Place: Vella Lavella

Details

Vella Lavella Island is forty-two kilometres long and nineteen wide. It is mountainous, with its main peak 808 metres high. It is the most northwestern of the New Georgia Islands, and lies north of Gizo and Ranongga. Bougainville Strait is to its north with the Treasury Islands to the northwest. The island is often called simply 'Vella'. The people speak a language which linguists have named Mbilua, from the East Papua phylum. Mbilua is actually the name of one of four or five dialects of a language that Vella Lavella people call Vekalo. Only five Solomon languages are in this group: Vekalo, Baniata (Rendova), Lavukaleve (Russell Islands), Savosavo (Savo Island), and Kazukuru (North New Georgia). Vella people say that Vekalo is not the island's original language and that it was introduced from nearby Bava after outsiders, with the help of the Bava people, killed off most of the original Vella people.

Whalers and traders visited the area beginning in the early nineteenth century. One of the most powerful Vella Lavella leaders in the later decades of that century was Maghratulo from the Lingi Lingi clan, who gained power through feast-giving, head-hunting and trading turtle shell to Europeans. Judith Bennett records that he was supported by the major clans in the Mbilua district and gained privileges over the unoccupied islets of Ozama and Liapari in the south. Maghratulo's followers planted coconuts at Liapari and he allowed traders to use Ozama as an anchorage, eventually selling the islet to John Macdonald (q.v.) and Jesse Davis. He amassed weapons and was able to organise raids into other parts of the group and Choiseul and Isabel while keeping Vella Lavella peaceful. Maghratulo died in 1894 having established Vella Lavella as a trading and plantation base.

The Methodist Mission established its base on Vella Lavella in 1906 under Rev. Reginald Nicholson (q.v.) who remained in charge until 1920. Nicholson took early photos and also participated in the making of The Transformed Isle (q.v.), one the first films made in the Solomons.

Two of Nicholson's photographs show quaza (pronounced ngguaza), a fermented feasting food used widely in the Western Solomons. Voruku (a type of long taro) and ngali nuts (like almonds) were the ingredients. Puddings were cooked and wrapped in topa leaf (similar to banana leaf) to form beehive-shaped packages made from pandanus leaf, which could be up to ten centimetres thick. Inside were alternative layers of leaves and vines for binding. They stood on a platform (jari) and would last for at least a week. Each quaza stood on a pair of wooden skids shaped like the bows of a war canoe (niabara). They were ideal feasting food because they could be transported, cooked as a single package and each could feed many people. Quaza came in various sizes, the largest needing twelve to sixteen people to carry them on poles. They were transported to feasts each in its own canoe, and then broken up when the feast began.

Before the Second World War, European plantations were established at Mundi Mundi, Jurio, Turovilu Point, Malosova, Liapari, Joroveto and Ruruvai, and at Turovilu Island and Bagga Island just off west Vella Lavella. (Bennett 1987, 68, 82, 88, 89)

During the Second World War, on 6-7 October 1943, Vella Lavella was near the site of the naval battle of Vella Lavella. The Vella people helped rescue 174 survivors of the crew of USS Helena. The island became a target during the first Allied leapfrog operation of the South Pacific campaign. The Japanese were dug in at Munda and were establishing themselves on Kolombangara, but the Allies leapfrogged over these two bases to Vella Lavella, aided by local Vella scouts relying on information given to coastwatchers at Mundi Mundi. The Japanese responded with an air strike but decided against a counter-landing. A battle ensued in which the Allies were victorious, and they established an airstrip on the island. That fighter airstrip is now Barakoma airfield in the island's southern corner. (Information from Gina Tekulu, 14 July 2012, and Graham Baines 15 July 2012)

Related Cultural Artefacts

The Transformed Isle: Barbarism to Christianity (film)

Related People

Related Places

New Georgia Islands

Published resources

Books

Bennett, Judith A., Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800-1978, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 1987. Details

Images

Title: A boy of Vella Lavella, New Georgia Group
Type: Image
Date: 1906
Source: Anglican Church of Melanesia