Before the first taro leaf rose green and unfurling toward the sun, before the sweet potato sent its runners through dark soil, before any growing thing broke the surface of the earth, there slithered across the emptiness a creature more ancient than memory itself. Her name was Kahausibware, and she was mother and maker, the great serpent from whose movements all life would spring.
The world in those earliest days was bare and silent. The islands of Makira rose from the sea like bones, rocky and barren, with no softness to cushion them, no color to break the gray monotony of stone and sky. The ocean lapped at empty shores, and the wind moved across landscapes devoid of leaf or feather or voice. It was a world waiting, holding its breath, ready for the touch that would transform emptiness into abundance.
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Kahausibware moved through this silent realm with purpose ancient and patient. She was vast beyond human comprehension, her coils stretching across valleys, her scales catching what little light filtered through the heavy clouds. She traveled the breadth of the newborn islands, her great body undulating across the rough terrain, seeking the places where life could take root and flourish.
Where the ground was soft enough to receive her gift, where water ran close beneath the surface and the soil held the right balance of sand and clay, she would pause. Coiling her massive form into spirals that pressed the earth into readiness, she left in her wake the small gifts that would become the world. Each pause, each deliberate movement, was an act of creation, a planting of seeds both literal and metaphorical.
At the place where she paused longest, where her presence sanctified the ground with patient attention, a copse of tall palms burst forth. The trees shot up from the earth as though they had been waiting forever for permission to exist. Their trunks grew straight and strong, their fronds spreading wide to catch rain and sunlight, and among those fronds appeared the first coconuts round and hard and full of sweet water, perfect sustenance wrapped in fiber and shell.
Where Kahausibware breathed out, releasing air that carried the essence of creation itself, birds learned song. They materialized in the trees, their feathers bright against the green, and from their throats came melodies that had never before sounded in the world. The morning became alive with calls and trills, with whistles and chirps that spoke of territory and courtship, of warning and welcome.
Where her tail scraped the earth as she moved, disturbing the soil and leaving deep furrows, the first pig rooted and evolved. It snuffled through the disturbed ground, finding sustenance, growing strong and clever, becoming the ancestor of all the pigs that would feed the people in times to come.
But Kahausibware’s greatest gift was yet to come. When the first people appeared emerging from caves or arriving by canoe, the stories differ on this point she taught them the names of plants. This was knowledge more valuable than gold, more essential than any tool or weapon. She showed them which root swelled with starch beneath the ground, invisible to the eye but ready to sustain life through drought and hardship. She revealed which leaves could heal fever when crushed and applied to burning skin, which bark could ease pain, which flowers signaled edible fruits.
Most importantly, she taught them how to plant the tiny coconut. It was not enough simply to place it in the ground and hope. There was a method, a sacred protocol that must be followed. The nut must be pushed into the soil with intention, with a prayer spoken over it, with recognition that this act of planting connected the planter to Kahausibware herself, to the original creation, to the unbroken chain of life stretching back to the beginning of all things.
For a time perhaps a generation, perhaps many the people remembered. They planted with prayers. They harvested with gratitude. They told stories of Kahausibware around their fires, teaching children to honor the serpent who had given them everything they needed to survive and flourish.
But memory is fragile, and pride grows easily in human hearts like weeds in an untended garden. One day, gathered in a village where coconut palms swayed and gardens overflowed with abundance, the people began to argue. The disagreement started small but grew heated, voices rising, gestures becoming more emphatic.
Some declared with absolute certainty that they had made the gardens by their own hands. They pointed to their calloused palms, their aching backs, the hours they had spent under the burning sun breaking ground and planting seeds. “We did this,” they insisted. “Our labor created this abundance. Our knowledge of when to plant and when to harvest brought forth these crops.”
Others boasted of being first among men, claiming their lineage was superior, their ancestors the original inhabitants, their right to the land greater than anyone else’s. “We were here before all others,” they proclaimed. “This island belongs to us by right of first possession. Everything that grows here grows because we allow it.”
The arguments grew louder, more contentious. No one mentioned Kahausibware. No one spoke of the ancient serpent who had coiled through the emptiness bringing life. No one offered prayers of gratitude to the source of their knowledge and prosperity. They had forgotten, or perhaps chosen to ignore, the truth of their dependence on forces greater than themselves.
Kahausibware heard this pride from wherever she dwelled in the deep ocean, in the heart of the mountains, in the spaces between visible and invisible worlds. She heard, and she felt the words like wounds. These people whom she had taught, whom she had gifted with everything necessary for life, had dismissed her as though she had never existed. Their ingratitude cut deep, their arrogance a betrayal of the sacred relationship between creator and created.
She moved in slow hurt across the water, her massive form creating currents that stirred the ocean floor and sent unusual waves rolling toward shore. Those watching from the beach saw something vast beneath the surface, something that made the bravest among them step back from the waterline with instinctive fear.
