Darklands: A Melanesian Experience

This unique and fascinating book reveals the Melanesia you never knew.

When the French writer and poet Andre Breton observed odd sculptures for the first time from Melanesia, he wrote, "You frighten. You amaze." The five Melanesian islands of Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu were places that were not supposed to be discovered. Explorers feared them. Missionaries were murdered on them. Colonists struggled to govern them. Today, the indigenous people on these culturally rich islands desperately want to hold onto their traditional practices that often clash with Western ways of thinking and values.

The Darklands acutely examines the mysterious and unique cultural practices of these Melanesian islands, especially those that frighten and those that amaze.