Tafuliae | shell money
Margaret: Hi, my name is Margaret Teobasi Tadokata. I'm originally from Solomon Islands. I'll be talking to you about the shell money in Solomon Islands.
We have lots of different islands, but the shell money is originally from Malaita in a group of people called Langa Langa, which is in the western coast of Malaita.
In the history, there's a belief that there's a lady that came, travelled from Buin, which is in Bougainville. She travelled through a few islands, Guadalcanal, small Malaita, and then she arrived in Langa Langa lagoon, and settled in one of the artificial islands called Tafilo next to Laulasi.
Nowadays, if you want to see the traditional custom money shell making, it's mainly in Laulasi. That's where they do it for tourists.
The four types of shell we use to make the shell money—so we normally get them from the sea. The men normally go and get it. But nowadays in Langa Langa, there is no more shells. So, we buy it from other islands like Ngella or Western Province in other islands to supply us with the shell.
So, the four types: the red-lipped rock oyster is called romu and the white shell is called ke'e. The black horse mussell shells, it's a kurila. And the thick white disk, which is easily found in the mangroves is called kakadu.
I'll tell you a bit more about what the shell money is used for. It's called a tafuliae—the ten strings and it comes in lots of different lengths. So six, seven, eight, nine foot. But the uses for it, is there's several uses they can use it for. One is if someone commits a crime in in a community or to families, they use it as a compensation to pay the fine. And it depends on the chief of the village. When they decide on the amount of shell money, the person, committing the crime have to pay. And the other way they use it for is to exchange for food. But the most what they used for the most is for bride price to build relationship between the bride and the groom.
Nowadays, a lot of people in Langa Langa, they make a lot of shell money for their living. They make necklaces, earrings, lots of jewellery. But the main thing that we make for money is the tafuliaes, and that helps to pay for school fees, to pay for living and all that of the people because they live in artificial islands. They don't have the land to grow food and to survive.
