Solomon Islands

Selwyn Teho, Vice President of the Wellington Solomon Island community in New Zealand, talks about what Solomon Aelan Pijin Langguis Wik means to him.

Kapkaps, as ornaments like this are called, are found in parts of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. These shell disks overlaid with delicate turtle shell filigree are much admired. Attached to a cord or woven band of fibre, they can be worn on the forehead, breast, or shoulder.

The tepuke is a type of sailing canoe that was once common in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands. This tepuke is seven metres long, although a full-size tepuke can be up to twenty metres in length.

This is the story of Tiola, a banara (chief) in Solomon Islands mythology and the origin of the nguzunguzu, canoe prow figureheads used by the islands’ tribes.

Botany Curator Leon Perrie was part of an expedition into the jungle in the centre of Guadalcanal island in the Solomon Islands to document the plants and animals present. Leon's job was to help with the ferns.

Botany Curator Leon Perrie describes his expedition to central Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands to document the ferns and lycophytes.

Collection Manager Pacific Cultures Grace Hutton introduces us to Nguzunguzu, the guardians of war canoes from the Solomon Islands.

Following fieldwork in the Solomon Islands and the tracing of residual traditional knowledge in Ranongga Island, a large fretworked Tridacna shell plaque, known as a ‘barava’ can now be reinterpreted as originally a land title deed.

This is a tevau, a coil of highly prized red feathers from the Santa Cruz Islands in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands. In this region, tevau was a kind of currency often exchanged for services and goods such as canoes, root crops, turtles and pigs.