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TOTO ISU (NguzuNguzu): War Canoe Prow Figureheads from the Western District, Solomon Islands
by Deborah Waite

Anthropomorphic canoe prow figureheads, alternatively called Toto isu at Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia Island, and NguzuNguzu at Marovo Lagoon, New Georgia, have played a conspicuous and changing public role in the Solomon Islands. Initially they were created on islands in the Western District of the Solomon group such as New Georgia and on Choiseul, Santa Isabel, and Nggela.During the last several decades, and particularly since 1978, when the Solomon Islands nation became independent, these forms have become a regional emblem of the Solomons. Their presence, whether on or separate from the prows of canoes, has had powerful impacts on different audiences: on Solomon islanders whose heritage they represent and on the many outsiders who have observed and acquired these remarkable artifacts.

Until late in the nineteenth century, war canoes-distinguished by their size and extensive amount of shell-inlaid decoration-were numerous in the islands of the Western District of the Solomon Islands. So were their figureheads: one was attached to every large canoe and many smaller ones carried them as well. In the final years of the nineteenth century, warriors from New Georgia gradually ceased their headhunting raids on villages on Santa Isabel, Choiseul, and other islands, due in part to pressure by the British colonial government and the influence of missionary groups. The changes in the conduct of war in the Western District led to substantial decontextualization of the canoe prow figureheads and of other carvings formerly associated with war canoes. Many figureheads were permanently removed from their canoes and acquired by missionaries, government officials, and others, and ultimately found their way into museum and private collections beyond the Solomon Islands. They began to be recognized as art objects, and this recontextualized prominence has come to represent an inversion of their initial significatory role.

Today in the Solomon Islands, the figureheads are just as numerous as when they were attached to canoes. Now, however, they are produced as individual objects, primarily for sale to outsiders. The current importance of the carvings as an item for sale, reproduction, adornment of replica war canoes, and, most importantly, as a symbol of the Solomon Islands nation, begs for examination of some of the oldest canoe prow figureheads known from the region. These have long been resident in museum collections around the world. They left the Solomons many years ago but remain a part of the national heritage.

STRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS

Written accounts of canoe prow figureheads by Westerners, whether or not they actually "collected" examples, make an illuminating study. Because of their association with canoes, the figureheads were often among the first carved artifacts from the Western Solomons to be observed by outsiders, who also consistently admired the beauty, construction, and speed of the vessels.

Surviving photographs and written accounts consistently portray and describe anthropomorphic figureheads as lashed to the bows of canoes-usually large war canoes. The typical means of attachment for each figurehead was a roughly triangular, trapezoidal, or rectangular projection extending from the back of the head. This projection was usually bored with two holes for lashing. A single hole is present in certain examples. The longer sloping edge of the triangular or trapezoidal projection fitted against the canoe bow, while the shorter vertical side abutted the back of the head. When in position, the shape of the projection allowed the carved head to project directly forward into space.

The figureheads ranged in height from approximately 10-25 cm. Photographs reveal that a figurehead of any size always appeared small in the context of the tall, upraised prow of a war canoe. The tall prow itself was usually elaborately ornamented with shell, which diminished the visual presence of the figurehead beneath it. The traditional placement of the figurehead just above the water line did not enhance its visibility, but it did make the figure appear to be intimately associated with the waters through which the canoe moved. Despite its location, the figureheads were visible enough to be noticed by early observers:

On the forepart of one of these canoes was the head of a man carved; the eyes were of mother-of-pearl, the ears of tortoise shell, the lips were stained of a very bright scarlet, and the whole had the appearance of a mask with a very long beard.¹

To the stem of the canoe just above the water line is sometimes attached a small misshaped wooden figure, which is the little tutelary deity that sees the hidden rock and gives warning of an approaching foe....²

Drawings and photographs of canoes with figureheads usually reproduced the figureheads with accurate attention to relative size and proportion. One fictional account contains an exception: in his The Head-Hunters of Christabel, A Tale of Adventure in the South Seas (London: Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1903), the missionary Rev. Alfred Penny includes two illustrations that display canoe figureheads several times larger than the heads of the people in the same illustrations and considerably larger than actual figureheads. The illustrations evidently were intended to correspond to a reference in the text to the "ugly image on the bows...the mug of a spirit-devil."³ This phrase is all the more disturbing in that, despite their disproportion, the figureheads described are rendered with the same perception of otherness as is the face of the Solomons woman included in the same illustration.

