Laulasi Island

About

Laulasi island is an artificial island in the Langa Langa Lagoon, South of Auki on the island of Malaita in Solomon Islands. It is believed that hostilities among the inlanders of Malaita forced some people into the lagoon where over time they built their islands on sandbars after diving for coral. The religion of the island was based on prayers and offerings to the ghosts of dead ancestors, mediated by priests who kept their skulls and relics in tabu houses. Some ancestors were incarnated as sharks which protected their descendants. Langalanga is also the main source of the shell money now made in Solomon Islands.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.