page_title: Laulasi Island
section_title: Tourism
hierarchical_section_title: Laulasi Island / Tourism
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the locations of the Priest's skulls on Laulasi ISland
context_page_description: Laulasi island is an artificial island in the Langa Langa Lagoon, South of Auki on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands. It is believed that hostilities among the inlanders of Malaita forced some people into the lagoon where over time they built their islands on sandbars after diving for coral. The religion of the island was based on prayers and offerings to the ghosts of dead ancestors, mediated by priests who kept their skulls and relics in tabu houses. Some ancestors were incarnated as sharks which protected their descendants. Langalanga is also the main source of the shell money now made in Solomon Islands.
context_section_description: A report on the British Solomon Islands dated 1972 states:
  "where the traditional process of making shell money and other island activities may be observed, once again proved popular with the tourists".
  In 1981 a symposium in the then U.S.S.R heard of Solomon Islands that:
  "One of the more successful ventures in the tourist industry is Laulasi Adventure Tours Ltd"
  In 1982 a research paper by the Australian National University claimed:
  "Laulasi has become one of the notable tourist attractions of the South Pacific – with all the predictable consequences for the integrity of the ancestral religion and the fabric of community social life. Moreover, the expatriate entrepreneurs were Baha'is, and offered a ready-made religious accommodation between ancestors and capitalism".
  In 1997 an author stated:
  "Laulasi village, at the centre of the lagoon, makes a business of being nice to visitors. A real business, because it charges more than a Disneyland ticket to tread its man made shores".
  In 2006 The Last Heathen by Charles Montgomery concludes that for this he was expecting to find a volatile mixture of the tribal, pagan religion and Christianity. He found a comfortable hybrid instead, the two religions living in harmony.
  In November 2008 on an invitation from the Laulasi community a delegation from RAMSI was invited to attend to officiate the "re-opening" of the Laulasi Tourist Industry. Members took footage and photographs with a view of assisting with publicity. The delegation was escorted to the dock with a traditional war canoe trailing and a 10-seat war canoe leading with the latter being Laulasi women singing a traditional welcome song.
  On arrival at the dock, warriors confronted the delegation until a sum of shell money was presented to the warriors as a sign of peace. Once this gift was received the village girls offered the delegation refreshments.
  The men of the delegation were permitted to tour the three "apartments" that each represented a tribe. In each apartment, the skulls of past priests were laid atop one another. Once this tour concluded, the delegation was presented with a display of song and dance and formalities and a demonstration of the minting process of the shell money. The village women then sang as the delegation sailed away.
caption: An "apartment" to store Priest Heads of another tribe. Taken 2008
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