MORPHOLOGY

Most figureheads have anthropomorphic heads and forward-extended arms. The hands are frequently clasped together but may hold a miniature head or a bird. Some figureheads display bird wings or winglike head projections. A very few figureheads take the form of a complete seated anthropomorphic figure with a very large head,⁴ but for the most part the body is absent.

Prow figureheads relate closely to the heads of other carved anthropomorphic images intended for both land and sea. Most immediately, they are a slightly larger, single version of the paired anthropomorphic carvings that were mounted directly above them on the tip of the canoe prow.⁵ These prow tip carvings consisted of two heads, with or without arms, positioned back-to-back and carved as a single ornament atop the prow. These heads did not hold miniature heads or birds, nor did they ever display wings extending from their skulls. Examples exist in which the two back-to-back heads are those of frigate birds rather than anthropomorphic ones, a process of substitution that appears to have been one of many ways of expressing an identity or association between anthropomorph and bird.

Other canoe ornaments, freestanding figures, and architectural houseposts also exhibit similar tapered skulls and extended lower faces. The degree of facial extension varies from minimal to extreme. The top of the head may be rounded or may taper almost to a point. It is tempting to expect the extension of the lower face in a horizontal direction to be associated with canoe ornaments, in contrast to vertically oriented land images, but there is no correlation. A comparison of three figureheads obtained in the Marovo Lagoon region of New Georgia Island by the Swiss scholar Eugen Paravicini indicates major formal differences within the same area. The reason for such stylistic variation is unknown.

Shell inlay is a prominent feature of most figureheads. Curving bands of tiny serrated pieces of nautilus shell are set into narrow troughs filled with parinarium nut glue. Bands of inlay usually appear on each cheek-either symmetrically or asymmetrically-running from the bridge of the nose around the eyes, from ear to nose, and around the edge of the jaw. The inlay bands reproduce patterns drawn on people's faces, particularly those displayed by men on various public occasions, but they also correspond to the technically similar shell-inlay designs along the sides of large canoes, especially those once used in war.

The shell-inlay patterns adorning figureheads always differ to some degree, even if they appear to be superficially comparable. So frequent is the appearance of inlay bands on the faces of figureheads that its absence is noteworthy and inexplicable. A small (12.2 cm.) figurehead in the Anthropological Museum, University of Aberdeen lacks inlay. Only the eyes of this figurehead are inlaid with serrated shell rings. In shape these resemble the shell eyes of figureheads taken from the Solomons in the first half of the nineteenth century. This figurehead was given to the Aberdeen museum in 1920. Rounded contours, a bulbous nose, and a serrated wooden relief band setting off the short attenuated upper portion of the skull characterize this small but vivid image.

ALLEGED AND ASCRIBED FUNCTIONS OF PROW FIGUREHEADS

Recorded accounts of figureheads inevitably mention a protective function as well as an association between the canoe figureheads and protective spirits (see above-quoted passages). This symbolic role has most recently been presented in a publication on the Marovo Lagoon by the anthropologist Edvard Hviding:

A related source [to the war canoe] of powerful symbolism today is the war canoe prow ornament called toto isu (more commonly known by its Roviana name NugzuNguzu). These small anthropomorphic images (often with dog-like features) were carved from light wood, stained black, and elaborately inlaid with nautilus shell. They are depicted as holding either a human head (for success in headhunting) or a bird (for navigational aid) in the hands. A toto isu was lashed to the bow of every departing New Georgian war canoe to ensure safe passage and success in warfare; its wide open staring eyes were supposed to ward off any troublesome maritime spirits...."⁶

