1380 SOLOMON ISLANDS - A bride with shell money from Malaita Province

Named after its largest island, Malaita is one of the largest provinces of the Solomon Islands, the island nation located in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. Malaitans are of a varying phenotype. The skin varies from rich chocolate to tawny, most clearly darker than Polynesians, but not generally as dark as the peoples of Bougainville or the western Solomons, who Malaitans refer to as "black men". Most of them are shorter than average Europeans, though not as short as Negritos.

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