Ancient Idol In The Solomons

By Barbara W. Milne

IREAD with interest the short para graph entitled “Unknown Civilisation at Choiseul, 5.1.,” in the February number of your magazine.

In 1934, I paid my second visit to the Solomons, and stayed for a month on the Choiseul Island with the Rev. and Mrs.

Metcalfe, at the Methodist Mission station, at Bambatana. We went on numerous expeditions, including 35 miles up the coast by war-canoe (manned by 19 native paddlers) to Choiseul Bay, but perhaps the most interesting was the expedition up the mountain to see the ancient idol pic tured in the photograph below.

This idol, as you may see, consists of head and neck only. It is made of wood,

shaped into a face about 2 ft. high, very like the faces of the stone images of Easter Island. The eyes are two small pieces of clam-shell and there is a large white cowrie shell on its forehead.

Above the idol is an enormous piece of clam-shell, with a fret-work of small figures of men, etc. At the base lie heaps of kesa (only one shows in the photo.) and conch-shells.

The idol is very old and must have be longed to some former inhabitants of the island, as nobody now knows anything of its origin or real signi ficance.

The natives used to offer sacrifices to it— Mr. Metcalfe told me— before setting out on war expeditions. A few people still worship it now.

An old man, clothed chiefly in white paint and with big circles of white paint around his eyes, looks after it. He told us that he was very sad because so few people come to it now. They can hardly be blamed for not going, because

it is in an almost inaccessible spot, at the top of a jungle-covered mountain. Though less than 3,500 feet, as the crow flies, we had to climb and scramble and slip and slide and wade and climb again, for six miles, and it took us over five hours to get there!

Pastor A. G. Stewart, vice-president of the Seventh Day Adventist organisation in Australia, arrived in Fiji in June by the Monterey to attend several mission coun cil meetings. He was accompanied by Mr. B. H. McMahon, who will spend five weeks in the Colony inspecting S.D.A. schools.

The ancient idol of Choiseul, B.S.I., in a shelter in the dense jungle, on top of a high hill. (Photo. by the Rev. J. Metcalfe, Methodist Mission.)