Most recorded descriptions of war canoes and canoe prow figureheads occur in the accounts of visitors, government officials, and others between the 1880s and 1930s. Among the older accounts, probably the fullest, and possibly the one that has been most often drawn upon (whether acknowledged or not) by latter day writers on Pacific art, is that of Lieutenant Boyle Somerville, who was with a British naval surveying ship in the Marovo Lagoon region of New Georgia in 1893. Somerville's account, fuller than many of his period, deserves to be quoted in full:

The bow and stern of all the war canoes and sometimes also of the smaller canoes are beautifully patterned with inlay work of mother-of-pearl, and a string of porcelain cowries is secured all the way down on the prow above the water line, where the head and shoulders of a debbledebbleum (called Totoishu) is suspended; it is so placed as to dip into the water in front of the canoe.

The function of this Totoishu is to keep off the Kesoko or water fiends which might otherwise cause the winds and waves to overturn the canoe, so that they might fall on and devour its crew. This figure (Totoishu) has a more or less human face, of malevolent and extremely prognathous countenance; the nose and chin being almost at a right angle to the curious pointed head, the chin resting on his two closed fists.⁷

Somerville also apparently inquired about the characteristics of the spirits, or debbledebbleum, and recorded that they were non-human spirits of the sea and land who had "power over the affairs of nature." One type of land spirit "was about as big as a man, with an enormous head of black hair, and there was hair over all his face as well. He had a long nose and the lower part of his face stuck out...making his mouth and chin protrude like a dog's face. His body was covered with light-colored hair. He had no tail, and he had hands for feet; all his hands had large talons. He lived in a hole in a big tree..."⁸

A detailed account of the encounter(s) between Somerville and informant(s), which brought forth this description, is not provided for subsequent readers, but it is tempting to speculate that the description might have been embellished for its British recipient (Somerville). Compare this account with one given decades later for a figurehead from Choiseul Island and recorded by a Solomon islander, Guso Piko:

A "kind of devil" known as basana...It had two long teeth in front, long black hair, and a hole in the back where it can carry or leave something. It has sharp, small pointed buttocks and both hands and feet. It lives in the hills on the tops amongst stones. It has the power to make fools of people, can also advise a man in the bush where to find food or whether the enemy is around. Every district has its own basana. There is one living in the cliff above Poserae village.⁹

Both descriptions refer to anthropomorphically defined spirit beings displaying anthropomorphic features that are definitely "other" than the characteristics of Solomon Islanders (features such as sharp-pointed buttocks and a hole in the back for a carrying receptacle would be supernatural in any context). These are the two most detailed recorded observations relating canoe figureheads to spirits of some sort. Equally detailed references to spirits exist for the two-headed prow tip ornaments, linking them with a bird-anthropomorph sea spirit usually termed Kesoko.¹⁰  

Traditions such as these probably constituted only one facet of the role of the images. Other possibilities are revealed in a label displayed with contemporary canoe-less figureheads carved for sale in the shop "Melanesian Handicraft" in Honiara, S.I., 1996:

Undoubtedly the most representative carving of the Solomon Islands' violent past is the NguzuNguzu. The NguzuNguzu was tied to the prow of war canoes when they were coming back from raids to neighboring islands. It was in the Western Solomon Islands that the NguzuNguzu was used. The Roviana people made their figure with two hands grasping a frigate bird. The Marovo Lagoon people made theirs grasping skulls.

The custom use of the heads is very similar between the two areas. The war party/raid would be decided upon and a feast would be held. During the feast the head would be tied to a post in a center position in the village where sacrifices and homages would be made. After the feast when the raid was about to begin, the head would be wrapped up in tapa or cloth and carried to the war canoe and placed inside. The warriors would then go to where they were going. But the NguzuNguzu would not be displayed on that trip. After their raid against their enemy, they would return if they lost no men dead and took back captives; [after a] later feast the NguzuNguzu would be tied on the prow. Their home village could discern if the head was displayed. If it were, they would prepare for the returning warriors and the feast they would give. If the raid was not a success (men dead or captured), the NguzuNguzu would not be displayed and thus the home villagers would be forewarned of the disaster.

