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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the representation of ancestors in a celebration of the centenary of the coming of Christianity in a Solomon Island community, with particular attention to the different portrayals of women and men in the story.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the Pacific, yearly church anniversary celebrations have long provided opportunities for people to reflect upon the state of their community, the actions of their ancestors, and the meaning of their faith. In the village of Pienuna on Ranongga Island in Solomon Islands where I have spent time since the 1990s, the hundredth anniversary of the return of a local youth, James Paleo, who had followed a mission ship and returned to become the area's first missionary. There were two other important figures in the narrative of conversion: Takavoja, a chiefly woman credited with welcoming the first missionary ashore, and Sagobabata, a chiefly man remembered for rebuffing the missionary. In this paper, I trace the ways that the descendants of these figures sought to represent their ancestors' role in this historical turning point, paying particular attention to gender in these negotiations. I also reflect on the difficulties of writing about intra-village conflict in the context of an event intended to display unity and power and on the ways that my own ethnographic writing was taken up, and contested, in the context of the anniversary celebration.