The Chiefs' Country ― Leadership and Politics in Honiara, Soloman Islands

In this autobiographical account of life in the capital of the Solomon Islands, Michael Kwa’ioloa reflects on the challenges of raising a family in town and sustaining ties with a distant rural homeland on Malaita island. Continuing the long tradition of Kwara’ae community leaders participating in political activism, he discusses how the roles of these leaders were severely tested by the violent conflict between Malaitans and the indigenous Guadalcanal people at the turn of the century. Kwa’ioloa provides a local perspective on the causes and course of this unhappy episode in his country’s history and describes a need for a way of life founded upon ancestral values, giving chiefs a role in the governance of Solomon Islands.

Michael Kwa’ioloa is a chief, community activist, and cultural expert of the Kwara’ae people of Malaita. Ben Burt is an anthropologist who has been researching with Kwa’ioloa and the Kwara’ae chiefs since 1979 in order to document their culture and history. They are the coauthors of several books and papers on land tenure, forest resources, oral history, and body ornaments, including Kwa’ioloa’s account of his early life, Living Tradition.