In victory or defeat a great feast would be held, just the theme would differ. Victory had the warriors telling and re-enacting the battle. Defeat had the warriors sacrificing to their Gods to correct whatever violation of tabu had caused their shame. The sacrificing usually included a few people of the village who were deemed as having broken custom, thus caus[ing] the defeat.

Elements of this account expand upon a much briefer description of canoe figureheads published in 1986 that contains a reference to "sacrifices [which were] made to the Nguzunguzu before raids on neighboring islands."¹¹ It is possible that the figureheads may have been displayed prior to attachment to the canoe, and it is feasible that on a voyage, they could be fastened and unfastened to signal the outcome of raids. Woodford reported an analogous practice of rendering the image of a human arm in white along the bow of a war canoe to convey the same messages.¹² It is not unlikely that claims of a protective role for canoe figureheads may have far less validity than their signaling role. Perhaps it can only be safely said that canoe prow figureheads were multivalent entities whose significatory potential varied with geographical and historical contexts. 

INDIVIDUAL DETACHED FIGUREHEADS

Decontextualization brought about by the removal of figureheads from canoes and their relocation to museums and private collections has resulted in their being viewed in isolation. This quality of isolation is reinforced in publications in which the figureheads are featured away from the canoes for which they were intended. A number of figureheads have become easily accessible in the Western world through publication and republication, while many others remain inaccessible in museum storage or private collections, invisible save for the occasional catalogue. All too often, the frequently published examples are perceived to be representative of the art of an entire region, i.e. the Western Solomon Islands. If an island provenance such as New Georgia or Choiseul is associated with the image, there is rarely enough accompanying visual or verbal information to validate or expand upon the implications of this provenance. It should be remembered, however, that even when figureheads were part of a canoe ensemble, they were probably put on and taken off the vessel often enough to have been viewed as individual entities. The differences in the treatment of the formal characteristics of each reflect the work of artists from different regions and periods.

The earliest-documented canoe figurehead obtained by a Westerner belongs to a small group of armless figureheads consisting solely of heads. The narrow, rectangular rear projections have only one hole for attachment. The small head, now in the National Museum in Wellington, New Zealand (FE 3876), belonged to the Bullock's Museum, London, England, as early as 1805, when it was listed in the musuem's handbook or "Companion" as a "Head of an Idol, carved in wood from the South Seas." The museum's collection was dispersed at auction in 1819, and the sale catalogue lists this image under lot 32 as "a small idol." A Lord St. Oswald purchased this object along with a large portion of the museum's ethnographic collection. The St. Oswald family retained the collection until 1912, when it was presented to the National Museum in Wellington.¹³

The head has a prominently rounded skull and forward-projecting lower face. Large serrated pieces of nautilus shell are used for eyes, and one turtle-shell ear with earring remains fastened at right angles to the head. The black paint on the face has been cut through to produce curving designs in the color of the natural wood. A single transverse hole pierces the back of the head just behind the ears, and another hole has been bored through the head vertically. There is also a triangular opening in the lower side of the head, just behind the mouth.

Another canoe head of early nineteenth century vintage exists in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, Germany (10979). At 26 cm, this head is taller than the one in Wellington, but displays a similar profile with a rounded skull as well as round serrated shell eyes. Only a few of the nautilus shell pieces once inlaid in a band around the jaw remain. The most obvious point of comparison is the triangular opening through the lower side of the head. The figurehead was obtained in the Solomons by a Captain Robertus and was received in 1839 by the "Alten Museums" of Berlin prior to the establishment of the Museum für Völkerkunde in 1876.¹⁴

An example in the Merseyside Museums, Liverpool (54-112-221), formerly number 313 of the Beasley Collection, bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the figureheads in Wellington and Berlin, a resemblance that argues for comparable age and provenance, although this cannot be proven. Another in the British Museum (1968 Oc3,1) shares a number of features with this trio. The vertical orientation of the skull proportionately balances the extension of the lower face in each of these figureheads. Other common features include rounded skulls and ears with circular lobes positioned at right angles to the head. Both ears have survived on the British Museum figurehead and one on the Wellington figurehead; indication of their place of attachment is visible on the other two examples. Other similar traits include the subtly modeled brow and similarly shaped shell inlay used for the eyes and in a band around the jaw and on the face. The linear facial patterns of shell inlay are not exactly comparable, but certainly the most obvious difference is the presence of arms on the British Museum figurehead and their absence from the other three.

