RAMO: The Giant

Historians agree that the traditional tale of Ramo, and the giants of Solomon Islands, rose from real heroes, and heroine, who lived several thousand years earlier in a period often called the last Ice Age. 

Recently discovered archaeological evidence sheds light on their true identity. It began at a time when tribes of men, women, hunters and gatherers, who of late, moved into the Solomon Islands some ten thousand years ago, after the last freeze, they inhabited the mountain of Alasa’a on the island of Mala’ita, and this is their story.

Cave paintings of hunters and gatherers in the Australasia region
some 30 000 years ago.

 

In Solomon Islands, south of the Pacific, I have spent twenty some years of my life, listening, and studying strange tales of giants, or gigantic race of human like beings, and giant creatures, like the dragon snake, or the wild boar, which tyrannized the indigenous peoples who were living on those islands. They said the giants were no mere invention of their human brain, but grew out of Solomon Islands strange structures, and landscapes, the traditions, and memories, legends about that mighty race of monsters, and heinous creatures that wreak havoc, desolation, and misery, which gradually evolve through out the mist of time, through ancient chants, and traditional lullabies of heroes, and heroine, and their legend.

One of those great stories was that of Ramo, the first of their kind, whose origin was both supernatural and human, and formed an easy step to being regarded as the leader of men, and the slayer of giants! 

Ancient mala’itan mythology points out that the giants of Solomon Islands were mere mortals, or physical beings. Although they possess enormous strength, and supernatural powers, they were also said to have been slain, or driven underground. By their very nature, they lived in the shadows, in the waters actually, deep inside the valley where it is cold, dark, abyss. 

They dwell in cave like tunnels, deep beneath the earth, which is quiet a staggering accomplishment. To travel to their dwelling places the ancients follow the waters or the Kwai Rivers.

In the Solomon Islands, a strange phenomenon perhaps, are the rivers, however massive waters they move, the Kwai Rivers can actually vanish, or go underground in its route, as though it had been channeled, or controlled by aquatic systems, or processes, which is yet unknown to us.

I have witnessed rivers flowing swiftly towards me, for instance, and literally vanished beneath the earth, right in front of me, where I stood, astounded! My friend told me, the river will reappear somewhere else, in some other rivers on the island. I questioned my friend because on any normal day it runs its course yet again, as it should be. These theories, however, are my own speculations, which I have witnessed not only on Mala’ita island, but on Guadalcanal island as well. 

I may have exaggerated in my speculations about river systems in the Solomon Islands, but then again in the islands, no one really knows anything about aqua duct anyway. Life is simple, and like they say, water is life, that’s it. To wonder, however, is my intention, for I am truly amazed by what I have seen, and the stories I have been told. 

 

Dancing with the goddess ARUAñ Æ

They said a long time ago people lived on this mountain Alasa’a, the throne of the goddess ARUAñ Æ to whom they pray. 

The house of childhood's tumbling mother, Aruana, fair and beautiful, who watches over the moon, and knew its lore’s, the first woman to have planted seeds and grow food, to trim her hair, pierced her ears for shiny hoop earrings, and to have markings on her face and wrists. A fire shines tonight upon her memory, her lullaby. She appears when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun during a new moon, dancing, glimmering naked, and raw. Infuriated with ecstatic madness, as though enchanted with black magic, voodoo they say. Conceivably, a cultural syndrome, for such sights send shivers down a schoolboy’s spine, having no idea about this ire celebration of true sacrifice, firmly fixated in blood.

Once the act of sacrifice is completed, and the ultimatum accepted, the mother goddess is pleased, permitting the vassal to thrive. ARUAñ Æ had her ransom. When the moon could no longer be seen just before sunrise, a bonfire was lit, and the dancing started, blood and sweat pounded to the beating of drums. Men stare at their women, naked, and raw, like the excitement of wild fire screaming, stirring and clapping, and dancing madly, crazy stuff. 

Before long the whole village exhilarated, and took to the sounds of drums, singing, and dancing, and that night, they said, was also the very first night that the Giants appeared, heinous monsters and beasts, which killed everyone in that village! 

Illustration of giant monsters at dawn on mount Alasa'a

Although a few fortunate ones may have escaped the carnage, the Alasa’a people were being utterly devoured by those heinous monsters, those Giants, who ate their flesh, and drunk their blood, and took only one captive alive, Aruana! Just before dawn breaks, they hurl Aruana into a cage like sack, and began moving back from whence they came, down the mountain pass, and into the dark valley below. They crossed the waters, and went deep beneath the earth, away from the rising sun, in all its glory, approaching daylight, but throughout that journey, Aruana slept, as though rested from an expected ordeal, for she was also at that time, pregnant, and with child. (To be continued…)