Kwaio

Kwaio religion is the traditional ancestor worship of the Kwaio, a people of central Malaita in the Solomon Islands who lived by swidden farming of taro, yams and plantains. The dead were believed to keep the power to intervene in the affairs of the living, and powerful ancestral forces such as La'aka were greatly feared.

Life was ruled by strict taboos, called abu, and any violation had to be redressed with sacrifices. Kwaio oral tradition says that the land was first cleared some twelve to twenty centuries ago. The cleared tracts are marked by shrines, and these shrines established title to the land for the clans descended from the ancestors who made them.