The British Museum figurehead has a history of acquisition from the Solomons that provides a rough estimate of its age. It was presented to the museum in 1968 by L.T. Hope of Essex, England, with information indicating that it had been acquired between 1830 and 1840 by the donor's maternal grandfather, a missionary with the London Missionary Society on Ra'iatea, Society Islands, where he had been given the image. How and under what circumstances the image reached Ra'iatea from the Solomon Islands is unknown.¹⁵

Another figurehead dating from the earlier part of the nineteenth century is now in the National Museum, Copenhagen (Ia11). It was acquired by the museum in London in 1851 and may be one of the two figureheads cited in C.L. Steinhauer's 1877 catalogue of the National Museum.¹⁶ On this figurehead, the ears, bearing long oval shell-inlaid earrings, are carved parallel to the head. Only the front portion of the skull is attenuated. When viewed in profile, the round shape of the remaining skull becomes visible, as does a hole perforating the midpoint. The hands are presented as though holding but concealing the identity of a round object.

A bulbous nose and dearth of shell inlay are noticeable features of another figurehead in the Instituts für Völkerkunde der Universitat Göttingen (Oz 1928). The eyes are represented with pieces of shell, but there are no bands of shell inlay along the face. The remaining shell inlay on one earring is composed of a narrow ring circling the perimeter with a European shirt button in the center, a rare instance of the appropriation of a Western object for a traditional Solomon Island object. The figurehead was obtained on Vella La Vella Island in the Western District by the German scholar/traveler Carl Ribbe in 1896. The names "Billona Ojama Jerevetto" were attached to the figurehead-probably referring to Jerevetto, one of the places where Ribbe stopped when navigating the coast of this island.¹⁷

An example in the British Museum is attached to the prow of a canoe known to have been built on Vella La Vella in 1910 (British Museum 1927.10-22-1). It resembles the Göttingen example in one respect: the proportionately extreme length of the lower face. Otherwise, no two figureheads could be more different. Curving ears with visibly reiterative outer and inner ear segments as well as elongated earrings, a slim nose with perforated nostrils, and bands of facial inlay set this figurehead apart from the one obtained by Ribbe.¹⁸

A figurehead with similar features belongs to the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It arrived in Ulster attached to a canoe given to the museum by Rear Admiral John Casement, who probably acquired it in 1898. Information in the log for his ship, H.M.S. Rapid, indicates Gatukai Island in the Western District as the most likely place where the canoe was acquired, although the log reveals that the ship also stopped at Vella La Vella as well as in the Marovo Lagoon, Gavatu, and other parts of the Western District.¹⁹

Several features link the Ulster and British Museum figureheads. The ear and earring types, similarly executed noses, and the presence of parallel bands of shell inlay along the sides of the horizontally elongated faces are very similar in the two figureheads. A particular shape of inlay, a double Z, appears in a band around the jaws of both images. The white-painted upcurving object atop the head of the British Museum figurehead is replaced by a double pointed projection resembling a pair of bird wings or tail feathers on the Ulster example.

The complex of traits characterizing these figureheads recurs on two others: VI 28854 in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin and British Museum 1947, Oc.12,3. Both of these share one particular detail with the British Museum example described above: a tiny circular serrated ring inlaid at the corner of the mouth. All three bear parallel head extensions which assume the form of attenuated vertical projections or, in the British Museum example (BM 1927.10-22-1), a pair of pointed curving wings. The mouths of the Ulster and Berlin figureheads are rendered similarly.

