Qualla: Choiseul Island (Lauru)

Choiseul Island (Lauru): Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, Public domain. The people who live on this 2,971-square-kilometer island in the northwest Solomons have always called it Lauru. The Spanish who glimpsed it in 1568 called it San Marcos because they saw it on Saint Mark's Day. The French called it Choiseul in 1768 to flatter a foreign minister who never came closer than Versailles. The Germans claimed it in 1884 and traded it to the British in 1900. The Japanese held it from 1942 to 1943. In 1978 it became part of an independent Solomon Islands. Through all those names and flags, the Lauru people kept their own word for their own place - and on the island itself, Lauru is still the name most often heard.

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Image: Sadalmelik | Public domain

Choiseul Island (Lauru): The Shape of the Place

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, Public domain. Choiseul is the largest island in Choiseul Province - a long, mountainous sliver of land stretching roughly northwest to southeast, 2,971 square kilometers of rainforest and reef. In its interior rises Mount Maetambe, an extinct volcano whose flanks pour down into a limestone cou...

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Image: Sadalmelik | Public domain

Choiseul Island (Lauru): Names Imposed and Kept

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, Public domain. The first outsiders to see the island came from Peru. In April 1568, a brigantine called Santiago, commanded by Pedro Ortega Valencia with Hernan Gallego as pilot, broke off from Alvaro de Mendana's expedition and charted this coast. They called it San Marcos. Two centuries later...

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Image: Sadalmelik | Public domain

Choiseul Island (Lauru): A Century of Taking

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, Public domain. The nineteenth century brought the ships of the blackbirders. Labour recruiters - or kidnappers, depending on how honest the language gets - sailed the Solomons hunting workers for the sugar plantations of Queensland and Fiji. Some Lauru men and women went by agreement. Many were...

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Image: Sadalmelik | Public domain

Choiseul Island (Lauru): Bernatzik's Photographs

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. In 1932 an Austrian anthropologist named Hugo Bernatzik arrived on Choiseul convinced he was witnessing the last of something. He photographed the islanders, documented ceremonies and customs, and took a carved stone urn home with him as an artifact of what he called a dying cult...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain

Choiseul Island (Lauru): A Raid, and a Gift of Birds

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, Public domain. In October 1942 Japanese forces occupied the northwest coast. In October and November 1943 a battalion of US Marines led by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Krulak carried out a diversionary raid on Choiseul, burning supply dumps along the Voza coast to draw Japanese attention away from...

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Image: Sadalmelik | Public domain