Queen Elizabeth II 25th Anniversary Coronation First Day Cover, The Solomon Islands postmarked on April 21, 1978.
The Solomon Islands
Mountainous and covered with dense tropical forest, the Solomons run southwest from New Guinea across the Coral Sea. Discovered by the Spanish in 1568, the islands were visited by explorers such as Cartaret, Samuel Wallis and Bougainville during the 18th century and in the 19th by missionaries, sandalwood traders and 'blackbirders' who, in their seeking cheap and slave labour for plantations in Australia and Fiji, roused ferocious resistance among the Melanesian islanders. From the beginning of the British protectorate until the Second World War, resentment ran high against the 'superior' attitude of some British, and the use of dogs and whips against workers on plantations.
Nevertheless, they supported the USA against the Japanese, and after liberation — warmed by American friendliness and generosity — listened to ideas that, like the Americans, they should 'run their own show'. There sprang up in consequence a nationalist movement resisting co-operation with the colonists and missionaries, called the 'Marching Rule', which only subsided in the 50s with the arrest of its leaders and the establishment of councils responsible for local services. The Solomons became independent in 1976.
The Sandford Eagle, depicted in this Omnibus issue, is a very large bird of five or six foot wingspan, found along the Solomons coastline, as well as inland to a height of 4,000 ft. It feeds on pigeons, small marsupials and fish, in particular the Bonito. Islanders have great respect for this bird and will not harm it, because like the frigate, it wheels above shoals of fish, revealing their whereabouts, bonito, arriving in the March calm, are of very great importance to the islanders' diet and cosmology.
Shown with the Sandford Eagle as heraldic supporter is the King's Dragon. Originally a serpent, it was strongly associated in the neolithic mind with water and the renewal of life. A major deity for 3,000 years before the Sumerians, it became for them a symbol of chaos and opposition to kingship by the older, Melanesian like society. Changing its character again for the Romans, Normans and Crusaders, it regained some of its former force as dexter supporter for the arms of Cromwell's Commonwealth.