A slightly different assemblage of some of the distinctive features of this trio recurs on a fourth, now in the Solomon Islands National Museum (74.172). Double projections from the head, a round inlay piece at the corner of the mouth, and the double-Z inlay pieces along the jaw are major common traits. It is known that the piece was given to the museum by retired medical officer Guso Piko of Choiseul Island. Piko acquired the figurehead in 1945 (or earlier) from Poserae village, Katupika subdistrict, southeastern Choiseul. Piko's cousin Galozo (his father's sister's son) carved the figurehead at a time not precisely specified, but the figurehead was "not new" at the time of collection.²⁰ Piko identified photographs of the figureheads in Berlin and the British Museum as having originated from Choiseul (in his opinion). He was confident that the figurehead in the British Museum had also been carved by Galozo. He noted that the wing-shaped head projections of this figurehead represent albatross wings, a motif favored by Galozo.²¹

A final instance of figureheads and other carvings that exhibit common formal features involves a figurehead that has probably been reproduced in more books dealing with Pacific art than any other such object from the Solomon Islands. It was obtained somewhere in the Marovo Lagoon in 1929 by Eugen Paravicini and is now in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Basel, Switzerland (Vb 7525).²² Its popularity is not difficult to understand: the carver of the image has expressed unusual sensitivity in the harmonious blending of curving contours with gently rounded surfaces of head and arms. Nose and lower face extend forward from the skull without the abruptness of juxtaposition evident in other figureheads with equally long projecting faces. Shell-inlaid facial patterns reiterate the curving contours of the head. The surface ornamentation in general, be it the shell inlay or the relief-carved rendering of the hair and earrings, effectively embellishes the carving, but not at the expense of sculptural integrity. The figurehead holds a bird in its hands. The naturalistic quality of the slightly drooping wings scored with carefully incised feather markings suitably integrates the bird into the formal matrix of the carving.

A remarkably similar canoe figurehead, also holding a bird in its hands belongs to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart (3910a).²³ Features of contour, skull treatment, and a similar rendering of eyes, ears, and lips liken the two figureheads. The much broader nostril region of the Basel example and differences in inlay patterns, earrings, hand positions, and bird type are dissimimilarities. The Stuttgart piece bears an even closer resemblance (but still with minor differences) to a figurehead published by Hviding in 1996. This example is a copy made in 1989 by Basia Dioni of Chea village on Marovo Lagoon of a nineteenth-century prow carving that is in the possession of Chief Kata R Ragoso, also of Chea.²⁴

If close formal resemblances were sufficient to suggest a place of origin for all three pieces, the vicinity of Chea village would be a likely one. Two stone carvings bearing the same stylistic traits (which are particularly close in appearance to the Basel figurehead) should not be overlooked. One, representing a man kneeling on the back of a turtle, was acquired in the Western Solomons by the Reverend Tom Dent sometime between 1921 and 1934.²⁵ The other, made of a grey basaltic tuff, is a turtle net weight fashioned in the form of an anthropomorphic head (Solomon Islands National Museum 74.100). The weight was given to the Solomon Islands National Museum in 1974 by Mr. Eric Anderson. It was carved by Anderson's maternal great-uncle, Tinone Kubere (Kubere is said to be a name given to people who could carve out of stone). The documented provenance of the artifact is given as the Rurukonga Islands, two small islands within a chain of islands and islets that crosses central Marovo Lagoon in a northwest-southeast direction. Anderson apparently took the stone carving from a family shrine on one of the Rurokonga islands.²⁶ Marovo Lagoon, thus, would appear to be a plausible general provenance for the group of carvings, but it would be rash to assert a more specific origin. More information about ties, genealogical or otherwise, between the families of the owners of these carvings would greatly augment any considerations of resemblances among carvings-a fact that would probably hold true for many other instances of similarity in carving.

CONTEMPORARY CANOE PROW FIGUREHEADS/CARVINGS

The production of canoe prow figureheads did not stop with the cessation of headhunting and of the building of large war canoes, although it was undoubtedly affected. Apparently not all the war canoes were destroyed at the end of the nineteenth century, the alleged end of headhunting in the region. Visitors to the Solomons continued to record descriptions of canoes with figureheads. Paravicini, for example, described a war canoe from Marovo Lagoon in 1929 as having "on the front part, only just above the water line... a carefully carved canoe image..."²⁷
Change was inevitable, however. World War II, which brought about fierce fighting between Japan and the United States in the Solomons, probably wrought the most radical transformation. What has been described as a "renewed interest in Solomon Islands handicraft," especially on the part of American soldiers, and the awareness of this interest as the beginning of a new market for crafts, which would bring much-needed revenue to the Solomons, led to visual/contextual changes in canoe prow figureheads.²⁸ Figureheads and other carvings began to be produced in ever-increasing numbers by carvers living in the Western Province for sale there and in the city of Honiara on Guadalcanal Island.

