Inside Story: No Devil Strings
Inside Story for Friday 30th of January 2026
By Olivia Fairfax
Marovo Lagoon tribesmen were considered the most warlike and cannibalistic of the Solomon Island tribes. They worshiped the spirits of their ancestors, whose skulls were kept after death. They lived in fear of the devil.
But around 1902, a Marovo chief named Tatagu began to wonder if he really needed to fear the devil. He decided to find out and not to attach a vine to the prow of his canoe on a fishing expedition. Vines were supposed to appease the devil and ensure a good catch. Without the vine, the fishing trip was a huge success. Chief Tatagu returned home to find a newborn son. He named the boy Kata Ragoso, which means “no devil strings.”
Kata Ragoso’s life would go on to reveal God’s power to transform a community and remove the strings and ties that the devil had over people.
Image © Pacific Press
Kata Ragoso grew up at a time when dishonest European traders enticed Solomon Islanders into their ships with foreign goods to kidnap them as slaves. But in 1914, when Kata Ragoso was about 12, a small white boat called the Advent Herald sailed into Marovo Lagoon. The crew didn’t try to entice or kidnap. Instead, Captain Griffiths F. Jones asked Chief Tatagu for land for a school. The next year, a school was built at Sasaghana, and Kata Ragoso enrolled as one of its first 23 students. At the school, he accepted Jesus and was among the first 10 Solomon Islanders to be baptized in 1918. He went on to work as a mission teacher, translator, and printing press operator. In 1935, he was ordained as an Adventist minister.
During World War II, Kata Ragoso was placed in charge of the Adventist work in the Solomon Islands. When the Japanese army invaded, they ordered him to kill people with white skin and from the Allied forces. For declaring that he would rather obey God than man, he was interrogated, flogged, and ordered shot. The interrogating officer, who had a strong dislike for the Adventist Church, instructed the firing squad to shoot at the count of three. He counted, “One, two . . .” but was unable to say “three.” He tried many times before giving up. After 10 days in prison, Kata Ragoso escaped. For the rest of the war, he led a rescue operation for Allied soldiers whose planes or ships were attacked. He rescued 27 U.S. pilots and 187 Australian and New Zealand soldiers.
Kata Ragoso died in 1964 at the age of 62, having served the church for 37 years. During that time, he saw the Marovo transformed from a warring community into a merciful people serving God.
This quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath mission projects are in the South Pacific Division, whose territory includes the Solomon Islands. Thank you for planning a generous offering in March.
The positive changes in people’s lives serve as the greatest evidence for the power of the gospel.
This is testing my memory a bit but I am pretty sure that Kata Ragoso (his name is pronounced “Rangoso”) visited my home church in NewZealand in the 1950s. He had grey hair by that time. I will have to do some research too on the old “Australasian Record”, the South Pacific church paper, because my father, Stan Ashton served in the NZ Medical Corps in the Solomon Islands during WWII. He wrote to the “Record” several accounts of his meeting with local Adventists in the Solomon Islands. I seem to remember that when Kata Ragoso visited Tauranga Church they knew one another. I would have been about 7 at the time.
Maurice – “The one who stands nearest to Christ will be he who on earth has drank most deeply of the Spirit of His self-sacrificing love, – love that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not her own …” Ellen G. White
My family were on the first boatload of missionaries to the Solomons after WWII and it was my privilege as a child to live next door to Kata Ragoso and his family. He truly was a prince among men.