To start with a different biography: R.M. Kessing’s Elota’s Story: The Life and Times of a Solomon Islands Big Man (UQP, 1978) will tell you the following tale.

In the Kwaio settlement on the Solomon Islands lived a man called ‘Elota. Through careful cumulative earning, and an expanding set of enterprises (breeding pigs, growing taro, making bracelets and anklets), as well as cutting costs in feasting, ‘Elota managed to attain the status of Big Man. Though ‘Elota presented himself as a humble character, he used his wealth to provide huge feasts, which established his popularity in Kwaio. The feasts were usually held after a burial ceremony. What made ‘Elota different from other Big Men in Kwaio was the way he combined a strong commitment to old customs with a belief in the Christian god. One of the remembered sayings of ‘Elota is, ‘A house with pigs is a house into which money flows.’