Solomon Islands Mysteries

Near where the sunken warships of the Battle of Guadalcanal lie, glowing UFOs rise out of the Pacific, fly into the mountains and disappear into jungle lakes. Here, a tropical paradise exists with inexplicable, ancient ruins and puzzling writings of an unknown culture. Steamy, rugged mountain ranges are inhabited by strange Sasquatch-like creatures. They have come down to the villages to kidnap the locals for generations. Terrifying stories of abduction and cannibalism are passed on by the villagers to their children. These are some of the incredible tales that the Solomon Islanders have lived with for decades and you will read about in this spellbinding book. Author Marius Boirayon is the son of the World War II central France maquis (resistance) leader, and grew up in Mount Hagen in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Following a career in the Royal Australian Air Force and as an aircraft/helicopter engineer working in outback Australia, he decided in 1995 to go to the Solomon Islands to live.

First in the series: A “truly fabulous” mystery starring a policeman and a nun in the South Pacific of the 1960s (The Globe and Mail, Toronto). It’s not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Solomon Islands police force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities. In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon. Then, at a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious young American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton. The unlikely pair of Kella and Conchita are forced to team up to solve a series of murders that tie into all these other strange goings-on, in this crime novel with “a fascinating setting” (The A.V. Club). “A sparkling plot (complete with an unexpected conclusion) and a rich history of the Solomons and their native people. But it’s Kella and Conchita—and Kent’s wit—that makes this unusual mystery work, and readers will eagerly await the next installment.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

An “appealing and enjoyable” crime novel set in the South Pacific of the early 1960s (Booklist). Ben Kella has his hands full. A sergeant in the Solomon Islands police force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he’s called to investigate acts of sabotage that threaten the local operations of a powerful international logging company. Meanwhile, Sister Conchita, a young nun with a flair for detection, has been forced to assume command of a run-down mission in the lush Western District of the Solomon Islands. When an American tourist is murdered in the mission church, she and Kella join forces to uncover the links between these goings-on and a sudden upsurge of interest in John F. Kennedy—who was once a wartime US naval officer in the area but now, in 1960, thousands of miles away, is about to become the thirty-fifth American president.

With the recent Sokal hoax--the publication of a prominent physicist's pseudo-article in a leading journal of cultural studies--the status of science moved sharply from debate to dispute. Is science objective, a disinterested reflection of reality, as Karl Popper and his followers believed? Or is it subjective, a social construction, as Thomas Kuhn and his students maintained? Into the fray comes "Mystery of Mysteries," an enlightening inquiry into the nature of science, using evolutionary theory as a case study. Michael Ruse begins with such colorful luminaries as Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Julian Huxley (brother of novelist Aldous and grandson of T. H. Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog" ) and ends with the work of the English game theorist Geoffrey Parker--a microevolutionist who made his mark studying the mating strategies of dung flies--and the American paleontologist Jack Sepkoski, whose computer-generated models reconstruct mass extinctions and other macro events in life's history. Along the way Ruse considers two great popularizers of evolution, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as two leaders in the field of evolutionary studies, Richard Lewontin and Edward O. Wilson, paying close attention to these figures' cultural commitments: Gould's transplanted Germanic idealism, Dawkins's male-dominated Oxbridge circle, Lewontin's Jewish background, and Wilson's southern childhood. Ruse explicates the role of metaphor and metavalues in evolutionary thought and draws significant conclusions about the cultural impregnation of science. Identifying strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the "science wars," he demonstrates that a resolution of the objective and subjective debate is nonetheless possible.

The twenty mysteries of the rosary are a circular "gallery," a matrix of theology and spirituality. They can inspire us profoundly. For those seeking a deeper encounter in faith, these mysteries have the power to move us toward contemplation. A lengthy Introduction explains in detail the meaning of the term "mystery" in Christian thought, provides a brief history of the rosary, explains the significance of Mary in the mysteries, explores the importance of "beholding" in the Scriptures and in our spirituality, and explores Christian iconography. The centerpiece of the book is the "gallery" of the mysteries as illuminated by the iconography of Solrunn Nes, each image supplemented with explanatory commentaries by Addison Hodges Hart. The latter incorporate biblical exegesis, pertinent historical details, and insights from classical spiritual writers. The aim is to provide insight into the symbolism and typology of each mystery and to lead the reader into contemplative prayer and action. Throughout, the book unites an outward "beholding" of the mysteries of the rosary with the inner practice of the work of silence.

Archaeology of the Solomon Islands presents the outcome of twenty years’ research in the Solomon Islands undertaken jointly by Richard Walter and Peter Sheppard, both leaders in the field of Pacific archaeology. At the time of first European encounter, the peoples of Melanesia exhibited some of the greatest diversity in language, sociopolitical organization and culture expression of any region on earth. This extraordinary diversity attracted scholars and resulted in coastal Melanesia becoming the birthplace of modern anthropology, and yet the area remains one of the least well-documented regions of the Pacific in archaeological terms. This synthesis of Solomon Island archaeology draws together all the research that has taken place in the field over the past fifty years. It uses a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological approach and considers the work of archaeologists, environmental scientists, anthropologists, and historians. At the same time, this volume highlights the results of the authors’ own considerable field research. Until recently, much Pacific archaeological research focused primarily on colonization events and cultural-ecological interactions. Walter and Sheppard are interested too in the long-term development of diversity in coastal Melanesia and in the evolution of “traditional” Melanesian societies. As a case study they focus on the Roviana Chiefdom, an aggressive but highly successful polity based around headhunting, slave raiding, and ritual violence that dominated the political economy of the Western Province into the early twentieth century. The authors also integrate the Solomon Islands into ongoing models and debates around Pacific culture-history, including in such key areas as human expansion during the Pleistocene, the spread of Austronesians, Lapita colonization, the development of food production, the role of exchange systems, the concept and meaning of culture areas, and human impact on landscapes and ecosystems. This fascinating and very readable book is written for an archaeological audience but is also designed to be accessible to all readers interested in Pacific archaeology, anthropology, and history. Featuring more than a hundred maps and figures, Archaeology of the Solomon Islands represents a groundbreaking contribution to Pacific archaeology.

A geographical analysis of the location of Mount Sinai of the biblical Exodus and the route used to reach it. The Red Sea of the Exodus is identified as the Gulf of Aqaba and Mount Sinai is identified as Jabal al-Maqla in the Jabal al-Lawz range of northwest Saudi Arabia. The Exodus journeys beyond Mount Sinai are also summarized.

Join Childress as he discovers forbidden cities in the Empty Quarter of Arabia, 'Atlantean' ruins in Egypt and the Kalahari desert; a mysterious, ancient empire in the Sahara; and more. This is an extraordinary life on the road: across war torn countries Childress searches for King Solomon's Mines, living dinosaurs, the Ark of the Covenant and the solutions to the fantastic mysteries of the past.