Author Description

Michael Kwaioloa grew up in the forested homeland of his ancestors on the Pacific island of Malaita and discovered the wider world by moving to the town on Honiara, capital of Solomon Islands. Living Tradition is the story of how his life changed as he came to terms with a world of contrasting cultures and values, combining family instruction and school, ancestral ghosts and born-again Christianity, shell money exchanges and work for cash, restitution of wrongs and government law. Living Tradition is a work of collaboration between Michael Kwaioloa and Ben Burt, an anthropologist who has been researching the culture and history of Kwaraae since 1979. It presents social and cultural change from the personal perspective of autobiography, edited and interpreted with the benefit of academic research. Kwaioloa's theme is the importance of his traditional culture in providing an essential but ambivalent foundation for life in changing times. He presents a lively personal account of how Kwaraae tradition is lived even as it is transformed in confrontation with Christianity and European culture; a vivid illustration of life in the contemporary Pacific Islands.