When the Solomon Islands were united as a nation in 1978, Honiara became the capital city. With independence, the figureheads took on a new national importance. Figureheads, canoes, and other artifacts in the collection of the Solomon Islands National Museum were appropriated by the government as symbols of the islands that comprise the nation, appearing on government-produced documents, stamps, and currency. Figureheads adorn the five-dollar bill and the one-dollar coin. The figurehead appears on one side of the latter and the head of Queen Elizabeth II on the other, a juxtaposition that makes a clear statement about the national significance of figureheads.
Contemporary figureheads (detached from canoes) now occur in all materials and both two- and three-dimensionally. Three-dimensional wooden figureheads are carved for sale in the Western District, sold there, and imported in quantity to Honiara, where they line the shop windows along the main street and in shops that belong to schools and hotels. They are carved either from the brown "kerosene" wood (corsia subcordata) or from a heavier (and more expensive) shiny black ebony. They do not usually have the triangular projection pierced with holes for lashing to a canoe bow, but there are exceptions. Key rings, book ends, wall plaques, and independent pieces of sculpture all constitute present-day variants of former canoe prow figureheads.

Traditional signifying devices have been modified in various ways. Out of a sample group of one hundred figureheads produced and obtained from the end of the eighteenth century up to 1940, twelve hold miniature heads and two hold birds. By contrast, the vast majority of contemporary figureheads hold either small heads or birds. Modern published descriptions of figureheads allot specific roles to bird and head: in former days the bird was allegedly a symbol of peace and the head a symbol of war.²⁹ Or, as in an account displayed in the "Melanesian Handicraft" shop recorded in full earlier in this article, figureheads from the Roviana Lagoon area of New Georgia Island held frigate birds, while those attached to canoes from the Marovo Lagoon bore small human heads or skulls. This account was apparently compiled in the early 1980s from unnamed artists in the Western province by Wade Streeter, who was formerly with the shop.³⁰ The historic veracity of these assertions is uncertain.

Another modification of the role of figureheads is their introduction into narrative compositions. Three carved wooden plaques hanging on the wall behind the check-in desk at the Mendana Hotel in Honiara exemplify this trend. The plaques were carved by T. Ruskin from Pelina Island, Marovo Lagoon, New Georgia, and depict three aspects of life in the Solomons: "Life in Village" (left panel), "Spirit of Solomons" (center panel), and "The Old Days" (right panel). At the base of the right panel are two figureheads depicted with canoe attachment extensions. The two confront each other, one holding a bird, the other a small anthropomorphic head. Above them is a traditional war canoe with its own miniature prow figurehead, as well as a traditional skull house and islanders. The two large figureheads at the bottom appear to be presented as foundation images for that period of history (up to end of nineteenth century) in the Western Province.

Present-day figureheads such as the Ruskin examples and many others printed on stamps, currency, paintings, or T-shirts, function as signifiers of the history of the Solomon Islands nation. In so doing, they are an active part of the present. One of the most visible examples of incorporation/recreation is a new but traditional war canoe located inside a small custom house typical of New Georgia island-one of a group of miniature custom houses from every province of the Solomon Islands-which stands in the grounds of the Solomon Island National Museum in Honiara. Fastened to the canoe bow is an equally traditional prow figurehead, emblematically serving its original function.

New images of figureheads are created according to new and varied visual "texts." Contemporary contexts of supply and demand respond to ever-increasing numbers of outsiders (tourists), The images are grounded in verbal recontextualizations such as the previously quoted passage that accompanied figureheads available for sale in "Melanesian Handicrafts" in Honiara. The verbal text and the figureheads it describes evoke details of a past once relevant only within the Western District but now representative of all people belonging to the nation, Solomon Islands.

