Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/269

 S L S O L 253 accompaniment of bamboo drums. They make pan-pipes and Jew's harps. Of their religion and manners and customs very little is known. Their language is of pure Melanesian type though a number of dialects are spoken throughout the group, many even on the same island. Broken into numerous clans, they are rarely at peace with each other ; but the attention bestowed on planta- tions proves them good agriculturists. Yams, arum-roots, bread- fruit, cocoa-nuts, and fish constitute the chief of their food. Pigs, dogs, and fowls are also eaten, and, as these are mentioned by Men- daha, they must have been known in the islands for over three hundred years. The islanders are great betel-chewers, but little palm arrack or kava seems to be drunk. The respect paid to chiefs and elders varies in different islands. They are cannibals, though to what extent is unknown. Trophies of human skulls are common, and preserved heads the face inlaid with shell have been procured in Guadalcanal and Rubiana. They are said to pay honour to departed spirits. Carvings representing both men and animals often form the posts of houses and sheds, and adorn the prows of canoes. Their houses are square or oblong, strongly built, with high projecting roofs, which sometimes, as in their canoe-sheds, almost reach to the ground. The floor-mats are very rough. Large halls and spirit-houses exist in some of the villages, and great care and skill are bestowed on their decoration. 1 Great nicety of finish characterizes their weapons. They are mostly light and graceful, and consist of bows and arrows, spears, and clubs ; the sling seems unknown. Some of the spears have the barbed head carved out of a human leg or arm bone ; others, if not cut out of the solid wood, have bones, thorns, or splinters of wood attached in a most masterly manner. Arrows are similarly fashioned, and their reed shafts ornamented with incised lines. None of them appear to be poisoned. The bows, often large and powerful, are made of palm-wood or a strip of bamboo. Clubs vary considerably in shape ; their butts are sometimes covered with finely-plaited coloured grass. Some, which are long and slight, are sickle- or scythe-like, others lanceolate or spoon-shaped ; and some, smaller, resemble a very broad dagger. This is, in the Pacific, the eastern limit of the shield. It is an unknown weapon in the other islands Melanesian as well as Polynesian, but to the west, in the New Britain group, and in New Guinea, various forms of it occur, whence, through the Malay islands, it may bfe traced back to the Asiatic continent. The shield is also used by the Australians. That of the Solomon Islanders is made of reeds, and is of an oval or oblong form. Their canoes are built of planks sewn together and caulked, and are the most beautiful in the Pacific. They are very light, slim, and taper, 20 to 60 feet in length, with 1 to 3 feet beam, but they balance so well that an outrigger is dispensed with. The high carved prow and stern which are said to act as a shield from arrows when stem on give the craft almost a crescent shape. These and the gunwale are tastefully inlaid with mother-of-pearl and wreathed with shells and feathers. Sails are not used, but the narrow pointed paddles propel the canoes with great speed through the water. 2 Graceful bowls, with some bird or animal for model, are also made. They are cut out of the solid, and sometimes measure over 8 feet in length. Stoixe adzes appear to be now used only in the interior and in the north of the group. They are well ground, flat and pyriform in shape, and very different from any made in the neighbouring groups of islands. Clothing is of the scantiest. Both men and women not unfre- quently go naked ; but, as a rule, some slight covering is worn, and neatly-made fringed girdles are used in some districts. Tattooing and scarring of the body is but slightly practised. Ornaments are used in profusion, and often are very tasteful. Carved wooden belts, coloured shell-bead bands, and a variety of armlets, combs, and feather head-dresses are worn, also shell disks covered with tortoise-shell fretwork. Necklaces of teeth and shell are common and multiform ; one much prized is made of human incisors. The ears, and, in men, the septum of the nose, are pierced, frequently, also, the cartilage of one or both nostrils. In these the strangest ornaments are inserted, such as tortoise-shell rin<rs, bones, teeth, shells, crab-claws, and the like. 3 History. The Spanish navigator Mendana must be credited with the discovery of these islands, though it is somewhat doubtful whether he was actually the first European who set eyes on them. He sailed from Callao in 1567, by command of the governor of Peru, to discover the southern continent, the presumed existence of which in the then unknown region between America and Asia had already given rise to much speculation ; but he seems to have been strangely unfortunate. Sailing west he discovered only a few coral islets (? Ellice group) until, having crossed more than 7000 miles of ocean, he fell in with an archipelago of large islands. By their size and position he considered them to form part of the land 1 See frontispiece to Brenchley's Curaqoa, 2 Rude outrigger canoes with mat sails are used in some parts of the archipelago. 