Then Kahausibware plunged beneath the waves with deliberate finality. She descended to the foundations of the islands, to the volcanic rock that rose from the ocean floor, to the very roots of the land itself. There she wrapped herself through those roots, coiling around them in spirals that bound her essence to the islands forever. Her body became part of the foundation, her presence woven into the structure that held Makira above the water.
Before she settled into her eternal watch, she spoke. Her voice rose from the depths, carried on currents and waves, heard not just with ears but with the bones and blood of every living thing:
“If you forget me, the breadfruit will stop giving and the sea will close its mouth.”
The warning was clear. The islands’ abundance was not automatic, not a right to be claimed without acknowledgment. It was a gift that required recognition, gratitude, and proper respect. Forget the source, and the source would withdraw its blessing. Let pride replace humility, and hunger would follow.
The people heard, and they understood. Terror and remorse washed through the community like a cleansing wave. They gathered at the shore, looking out at the water where Kahausibware had disappeared, feeling her presence now beneath their feet, woven through the very ground they stood upon.
From that day forward, a new tradition was established. When the new planting season began, when the time came to put seeds and nuts into prepared ground and trust the earth to bring forth life, the elders would walk to the shore carrying a coconut split in two. They would find a hollow in the sand, perhaps scoop one out themselves, and pour the first water the sweet, sacred water from inside the coconut into that hollow as an offering.
This was a return to the serpent who had first taught them how to live. This was acknowledgment of debt that could never be fully repaid. This was memory preserved in ritual, gratitude expressed in action, the restoration of right relationship between people and the power that sustained them.
The water would seep into the sand and disappear, traveling down through layers of earth and stone until it reached the place where Kahausibware coiled eternal around the roots of the islands. And there, in the darkness and pressure of the deep, the ancient serpent would know she was remembered. She would know her children had learned humility. And the breadfruit would continue giving, and the sea would keep its mouth open, releasing fish into nets, because the covenant between creator and created remained unbroken.
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The Moral
Gratitude and humility preserve abundance, while pride and forgetfulness lead to scarcity. Kahausibware’s story teaches that the gifts of the natural world are not earned solely through human labor but are blessings from forces greater than ourselves. Maintaining proper respect through ritual offerings and remembering the sources of our sustenance ensures that the relationship between humans and the living earth remains balanced and fruitful. When we forget our dependence on nature and the sacred, we risk losing the very abundance we take for granted.
Knowledge Check
Q1: Who is Kahausibware in Solomon Islands mythology and what is her role? Kahausibware is the ancient creator serpent from Makira Island who brought life to the barren islands before human existence. She is called “mother and maker” and is responsible for creating coconut palms, teaching birds to sing, bringing forth the first pigs, and most importantly, teaching the first people the names of plants and how to cultivate them with proper prayers.
Q2: What gifts did Kahausibware give to the Solomon Islands and its people? Kahausibware gave multiple gifts: she created coconut palms where she paused longest, taught birds to sing where she breathed out, brought forth the first pig where her tail scraped the earth, and taught humans which roots had starch, which leaves healed fever, and the sacred method of planting coconuts with prayers — knowledge essential for survival.
Q3: Why did Kahausibware leave the surface world and wrap herself around the island roots? Kahausibware withdrew because the people became prideful, claiming they had created the gardens by their own hands and boasting of being first among men. Their ingratitude and failure to acknowledge her as the source of their knowledge and abundance hurt her deeply, prompting her to bind herself to the island foundations as both anchor and warning.
Q4: What warning did Kahausibware give when she descended beneath the waves? Kahausibware warned: “If you forget me, the breadfruit will stop giving and the sea will close its mouth.” This meant that if people forgot to honor the creator and source of their abundance, the natural world would withdraw its gifts, leading to famine and scarcity as consequences of ingratitude and broken relationship.
Q5: What ritual did the people of Makira establish to honor Kahausibware? At the beginning of each planting season, the elders walk to the shore with a coconut split in two and pour the first water into a hollow in the sand as an offering. This ritual returns gratitude to the serpent who first taught them how to live, maintaining the sacred covenant between humans and creator.
Q6: What does Kahausibware symbolize in Solomon Islands cultural understanding? Kahausibware represents the sacred source of agricultural knowledge, the creative force that transformed barren islands into abundant ecosystems, and the importance of maintaining humble gratitude toward nature. She embodies the principle that human survival depends on proper relationship with forces greater than ourselves, and that rituals of acknowledgment preserve that essential balance.
Source: Adapted from Solomon Islands oral tradition and creation mythology from Makira Island, as preserved in Melanesian cosmological narratives about origins and sacred serpent lore.
Cultural Origin: Melanesian tradition, Solomon Islands (Makira Island creation mythology), South Pacific
