Dentone's response to Solomon Times' wonderful article on the artificial islands of Lau lagoon cannot be left unchallenged.

Dentone, need to understand that most people residing in the Lau artificial islands are landless in that they do not own a piece of land in the neighbouring costal regions. They however, do own a fair bit of fishing grounds and reefs in the nearby surroundings. So it is common in that region that the artificial island dwellers known as 'wane i asi' are owners the fishing grounds and reefs, while the bush dwellers, 'wane i tolo' tribes owns the land.

Further, it is obvious that most artificial islands inhibitors do not know where their ancestors background are but it is likely that they are the generations of those who may have not been in good terms with their tribesmen or may have caused unacceptable social misbehaviours in the foregone past, resulting in them being sent away, which is a common practice in those days, especially for the sake of peace in their communities. I think this is what outcasts mean.

I do however agree that population increase is not a significant factor in building the artificial islands, as in the past when the islands were built, overcrowding was not an issue. In fact there is that old belief that the more people you have in a tribe, the more secure you are especially in the midst of tribal warfare those days.