Bougainville Poetry: The Ulungasi’s Border of Injustice on Solomon

By Leonard Fong Roka

During the peak of the Bougainville conflict, when Bougainvillean boats reached shore safely in Western or Choiseul, villagers rushed to welcome our people with food, tears and request for stories of the latest happenings on their big island.

I wrote this piece to reflect some of these moments and their chit-chats.

The Ulungasi’s Border of Injustice on Solomon

Once I stood on the fine beaches of Choiseul Bay

Out there, before me, on Monahe, a landmass so imposing on me

I saw garden smoke belching out into the azure sky

I heard guns rumbling and gunships brawling

I heard my people been exploited and killed by the ulungasi

Of the distant places our myths never knew they existed

But there, across the peaceful sleeping sea, they were

Hunting my brothers and sisters of Monahe, that great hunting ground

Of my forefathers, for our land’s riches they had came for war o’er

Treasures that should have being ours

Without their mystery border line submerged beneath our seas

Seas that we owned; seas that we shared; seas that we died in since

The dream times that its heroic deeds and legends

The ulungasi knew not a strand of

But there they were

Killing and maiming my people; torching and looting their homes,

For nothing but the riches of our divided

Solomon Islands

Terms

Monahe—a word also found in Siwai languages but used more in the Western Province of Solomon Islands to refer to Bougainville

Ulungasi—‘redskin’ in the Nagovisi language of South Bougainville