The Duff Islands are a small island group lying to the northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands in province of Temotu Province, in the nation of Solomon Islands. They are also sometimes known as the Wilson Islands.
The islands are located at 9°51'48" S. lat., 167°4'48" E. long.
The Duff Islands consist of:
Frequently, Hallie Jackson Reef is mentioned in the context of the Duff islands, although it is located 45 km west of that 32 km long island chain, and although it is not an island, at most a submarine reef. In the Sailing Directions of 1969 Hallie Jackson Reef is described as a reef 24 feet deep, at 9°44'S, 166°07'E. [1] The corresponding current (2017) publication no longer has any mention of the reef. [2]
The Duff Islands were settled by the Lapita people about 900 BC. They were followed by Melanesians and then Polynesians in the mid-1400s. [3] The modern inhabitants of the Duff Islands are Polynesians, and their language, Vaeakau-Taumako, is a member of the Samoic branch of Polynesian languages. About 500 people live on the Duff Islands. The traditional way of life consists of subsistence farming and fishing. Taumako has no roads, airport, telephones, or electricity. Contact with outsiders comes by battery-powered marine radio and the occasional cargo ship.
The first recorded sighting by Europeans of the Duff Islands was by the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernández de Quirós where it anchored on 8 April 1606. Its inhabitants named the islands as Taumako. They were charted by Quirós as Nuestra Señora del Socorro (Our Lady of Succour in Spanish). [4] [5] [6]
The Duff Islands were named after missionary ship Duff, captained by James Wilson, which reached them in 1797.
Studies of David Lewis and Marianne (Mimi) George identified that traditional Polynesian navigational techniques were still preserved in these islands. [7]
Taumako is the largest of the Duff Islands, in the nation of Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. This 5.7-kilometre-long (3.5-mile) island has steep sides and rises to a height of 400 metres above sea level. It is composed of basaltic lavas and pyroclastics like the other islands in the Duffs.
Tikopia is a volcanic island in Temotu Province, in the independent nation of Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Although most of Solomon Islands is Melanesian, Tikopia is culturally Polynesian. The first Europeans arrived on 22 April 1606 as part of the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós.
A tepukei, tepuke or TePuke is a Polynesian boat type, characterized by its elaborate decking, its submerged hulls and symmetrical "crab claw" sail slender foil or radically extended tips claw sail. Tepukei boats are produced primarily by the Polynesian-speaking inhabitants of Taumako, and have been occasionally borrowed by other Polynesian and Melanesian societies.
Pius "Mau" Piailug was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Mau's Carolinian navigation system, which relies on navigational clues using the Sun and stars, winds and clouds, seas and swells, and birds and fish, was acquired through rote learning passed down through teachings in the oral tradition. He earned the title of master navigator (palu) by the age of eighteen, around the time the first American missionaries arrived in Satawal. As he neared middle age, Mau grew concerned that the practice of navigation in Satawal would disappear as his people became acculturated to Western values. In the hope that the navigational tradition would be preserved for future generations, Mau shared his knowledge with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). With Mau's help, PVS used experimental archaeology to recreate and test lost Hawaiian navigational techniques on the Hōkūleʻa, a modern reconstruction of a double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe.
Charles Nainoa Thompson is a Native Hawaiian navigator and the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. He is best known as the first Hawaiian to practice the ancient Polynesian art of navigation since the 14th century, having navigated two double-hulled canoes from Hawaiʻi to other island nations in Polynesia without the aid of western instruments.
Temotu is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to each other from the northwest to the southeast. Its area is 895 square kilometres.
Matureivavao, or Maturei-vavao is an uninhabited atoll in the Acteon Group in the southeastern part of the Tuamotu Islands. It is the largest atoll within the Acteon Group, and like others in this group, is administratively part of the commune of the Gambier Islands.
Tenararo is the smallest atoll in the Acteon Group in the southeastern part of the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. It is administratively a part of the Gambier Islands. It is uninhabited.
Tenarunga or Tenania, previously Narunga and formerly Minto Island, is a low, wooded atoll in the Acteon Group in the southeastern part of the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. It is administratively a part of the Gambier Islands. The atoll has a population of between 10 and 50 people.
Vahanga is a small uninhabited atoll part of the Acteon Group in the Tuamotu archipelago, French Polynesia and belongs to the municipality of the Gambier Islands.
David Henry Lewis was a sailor, adventurer, doctor, and scholar of Polynesian culture. He is best known for his studies on the traditional systems of navigation used by the Pacific Islanders. His studies, published in the book We, the Navigators, made these navigational methods known to a wide audience and helped to inspire a revival of traditional voyaging methods in the South Pacific.
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. This island hopping was a solution against the scarcity of useful resources, such as food, wood, water, and available land, on the small islands in the Pacific Ocean. When an island’s required resources for human survival began to run low, the island's inhabitants used their maritime navigation skills and set sail for a new island full of possibilities. However, as an increasing number of islands in the South Pacific became occupied, and citizenship and national borders became of international importance, this was no longer possible. People thus became trapped on islands with the inability to support them.
Ben Rudolph Finney was an American anthropologist known for his expertise in the history and the social and cultural anthropology of surfing, Polynesian navigation, and canoe sailing, as well as in the cultural and social anthropology of human space colonization. As "surfing's premier historian and leading expert on Hawaiian surfing going back to the 17th century" and "the intellectual mentor, driving force, and international public face" of the Hokulea project, he played a key role in the Hawaiian Renaissance following his construction of the Hokulea precursor Nalehia in the 1960s and his co-founding of the Polynesian Voyaging Society in the 1970s.
Marutea Atoll, also known as Lord Hood Island, Marutea-i-runga, and Nuku-nui, is an atoll in the far southeast of the Tuamotu group of French Polynesia. It lies in the east-northeast part of the Gambier (commune), about 72 km northeast from Maria Atoll.
Rekareka, Tehuata or Tu-henua, is an atoll of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. It is located in the Centre East of the group, 83 km southeast from Raroia, and lies 70 km NW of Tauere, its nearest neighbor. The shoal water of this small atoll extends 0.8 km seaward from its northern, western, and southern sides, and about 1.3 km from its south-eastern side. Rekareka has no fresh water and is uninhabited.
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including language relatedness, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night.
Tahua is one of the Duff Islands, of Temotu Province, in the independent nation of Solomon Islands. The estimated terrain elevation above sea level is some 23 metres. The island is inhabited.
Marumaru Atua is a reconstruction of a vaka moana, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. In 2014, it was gifted to the Cook Islands Voyaging Society. It is used to teach polynesian navigation.
Gaualofa is a reconstruction of a va'a-tele, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. It was given to the Samoa Voyaging Society in 2012, on the occasion of Samoa's 50th anniversary of independence. It is used to teach polynesian navigation.
9°48′00″S167°06′00″E / 9.800°S 167.10°E
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