands and parts of neighboring Papua New Guinea. A kapkap consists of a polished disk of Tridacna shell overlaid with a delicate fretwork of carved turtle shell. Unlike the frigate-bird overlay on the tema, the intricately carved turtle shell designs of kapkap often cover much of the surface of the clamshell disk . The amount of time and skill required to carve this filigree make kapkap prized possessions that are usually worn by high-status men as a mark of distinction. The term kapkap originated in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, where in some dialects it translates as “knowledge.” In New Ireland, the wearer of a kapkap is known as a maimai, or one who has the right to speak on behalf of the clan. In Solomon Islands, where they are generically known as dala, the adornments are commonly worn on the forehead and secured by a plaited fiber band. Today, kapkap are worn with pride as a symbol of the strength and connections underscoring the identity of Solomon Islanders.
The Met is grateful to Shirley Mwanesalua and Patricia George from Solomon Islands National Museum for generously sharing information on several of the pieces discussed in this essay.