# Hoahania, Hamuel

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Graham Hassall, Hoahania, Hamuel, Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1999, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Hoahania, Hamuel
> 
> Graham Hassall
> published in Bahá'í WorldVol. 20 (1986-1992), pp. 843-844
> 
> Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1999
> 
> Hamuel
> Hoahania was born in the AreAre district of Malaita in the
> Solomon Islands. He was a traditional chief and owner of all land
> near Hau Hui on Malaita, and had a reputation as one of the most
> cooperative cocoa producers in the Protectorate. As a young man
> he had worked for the South Sea Evangelical Mission (the major
> Christian mission in his area), but subsequently worked as a
> medical dresser. He was contemplating a return to custom religion
> when he encountered Alvin and Gertrude Blum in Honiara in 1956.
> 
> Despite
> the Christian teaching of brotherly love, European missionaries
> did not socialise with Islanders. When Hamuel heard of a European
> family living in Honaira who allowed Islanders into their home,
> and even ate with them, he did not at first believe the story,
> and decided to investigate for himself. His work as a
> "medical dresser" allowed Hamuel to travel to different
> parts of the Solomon Islands, and when next in the capital, he
> approached the home of Knights of Bahá'u'lláh Alvin and Gertude
> Blum. Alvin was told one evening about July 1956 that there was a
> man standing near to the house. He invited him in, and offered
> him some refreshments. Hamuel asked the Blums for books about the
> Bahá'í Faith, and invited them to Hau Hui to "start a
> mission".1
> 
> His
> conversion precipitated the first mass entry of Pacific Islanders
> into the Faith after the events in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
> Colony in 1954-55, and was regarded as an important event in
> Solomon Islands' religious history.2
> 
> Gertrude
> Blum visited Hamual's clan in Hau Hui, and a large number decided
> to become Bahá'ís. An LSA was soon established at Hau Hui, of
> which Hamuel was a member. The rapid emergence of Bahá'í
> communities on Malaita provoked opposition from a number of
> missions, and the new Bahá'ís faced a variety of forms of
> harrassment and ridicule. They persevered, nevertheless, in
> establishing Local Assemblies, and a primary school.
> 
> In
> 1959 a regional National Spiritual Assembly was established, with
> its seat in Fiji, of which the Solomon Islands was a part. In
> each group of islands an Island Teaching Committee was appointed
> to co-ordinate the activities of the Bahá'í community and
> liaise with the RSA. Hamuel was a member of the Solomon Islands
> Teaching Committee from 1961.
> 
> In
> 1962 and subsequent years Hamuel was elected as a delegate to the
> convention of the South Pacific RSA. Toward the end of the World
> Crusade Hamual assisted in implementing a large-scale travel
> teaching project on Malaita, in which Bahá'ís visited most of
> the villages in the AreAre and Koio regions of Malaita. By Ridvan
> 1963 there was an Assembly at Hau Hui, nine othere localities on
> the Island, and some 800 Malaitan Bahá'ís. By 1986 there were
> 59 Local Assemblies on Malaita.
> 
> Hamuel
> served on the Southwest Pacific NSA for a number of years. In
> 1978 was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly, and later
> that year was appointed an Auxiliary Board Member.
> 
> Notes
> 
> [1] 25 May 1956 "ITC
> 1960" - Honiara Bahá'í Archives.
> 
> [2] [Note: this endnote has scanning errors, it appears that two separate blocks of text were combined during OCR.] Tippett has suggested that the
> theme of the "unity of the human race" was crucial to HChristianity,
> p. 98: "In the same island [Malaita] the issue of unity had
> been injected into the same oahania's conversion: Alan Tippett,
> Solomon Islands dmovement, which stems from a certain trader
> in Honiara and has now quite a community of members enominational
> community (SSEM) by the Bahá'í rSouth Sea Evangelical worker
> who had been disciplined. After a decade the Bahá'í now claim
> about ound Hauhui in Malaita. It began there through a 8of
> considerable strength at Auki, and the others round Hauhui. These
> people have a natural urge for 00 adherents in 5 Assemblies, one
> at Honiara, one uplace..." Frank Coaldrake also noted the
> expansion of the Bahá'ís, as well as other religious groups.
> "Many nity, which attracted them to Bahá'í in the first
> cministered to by the church because of lack of staff. The people
> wanted the Anglican church, but were taken up by onverted by the
> brothers could not be tWitnesses, Bahá'í or Roman
> Catholics." -Floodtide in the Pacific quoted in
> Tippett, Solomon Islands Christianty: A he SSEM, SDA,
> Jehovah's SObstruction, p.50. Darrel Whiteman has
> suggested that conversions to the Bahá'í Faith among Malaitans
> were more likely to be tudy in Growth and fEvangelical
> Church (SSEC) than the Melanesian Church (Church of England), the
> former being "... prime candidates for splintering rom the
> South Sea fforming either new sects or joining other sects and
> denominations." Darrell L. Whiteman, Melanesians and
> Missionaries, William rom their church and Carey
> Library, 1983, p.334.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views11242 views since posted 2000-01; last edit 2024-07-07 03:39 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../hassall_hamuel_hoahania;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> Citation: ris/161
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> — *Hoahania, Hamuel (Used by permission of the curator)*