Malaita Province Malaita Province Malaita Province is one of the largest of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands. It is named after its largest island, Malaita (also known as "Big Malaita" or "Maramapaina"). Other islands include South Malaita Island (also called "Small Malaita" or "Maramasike"), Sikaiana Island, and Ontong Java Atoll. Britain defined its area of interest in the Solomons, including Malaita, and central government control of Malaita began in 1893, when Captain Gibson R.N., of , declared the southern Solomon Islands as a British Protectorate with the proclamation of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. The provincial capital and largest urban center
Choiseul Island under both protectorates, converting most of the population to Christianity. In the early 20th century several British and Australian firms began large-scale coconut planting. Choiseul was visited by Austrian anthropologist and photographer Hugo Bernatzik in 1932. Bernatzik documented some of the few remaining ancestral customs of the island people which are included in an ethnography that he published a few years later. He also took some photographs of the islanders and brought back a stone urn with carvings, reflecting a culture that he deemed was dying in contact with the modern world. During World War II, the Choiseul was occupied