Solomon Islands
Skull Island
Coral platforms on a lagoon islet hold the skulls of Roviana chiefs, and permission comes first.
The canoe noses onto coral and the jungle closes in at once, vines and the sweet rot of fallen fruit. Then the platforms appear beneath the canopy: rows of chiefly skulls, tended still by their descendants. Nobody says much on this islet.
Kunda Hite, better known as Skull Island, holds the skulls of Roviana chiefs on coral platforms, part of a wider landscape of shrines that archaeologists have traced across the lagoon. Chiefly power, warfare and ancestral memory are all bound into those sites. A custodian accompanies every visit, sets the photography rules and explains whose ancestors these are. The islet itself takes minutes, and the lagoon journey out from Munda is what gives it its context.
Couple
The visit itself is short and quiet, and usually sits inside a longer day on the lagoon, which is the part you will still be talking about that evening.
Family
Older children take this seriously when the guide explains whose ancestors these are before anyone lands; for younger ones the boat journey does most of the work.
Friends
Sharing the boat from Munda keeps it cheap, and the guide's account of Roviana chiefly history is the sort of thing a group argues about the whole way back.
- Coral shrines on the islet hold the skulls of Roviana chiefs, part of a chiefly ritual landscape archaeologists have mapped across the lagoon.
- These are ancestral remains rather than an exhibit, so a community guide interprets them and permission is arranged before you land.
- The islet is reached from Munda on guided trips through Roviana Lagoon.
- The lagoon crossing is what gives the shrine its context, passing the villages whose ancestors are on it.
Make the shrine visit a Munda lunch day, returning to Agnes Gateway for its locally caught reef-fish curry.
Order kokoda when available: fresh fish sharpened with citrus and coconut makes a fitting lagoon-side plate.
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