This chapter continues the narrative of arrival already begun, and in the process broaches other narratives – stories that Isabel people tell about their own past. It is more than coincidental or fortuitous that such stories mediated my first encounters with Maringe villagers. I suspect that in most rural Solomon Islands communities the arrival of visitors, particularly Westerners unfamiliar with local ways, evokes a discourse of self-representation in which distinctive local customs are explicated and contrasted with the ways of an imagined West. Since much that is now regarded as notable or remarkable in local culture is associated with abandoned practices of the pre-Christian past, such reflexive accounts often focus upon “old” ways and the historical events that have changed them. In my case, these explications were particularly appropriate, since I identified myself as someone who had come to study local culture. It seemed straightforward, then, when my hosts arranged an excursion to see certain sacred places associated with pre-Christian life. While not apparent to me at the time, that tour and the running exegesis accompanying it afforded an opportunity for enacting understandings of self, community and history that would emerge repeatedly during the months to come.