Hoahania, Hamuel
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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.
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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.

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-- Hoahania, Hamuel (Used by permission of the curator)