Solomon Islands
Wagina Island
A Kiribati village transplanted across the Pacific, still dancing homeland dances on Melanesian shores.
The dancers move in tight formation on a sandy clearing, their movements unmistakably Kiribati — sharp, rhythmic, hips low. But the trees behind them are Melanesian hardwoods, the surrounding water is a deep Solomons green, and the nearest point of Kiribati is 3,000 kilometres away. Wagina Island holds a community displaced across the Pacific that has held on to who they are for over sixty years.
Wagina's residents are descendants of I-Kiribati families resettled from the Gilbert Islands in the 1960s under a British colonial programme. Their original island, Banaba, had been rendered uninhabitable by decades of phosphate mining. On Wagina in the Solomon Islands, they continue to prepare te bua — fermented breadfruit paste — tap toddy from coconut palms at dawn, and perform traditional dance using knowledge maintained continuously since resettlement. Linguists have documented that the Kiribati language spoken on Wagina has diverged slightly from modern Kiribati in the Republic of Kiribati, preserving vocabulary that has shifted in the homeland. Reaching Wagina requires a boat from Choiseul Bay town, through one of the least-visited provinces in the Solomons — a place where most rivers have no bridges.
Solo
A story that has to be experienced in person to be fully understood. Sitting with a community that was moved across an ocean and chose to keep its identity intact — the conversations alone are worth the difficult journey to Choiseul.
Couple
Share something genuinely rare: a cultural encounter that no tour operator packages and few travellers even know exists. The remoteness of the journey and the warmth of the welcome create a shared memory that no resort experience can match.
- Wagina's community arrived from the Gilbert Islands in the 1960s as part of a British colonial resettlement programme, moved to reduce population pressure after phosphate mining rendered their original island, Banaba, uninhabitable.
- The community continues to prepare te bua — fermented breadfruit paste — and to perform I-Kiribati dance using knowledge maintained continuously since resettlement, 3,000 kilometres from the Gilbert Islands.
- The Kiribati language spoken on Wagina is slightly archaic compared to modern Kiribati in the Republic of Kiribati; linguists have documented vocabulary splits that occurred after the two communities separated in the 1960s.
- Choiseul Province is one of the least-visited in the Solomons; reaching Wagina requires a boat from Choiseul Bay town — a journey through a province where most rivers have no bridges and most roads are logging tracks.
Te bua — fermented breadfruit paste — prepared the Kiribati way, thousands of kilometres from home.
Toddy tapped from coconut palms at dawn, a Kiribati tradition transplanted to Melanesian soil.
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