THE LAU OF MALAITA

Pierre Miranda and a team from Granada Television have made a fine film exploring the trouble realities of the people of the lagoon in the 1980s. B. Shore

51 minutes Colour 1987 
Film maker: Leslie Woodhead
Anthropologist: Pierre Maranda

This film focuses on the people of Lau lagoon in the Solomon Islands who live on artificial islands near the island of Malaita. These islands are built of coral rubble and the people moved to them in an attempt to escape the dangers of malaria and enemies, and to find better fishing.

The film focuses on change and conflict. The concept of `custom' is vital to the islanders' identity, yet this is being eroded, particularly by Christian missionaries. The conflict between Christian and Pagan now pervades daily life, creating divisions in families and eroding knowledge of traditional life. Two `custom' priests recently committed ritual suicide, one by swimming under a canoe containing women and the other by deliberately making a mistake in a ceremony. Within weeks, both priests physically died.

The conflict over the ability of `custom' to continue, punctuated by the suicide of the priests, is presented visually and intellectually throughout the film. Few of the islanders remember more than a fraction of the hundreds of traditional spirits and the young are turning more and more to the traditions and commodities of Western culture. That this theme is a common one makes it no less powerful or relevant.

Spurred by the presence of the Disappearing World camera crew, the islanders built a house in which to store their traditional and ritual objects. A commendable act of preservation on the part of the islanders, but at the same time the implications of their act are saddening. They are taking their ritual things out of the sphere of living, daily tradition and placing them in the realm of objective history.

The Lau was made for Granada Television's Disappearing World series and is recommended for courses in anthropology, sociology, development, culture change, Melanesia, religion, and ecology. Catalogue number (VHS): RA/VHS191 £8.

B Burt, 1988. Review of the film in Visual Anthropology Vol.1, No.4, pp.482-83.

C.E. Fox, 1974. Lau Dictionary with English Index. Australian National University Press, Canberra.

P. Gathercole, 1987. Review of the film. Anthropology Today, Vol. 3, No. 4, p. 20.

W.G. Ivens, 1930. The Island Builders of the Pacific. Lippincott, Philadelphia.

E.K. Maranda, 1978. 'The Averted Gift: The Lau Myth of the Seeker of Exchange'. Yearbook of Symbolic Anthropology, Vol. 1, pp. 37-50.

P. Maranda, 1985. 'Un Ici Ailleurs'. In S. Genest (ed.) La Passion de l'Echange, pp. 101-9. G. Morin, Chicoutimi.

P. Maranda, 1987. Correspondence on the film. Anthropology Today, Vol. 3, No. 6, p. 24.

P. Maranda, forthcoming. Mythe, Métaphore et Métamorphose: Les Lao de Malaita.

P. Maranda and E.K. Maranda, 1970. `Le Crâne et l'Utérus: Deux Théorèmes Nord-Malaitains'. In J. Pouillon and P. Maranda (eds.) Echanges et Communications, pp. 829-61. Mouton, Paris and The Hague.

B. Shore, 1989. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 91, pp. 275-6.

If you are interested in hiring or purchasing this film please contact the Film Officer by or +44(0)20 7387 0455.

(Back to top)