Santa Isabel Island down the houses in Ulubea riverside settlement, 33 houses in all, as a result of a property dispute. The number was later expanded to 31. The population of Santa Isabel speak as many as eight languages in addition to English and Solomon Islands Pijin. Santa Isabel Island Santa Isabel Island (also known as Isabel, Ysabel and Mahaga) is the longest in the Solomon Islands, the third largest in terms of surface area, and the largest in the group of islands in Isabel Province. Choiseul lies to the north-west, Malaita to the south-east. The Pacific Ocean lies to the north, and
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