3 Of the island manufactures fine specimens may be seen in the British, Cambridge, and Maidstone museums. he was in search of, and in pleasing anticipation of their natural riches he named them Islas de Salomon. The expedition surveyed the southern portion of the group, and named the three large islands San Christoval, Guadalcanal, and Ysabel. On his return to Peru Meudana endeavoured to organize another expedition to colonize the islands, but it was not before June 1595 that he, with Quiros as second in command, was enabled to set sail for this purpose. The Marquesas and Santa Cruz Islands were now discovered ; but on these latter islands, after various delays and troubles, Mendana died, and the expedition eventually collapsed. Even the position of the Solomon Islands was now veiled ii. uncertainty, and they were quite lost sight of until, in 1767, two centuries after their first discovery, Carteret lighted on their eastern shores at Gower Island, and passed to the north of the group, without, however, recognizing that it formed part of the Spanish discoveries. In 1768 Bougainville found his way thither. He discovered the three northern islands (Buka, Bougainville, and Choiseul), and sailed through the channel which divides the latter two. In 1769 Surville explored the east coast, and was the first, in spite of the hostility of the natives, to make any lengthened stay in the group. He brought home some detailed information con- cerning the islands, which he called Terres des Arsacides ; but their identity with Mendana's Islas de Salomon was soon established by French geographers. In 1788 Shortland discovered New Georgia, with some of the smaller islands ; and in 1792 Manning sailed through the strait which separates Ysabel from Choiseul and now bears his name. In the same year, and in 1 793, D'Entrecasteaux surveyed portions of the coast-line of the large islands. In 1794 Butler visited the group, and Williamson in the " Indispensable " explored the channels which divide Guadalcanal from San Christoval and Ysabel from Malanta. There was a break of nearly half a century before D'Urville in 1838 took up the survey. Traders now endeavoured to settle in the islands, and missionaries began to think of this fresh field for labour, but neither met with much success, and little was heard of the islanders save accounts of murder and plunder perpetrated by them. In 1845 the French Marist fathers went to Ysabel, where Mgr Epaulle, first vicar-apostolic of Melanesia, was killed by the natives soon after landing. Three years later this mission had to be abandoned ; but since 1881 work has again been resumed. In 1856 John Coleridge Patteson, afterwards bishop of Melanesia, paid his first visit to the islands, and native teachers trained at the Melanesian mission college have since established themselves there, as well as a few traders. About this date the yacht "Wanderer" cruised in these seas, but her owner was kidnapped by the natives and never afterwards heard of. In 1873 the "foreign-labour" traffic in plantation hands for Queensland and Fiji extended its baneful influence from the New Hebrides to these islands. Noteworthy recent visits are those of H.M.S. "Curacoa" in 1865, H.M.S. "Blanche" and Mr C. F. Wood's yacht in 1872, the German war-ship "Gazelle" in 1876, and H.M.S. "Lark" in 1881-84. See Dalrymple, Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean (Spanish voyages), 1770, i. ; Hawkesworth, Collection of Voyages (Carteret, &c.), 1792, 1. ; Fleurien, De'couvertes des Francois en 1768 et 1769 (Spanish voyages and Surville); Labillardiere (D'Entrecasteaux), Recherche de La Pe'rouse, 1791-9U, i. ; Dumont d'Urville, Voyage au Pole Sud, <tc., 1837-40, v.. and Voyage autour du Monde, ii. ; lleade, Ride through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand, &c. ; Brencliley, Cruise of H.M.S. " Curafoa," 1865; Wood, Yachting Cruise in the South' Seas; Romilly, The Western Pacific, <tc.; Schleinitz, " Geogr, u. Ethnogr. Beobachtungen auf Neu Guinea, <fcc." (S.M.S. Gazelle, 1874-76), Zeils. Ges. Erdkunde, xii., 1877- Guppy, "Recent Calcareous Formations of the Solomon Group," Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxxii., and "Physical Characters of the Solomon Islanders," Joum. Anth. Inst., xv. ; Flower, Cat. JJus. Royal Coll. of Surgeons, pt. 1, Man; Codrington, The Melanesian Language ; Meinicke, Die Jnseln des Stillen Oceans; Wallace, Australasia; Ynnge, Life of Bishop Patteson ; Redlick, " A Cruise among Cannibals," Geogr. Review, i. (A. v. H.) SOLON". The legislation of the Athenian Solon, which to a large extent moulded the subsequent political life of Athens, belongs to the early part of the 6th century B.C. 4 It followed almost immediately on an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of the aristocratic families of Attica, one of which, however, that of the Alcmseonids, was driven into exile ; and it preceded by a short interval the famous usurpation of Pisistratus. Solon had won the confidence of his fellow-citizens by having recovered for them the island of Salamis, close to the shores of Attica, an old and valued possession, which their neighbours of Megara had taken from them. Solon, himself a native of Salamis, encouraged them to fight once again for the "lovely island," as he called it, in a short poem which he publicly recited, feigning, it is said, the excitement of a madman. Through Spartan intervention in the war between Athens and Megara Salamis was restored to the Athenians, and Solon had the credit of the result. In 4 The dates of his birth and death are approximately 638 and 559.