{{other uses A ramo (

Kwaio Kwaio is an ethnic group found in central Malaita, in the Solomon Islands. According to Ethnologue, they numbered 13,249 in 1999. Much of what is known about the Kwaio is due to the work of the anthropologist Roger M. Keesing, who lived among t ...

: ''lamo'') was a warrior-leader among certain tribes on

Malaita Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the se ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. A ramo was recognized when he had killed an adversary in personal combat, and established an intimidating reputation. This was also believed to represent ancestral support, and their supernatural abilities contributed to their reputation. Modern Malaitans generalize that ramos were part of the leadership triumvirate for each clan, along with a priest and a feastgiver; in practice, sometimes a single person fulfilled more than one role, and not all clans had established ramos or feastgivers. In theory, ramos lead the group in war and

blood feud A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one part ...

ing, avenging murder or a violation of the sex code for bounty. Their prestige and wealth depended on their ability to collect and redistribute blood money. A ramo usually had blood money offered against him, but he was able to successfully intimidate anyone from attempting to collect it. They may even kill their own relatives in order to collect money put up for their own death.

History

The power of the ramo on Malaita enlarged during the decades of

blackbirding Blackbirding involves the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in countries distant from their native land. The term has been most commonly applied to the large-scale taking of people in ...

, as firearms and steel tools (decreasing the time required for farmwork) appeared on the island. Noted ramos from this time, such as Harisimae of Waisisi, are still remembered. At the turn of the century, observers noted that rifles were so common on Malaita that nearly every man carried one. This may have been an exaggeration, and they were largely outmoded guns and there were dwindling amounts of ammunition, but the rifles remained a powerful symbol of power and authority. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Kwaio society was dominated by a half-dozen famous ramo and their assistants. One of the first goals during the pacification of Malaita as part of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate was to decrease the extent of the blood feuding and limit the autonomy of the ramos.

William R. Bell William Robert Bell (7 August 1876 – 4 October 1927) was an Australian-born official in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, who served as the District Officer of Malaita from 1915 until 1927. He was killed while collecting a head tax fro ...

, who was District Officer during the last part of this period, was viewed as a ramo when he attempted to stop the blood feuding. His confrontation with one of the most feared ramos of the time,

Basiana Basiana (early 1880s – June 19, 1928) was a native leader of the Kwaio group on Malaita in the Solomon Islands. He was a powerful and feared ramo (bounty hunter), and came from a line of prominent leaders, feastgivers, and warriors of the Goun ...

, led to his death and the

Malaita massacre The Malaita massacre inflicted a large number of deaths on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands in late 1927. William R. Bell, the District Officer of Malaita in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, and many of his deputies were k ...

References

* Roger M. Keesing and Peter Corris. ''Lightning Meets the West Wind: The Malaita Massacre''. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1980. Solomon Islands culture Kwaio Ramo