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Subsistence Living
Years ago, Rence Zama (above, left) torched a government-run field station aimed at protecting sea turtles. Though sea turtles are in trouble, subsistence harvests are ingrained in Pacific island cultures and sanctioned by Solomon Islands law. Now Zama helps manage a marine conservation area that protects turtles, like the green turtle.
Nelson Baco "talks story."
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Violent Past
“My granddaddy was a headhunter,” says Evans Zama, Rence’s brother and the tribal clan chief on Choiseul Island. Evans sits on a white sand beach. Behind him, a breeze rustles through his palm-thatched home; in front of him, gaggles of kids best one another with belly flops into a powder blue bay. Today, it’s hard to imagine what anyone here would fight about.
“Half-cannibal, half-civilized” is how Evans describes his grandfather. The chief flips open his tribe’s history book and rifles through stories told by his grandfather and aunts, penned neatly in Evans’ own hand. “Our ancestors travel across islands. They chase each other, they kill, cut head, put in the canoe, put in special tomb.” Evans’ big smile and lilting pidgin English make this sound like a bizarre tourism endorsement. “If you visit all our areas, you will see heads of our own people and heads of people they killed on headhunting.”
“[Headhunting] was all about the spirit world,” explains Evans. “You have to take a head, … then you have power and you can marry.”
Germans colonized the Solomons in the late 19th century. The steel they brought was forged into battle-axes, and tribal wars intensified. By 1901, Germany called it quits and ceded the Solomons to the British, who set up coconut plantations and arrested “trespassers.” Headhunting was outlawed, but it was 20 years before Choiseul tribes signed a peace treaty.
Ultimately, it was missionaries with malaria pills who ended headhunting, says Nelson Bako, a chief on Isabel Island, as he chops wood for pit ovens. Nearby, women chat and wrap milk fish in banana leaves, and four young men struggle under the weight of a sea turtle (caught outside the conservation area), hoisting it from a skiff into Bako’s front yard. Bako is hosting a funeral feast for his mother-in-law, who was queen of his clan, a title that now passes to his wife.
“Nowadays we only eat turtles for feasts,” Bako says. “It is our kastom.” Such customary feasts are long-standing traditions in Pacific island nations. A turtle on the table for an important birth, death or religious holiday in the Solomons is the equivalent of a Thanksgiving turkey. And in a country where 85 percent of the population depends entirely on natural resources, turtles—even endangered ones—remain an important part of the subsistence diet.
Bako sits down with some black, syrupy coffee, props a granddaughter on his knee, and begins to “talk story.”
The malaria pills, “now that was a good trick!” says Bako, laughing. “The chiefs said, ‘It’s true, those white people have got power,’ so everybody leave everything and turn to the church.” Modern medicine and the end of ritualized killing—plus the end of World War II, which sent most of the coconut plantations packing—brought days of peace and plenty. As a young man, Bako paddled old 50-man war canoes to the Arnavons, camped with friends and family from Choiseul, and filled the boats with fish and turtles.
But those days were short-lived. Traditional nets that had snared only the largest fish were soon replaced by modern, less discriminating fishing gear. And the community grew. Soon, overfishing and overpopulation were real problems.
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Nature picture credits: All photos © Djuna Ivereigh
