“Better I die 100 times than Marine friends die.”
Vouza's own explanation, given after the war, of why he endured Japanese bayoneting and torture and refused to betray the positions of the US Marines rather than give up under interrogation.
— Sir Jacob Vouza, Solomon Islands
Source: "The ordeal of Jacob Vouza" (ww2today.com); "A 50-year-old Pacific Islander survived a bayoneting by chewing through his ropes at Guadalcanal" (wearethemighty.com); both drawing on eyewitness Guadalcanal campaign accounts
More Proverbs from Solomon Islands
I know I am going to die, but before I die I want to tell you: the Japanese are landing at Aola.
Spoken after Vouza escaped Japanese torture and crawled through the jungle to warn US Marines of an imminent attack during the 1942 Guadalcanal campaign, refusing to let his wounds stop him from delivering the warning.
Friends to all, enemies to none.
The Solomon Islands Government's stated foreign policy stance, describing a sovereign right to engage multiple international partners without exclusive alignment.
We are all in the same canoe.
A shared-fate saying emphasizing unity and cooperation, invoked across the Pacific Islands region, especially in discussions of climate change and regional solidarity.
Solomon Islands is a nation conceived but never born.
Three-time prime minister Solomon Mamaloni's blunt verdict on the country's unfinished nation-building process and its long-running, unresolved unity-versus-federalism debate since independence.