The Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands form a chain of islands in the south-west Pacific.
The population of less than half a million (447,900) is composed
of 93 per cent Melanesian, 4 per cent Polynesian and 1.5 per cent
Micronesian, and has a significantly higher per capita income than
Bangladesh ($926 in 1997). During the 1980s, a few weeks after graduating
with a degree in sociology from a British university, I went to live on one of
the larger of the Solomon Islands, New Georgia. During the two years
I spent there I travelled amongst the main islands and, amongst other things,
assisted my husband – a tropical forester – in data collection. I also used my
recently acquired ‘sociological lenses’ to observe the rich and diverse
cultures, languages and customs that characterised the Solomon Islands.
We lived in a village called Munda; our house, built on stilts, sat at the
edge of a lagoon and coconut and banana palms formed a natural
boundary to the garden. We lived without electricity and like our
Solomon Island neighbours benefited from the abundant natural resources
of fish from the sea and produce from the rich garden areas behind the
village. I was welcomed by the local women and invited to join in many of
their activities. These involved such things as weaving baskets and mats,
which were produced on a regular basis in order to raise money for the
local Methodist church. The church provided a key focus for many of the
villagers and missionaries had set up a hospital in Kekengala and a college
on a nearby island. The wontok system was also a feature of Solomon
Island life. This involved reciprocal obligations that spread out from
direct family members to friends, neighbours and fellow villagers and
beyond, all of whom were considered to be each other’s wontoks. Solomon
Islanders could travel within and between the different islands and call
upon wontok ties for hospitality and help. In many ways the wontok
system provided an informal support network, particularly for those in
need. However, it was also open to abuse. Wontok ties could be exploited
and individual families drained of resources as they felt obligated to help
others. For the most part, however, like so much of Solomon Island life it
was accepted with benign good grace – after all, as a Solomon Islander
you never knew when you might need to call upon and make use of
wontok ties.
As noted earlier, the ways in which women and their bodies are viewed
within a culture can provide important markers for how authoritative
knowledge in relation to childbirth is constructed. At the outset, I was
struck by the freedoms that, from a Western perspective, were enjoyed by
women in relation to their bodies and their apparent ease with their
different sizes and shapes. There were not the same invidious pressures
that are perpetuated and reinforced in the West, that compel many
women to try to achieve unnaturally thin body forms. Of course, some
twenty years later, with the enormous changes that have resulted from
globalisation, these freedoms may now no longer be so easily enjoyed.
However, whilst living in the Solomon Islands, I noticed that larger
bodies were celebrated. Indeed, I listened with intrigue to stories about
the butcher’s shop on the island of Gizo selling large quantities of pork fat
to the Gilbertese women, amongst whom a substantial body and ample
backside were highly prized and considered to be symbols of beauty.
Pregnancy outside marriage was also regarded with a similarly relaxed
attitude. The state of pregnancy was described in the lingua franca, pidgin
English, as being ‘bubbly’. Although the earlier arrival of missionary
hospitals on some of the main islands had led increasingly to women
giving birth in hospitals, hospital facilities remained basic. Apart from
the hospital in Honiara, the capital of the main island of Guadalcanal, most
hospitals were very low-tech, consisting of no more than a few rooms. The
hospital provided a place in which to give birth, but only for those who
could walk to the hospital or who did not live too far from the hospital to
make the journey by canoe. This shift for some in place of birth, from
village house to hospital, had not at the time led to widespread, formalised
antenatal care, although basic advice on diet might be given should the
woman find herself at the hospital. Pethidine was available as a form of
pain relief, but apart from this, the birth was just as likely to be attended
by hens scratching around the floor as the hospital doctor.
At the time, men and women shared many of the tasks involved with
daily living, tending the vegetable garden areas and fishing. Members of
the extended family, particularly older siblings, shared in the care of
younger family members. The society was arranged according to ways
of living that were not so hierarchical or divided according to gender as
those in the West: patriarchy was not a dominant, organising feature. In
more recent times the Solomon Islands have been recorded as having
amongst the highest population growth and fertility levels in the Pacific.
In 1995 fertility levels stood at 5.7 births per woman aged 15–49 years.
High maternal and infant mortality rates have also been recorded. These
have been explained in terms of pregnancy-related complications, reproductive
tract diseases and cancers (http://www.spc.int. 27/10/03). Sadly,
as I write this chapter the Solomon Islands is experiencing a period of
continued civil unrest. Ethnic rivalries between inhabitants of the main
island, Guadalcanal, and the neighbouring island of Malaita, erupted in
1998, leading to considerable loss of life. Australian troops have recently
been recruited in to try to restore law and order, but this period of
unrest has had serious consequences for the infrastructure of the islands,
including health services, which at best were already rudimentary and
fragmented. Similarly, the crippling nature of the wontok system described
earlier has also recently been noted. The Chairman of the National Peace
Council, Mr Paul Tovua, has claimed that the wontok system is ‘inconsistent
with democracy’ because loyalty to wontoks is greater than loyalty
to the law or parliamentary democracy (ABC News Online, March
2004). But dismantling deeply culturally embedded practices such as
those associated with wontok obligations will not be easy. Concerns
have also been expressed by various aid organisations about both the
growing maternal mortality rates and the increase in unprotected sexual
activity among young people and corresponding high teenage birth rate,
behaviour which has been compounded by increased alcohol and drug
abuse amongst teenagers. It seems that patterns of behaviour common in
the West now shape practices in these once remote islands (see chapter 7).