The last white canoe of the Lau of Malaita, Solomon islands / Pierre Maranda, James Tuita Dede and Ben Burt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maranda, Pierre, author.

Tuita Dede, James, author.

Burt, Ben, author.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

Austronesian (Other)

English

Subjects (All):

Lau (Solomon Islands people)--Rites and ceremonies.

Lau (Solomon Islands people).

Lau (Solomon Islands people)--Material culture.

Physical Description:

105 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

Canon Pyon [United Kingdom] : Sean Kingston Publishing, 2022.

Language Note:

In Lau and English.

Summary:

Building a beautiful ornamented 'white canoe' was a way for the Lau people of Malaita in Solomon Islands to honour the ghosts of their ancestors in the days before they became Christians. This book tells the story of the last of these canoes, built in 1968 by one of the few clans still following their traditional religion, as witnessed by the late anthropologist Pierre Maranda. Maranda observed how the great artistic projects of Malaita were once supported by elaborate ritual procedures and celebrated with community festivals, all richly illustrated here by his photographs. James Tuita was among the Lau boys who played with Maranda's son and, years later, he visited Quebec to help Maranda with his research. Besides writing the Lau text for this book, he contributes his own acutely felt insights into the radical changes in Lau society during his lifetime and the importance of maintaining its cultural traditions. Ben Burt, a curator at the British Museum, knew Maranda through his own anthropological research in Malaita and worked with James Tuita to ensure that Maranda's plans for his ethnographic research were realized after his death. It is published, as Maranda intended, in Lau and English languages, to return some of their cultural heritage to the people of Lau, Malaita and Solomon Islands.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

1912385341

9781912385348

OCLC:

1322048635

Publisher Number:

99992925399