Moro Movement - Pelise Moro

Pelise Moro

Was born in Makaruka village, Isatabu (Guadalcanal), but much of his childhood was spent in his mothers village in Suhu, east of Makaruka. According to Dominic Alebua, Moro’s ancestors come from Nabua village, in the inland Areata area, in Talise. He is the descendent of a woman taken to Makaruka as a Checka (slave). After his mothers brother died, Moro inherited their land. Moros father Tavoruka was a ‘Bigman’ in Makaruka who held hereditary ritual powers to calm seas, make torrential rain abate and promote the fertility of the yams and taro. Moro learned these skills and inherited them when his father died in 1961. He was baptised a Roman Catholic by Fr. Jean Boudard but did not attend missionary school and is illiterate. In 1962 he married a girl from an inland village. They had 2 children – a son and a daughter.