Preliminary Report on the Discovery of Surface Sherds on Mono Island, Treasury Group, Solomon Islands

Extract

The only inhabited native village,Ba-li, in the Treasury group is on Mono Island. Although only six months old, it consists of thirty-one dwellings, two open-air churches, and 165 people who make up the native population of Treasury. Formerly, the chief village was situated among the coconut groves on the protected southern shore of Mono Island, acrciss the channel from Sterling Island, a coral atoll. Here the villagers enjoyed the excellent fishing and gathered and traded coconuts. When the Japanese landed there the natives fled to the caves in the cliffs bordering the open sea. There they lived a miserable existence until the Allied forces landed and exterminated the Japanese. Released from their cave hideouts, they decided the most undisturbed location for them, in view of the feverish military activity along the coasts, would be in the interior. Therefore they selected, for their site a ridge a mile and a half inland from the eastern beach of Mono.