ABSTRACT
The Second World War was a time of trauma and excitement for Malaitans, who experienced at first hand the vast numbers, the wealth and the destructive power of the distant industrial countries which invaded the neighbouring islands of the Solomons to fight out some of the decisive campaigns of the war. The result was the remarkable island-wide movement of Maasina Rule, known in Kwai as Masing Rul. The effects of this movement have lasted far beyond its demise in the early 1950s, as a crucial phase in the political and religious development of Malaita and Solomon Islands. Malaitans’ experience of working for the Americans was probably as traumatic as that of their fathers and grandfathers who left their island for the first time to see the Whiteman’s world as labourers on the plantations of Queensland. In Kwai some credence was undoubtably given to rumours of ‘cargo’, which tend to be attributed to other areas of Malaita.