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NOTES - REFERENCES

1. Notes from the journal of Louis Antoine de Bougainville in Discoveries of The French in 1768 and 1769 to the S.E. of New Guinea, C.F.Claret de Fleurieu, London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1791, p. 94.
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2. H.B. Guppy, The Solomon Islands and Their Natives. London: Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., p. 149.
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3. A. Penny, The Headhunters of Christabel, A Tale of Adventure in the South Seas. London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1903, p. 8, illustrations opposite pp. 82, 198.
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4. e.g., Field Museum, Chicago, 276855; D. Waite, "Mon Canoes of the Western Solomon Islands," Art & Identity in Oceania,. ed. A. & L. Hanson, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990, p. 51, Fig. 5.14; Australian Museum, Sydney E 57812.
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5. vide N. Thomas, Oceanic Art. London Thames & Hudson, 1995, p. 92.
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6. E. Hviding, Guardians of the Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place and Politics in Maritime Melanesia, Pacific Islands Monograph Series 14, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996, pp. 76-8.
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7. B.T. Somerville, "Ethnological Notes in New Georgia, Solomon Islands." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. XXCI, 1897, p. 385.
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8. Ibid., p. 385.
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9. Notes recorded by Guso Piko. Solomon Islands National Museum files for figurehead 74.172.
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10. Myths from New Georgia portray Kesoko as spirit associated with birds, in particular, the crane and with net fishing. For more information about Kesoko and Kesoko-related imagery, see D. Waite op. cit.: 52-54.
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11. R, Austin, Handicrafts of the Solomon Islands. Honiara, Solomon Islands: published on behalf of the Government of Solomon Islands. Ministry of Trade, 1986, p. 7.
    [back]

12. C. M. Woodford, "The Canoes of the British Solomon Islands," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 39, 1909, p. 513.
    [back]

13. A. Kaeppler, "Cook Voyage Provenance of the 'Artificial Curiosities' of Bullock's Museum, Man (N.S.), vol. 9(1), 1974, pp. 68-92.
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14. Berlin Museum für Völker-kunde, accession file information for 10979.
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15. British Museum, Department of Ethnography, accession file information for 1968 Oc 3,1.
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16. C. L. Steinhauer, Das Konigliche Ethnographische Museum Zu Copenhagen. Handbuch für die Besuchenden. Copenhagen: Bianco Lunos Buchdruckerei, 1877, p. 62 & accession file information, National Museum, Copenhagen, Iall.
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17. Institut für Völkerkunde der Universitat Gottingen, accession file information for Oz 1928; vide C. Ribbe, Zwei Jahre Unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln. Dresden-Blasewita: Druck und Verlag der Elbgau Bucherei, Hermann Bayner, 1903, map 3.
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18. British Museum, Department of Ethnography, Ethnographical Document 1131.
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19. D. Waite, op. cit.: p. 60, n. 7.
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20. Solomon Islands National Museum, accession file information for 74.172.
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21. Personal Communication, Guso Piko, November 1975.
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22. Museum Für Völkerkunde, Basel, accession file information for Vb7525.
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23. This figurehead is illustrated in "Tribus Jahrbuch," vol. 42, 1992, p. 41.
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24. E. Hviding, op. cit.: p. 177, photograph 19.
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25. British Museum Department of Ethnography, accession file information for 1959, Oc 6.24.
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26. Solomon Islands National Museum, accession file information for 74.100.
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27. E. Paravicini, Reisen in den Britischen Solomonen. Leipzig: Huber, 1931, p. 179.
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28. N. Baird, War & Handicraft. Solomon Islands, Take-Home Memories 1942; 50th Anniversary Guadalcanal Campaign-1992, Produced: Sir Mariano Kelesi; & Bruce Saunders, Melanesian Handicraft, 1992, pp. 3-4.
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29. Ibid., p. 7.
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30. W. Streeter, Personal Com-munication, 1996.
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