Native name: Luangiua | |
---|---|
Geography | |
Location | Pacific Ocean |
Coordinates | 5°16′S159°21′E / 5.267°S 159.350°E |
Archipelago | Group of three atolls |
Total islands | 122 |
Major islands | Luaniua and Pelau |
Area | 1,500 km2 (580 sq mi) |
Highest elevation | 13 m (43 ft) |
Administration | |
Province | Malaita |
Largest settlement | Luaniua(pop. 1386) |
Demographics | |
Population | 2085 (2006 [1] ) |
Ethnic groups | Polynesian 100% |
Ontong Java Atoll or Luangiua (formerly Lord Howe Atoll, not to be confused with Lord Howe Island) [2] is an atoll in Solomon Islands, and one of the largest atolls on earth.
It is inhabited by a Polynesian community of about 2,400 people, who speak the Ontong Java language.
Geographically, Ontong Java belongs to a scattered group of three atolls which includes nearby Nukumanu Atoll and the wholly submerged Roncador Reef located 75 kilometres (47 miles) to the south. [3]
Administratively Ontong Java belongs to Solomon Islands. As an outlying part of Malaita Province, it forms the northernmost tract of land of this state, over 250 km (160 mi) north of Santa Isabel Island. The closest land, however, is Nukumanu Atoll, which lies only 38 km (24 mi) due north of Ontong Java's northern tip and, though historically closely related to Ontong Java, is now under the administration of Papua New Guinea.
Ontong Java is roughly boot-shaped. The entire size of the atoll is 1,400 km2 (540 sq mi), but there are only 12 km2 (4.6 sq mi) of land, spread out over 122 small islands. The islands are mostly low-lying coral formations, the highest elevation being 13 m (43 ft).
Approximately 2000 people live on the atoll. There are two main villages where the population is concentrated with 1,386 on the island of Luaniua in the eastern end and 689 on Pelau in the northeast.
The islands were first inhabited by Polynesians approximately 2000 years ago. The main cultural and commercial exchanges took place with the inhabitants of neighboring Nukumanu Atoll, with whom Ontong Java people share many cultural affinities. [4]
It is likely that the first European sighting was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 1 February 1568. It was charted by them as Bajos de la Candelaria (shoals of Our Lady of Candlemas in Spanish). [5] [6] The following verifiable sighting by Europeans was by Abel Tasman in 1643 who named it Ontong Java; however, it was not until 1791 that Europeans set foot on the islands, when Capt. John Hunter (later Governor of New South Wales) named it Lord Howe Atoll. In 1893 the islands were annexed by Germany and ceded to Great Britain in 1899.
Today the atoll's inhabitants make a subsistence living by means of coconut and taro (root) cultivation, as well as fishing. Until a ban in 2005, the primary source of income was beche de mer and trochus shells, which were shipped to Hong Kong. The inhabitants are also involved in copra production. It also has a prolific number of sea birds, including the black-naped tern, which uses Ontong Java Atoll as a breeding site.
Ontong Java is a Polynesian outlier. The inhabitants retain a Polynesian character despite their location in the Melanesian Archipelago of Solomon Islands. In former times both men and women wore elaborate tattoos all over their bodies. [7] Two dialects of one language are spoken in this atoll, Luangiua and Pelau. This language belongs to the Polynesian stock. [8]
Ontong Java was visited by English missionary George Brown in mid 19th century. Brown described the population as Polynesian [9] and referred to the place as Lua Niua. He recorded the existence of a two-class system in Ontong Java and, based on it, inferred that it was probable that exogamous classes formerly existed in Samoa as well. [10]
The first detailed research on Ontong Java's inhabitants, however, was conducted by German ethnographers Ernst Sarfert and Hans Damm, during a German scientific expedition of the Southern Seas that took place in 1908–1910. This expedition visited both Ontong Java and neighboring Nukumanu Atoll, where they also carried out their research. Their work, "Luangiua und Nukumanu" was published in 1931. Sarfert and Damm claimed that both names of the atoll, Lord Howe and Ontong Java, were incorrect and called this atoll Luangiua in their works.
Jack London first called this atoll "Oolong". [11] Later he would write in one of his novels:
Nobody ever comes to Lord Howe, or Ontong-Java as it is sometimes called. Thomas Cook & Son do not sell tickets to it, and tourists do not dream of its existence. Not even a white missionary has landed on its shore. Its five thousand natives are as peaceable as they are primitive. Yet they were not always peaceable. The Sailing Directions speak of them as hostile and treacherous. But the men who compile the Sailing Directions have never heard of the change that was worked in the hearts of the inhabitants, who, not many years ago, cut off a big bark and killed all hands with the exception of the second mate. The survivor carried the news to his brothers. The captains of three trading schooners returned with him to Lord Howe. They sailed their vessels right into the lagoon and proceeded to preach the white man's gospel that only white men shall kill white men and that the lesser breeds must keep hands off. The schooners sailed up and down the lagoon, harrying and destroying. There was no escape from the narrow sand-circle, no bush to which to flee. The men were shot down at sight, and there was no avoiding being sighted. The villages were burned, the canoes smashed, the chickens and pigs killed, and the precious cocoanut trees chopped down. For a month this continued, when the schooner sailed away; but the fear of the white man had been seared into the souls of the islanders and never again were they rash enough to harm one. [12]
Ontong Java was later visited by Sydney University anthropologist Herbert Ian Hogbin in 1927. [13] Hogbin's study of Ontong Java was published in 1934.
In religious terms, Ontong Java is part of the Anglican Church of Melanesia Diocese of Malaita.
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
The Samoic–Outlier languages, also known as Samoic languages, are a purported group of Polynesian languages, encompassing the Polynesian languages of Samoa, Tuvalu, American Samoa, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, and Polynesian outlier languages in New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The name "Samoic-Outlier" recognizes Samoan.
Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific subregions, Melanesia and Micronesia. Based on archaeological and linguistic analysis, these islands are considered to have been colonized by seafaring Polynesians, mostly from the area of Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu.
Malaita Province is the most populous and one of the largest of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands. The population of the province is 122,620 (1999). The area of the province is 4,225 km2 (1,631 sq mi).
The Indigenous peoples of Oceania are Aboriginal Australians, Papuans, and Austronesians. These indigenous peoples have a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories. With the notable exceptions of Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands, indigenous peoples make up the majority of the populations of Oceania.
The Carteret Islands are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km (53 mi) north-east of Bougainville in the South Pacific. The atoll has a scattering of low-lying islands called Han, Jangain, Yesila, Yolasa and Piul, in a horseshoe shape stretching 30 km (19 mi) in north-south direction, with a total land area of 0.6 square kilometres (0.2 sq mi) and a maximum elevation of 1.5 metres above sea level.
The North Solomon Islands form a geographical area covering the more northerly group of islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago and includes Bougainville and Buka Islands, Choiseul, Santa Isabel, the Shortland Islands and Ontong Java Atoll. In 1885 Germany declared a protectorate over these islands forming the German Solomon Islands Protectorate. With the exception of Bougainville and Buka, these were transferred to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate in 1900. Bougainville and Buka continued under German administration until the outset of World War I, when they were transferred to Australia, and after the war, were formally passed to Australian jurisdiction under a League of Nations mandate.
The Ontong Java Plateau (OJP) is a massive oceanic plateau located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, north of the Solomon Islands. The OJP was formed around 116 million years ago (Ma), with a much smaller volcanic event around 90 Ma. Two other southwestern Pacific plateaus, Manihiki and Hikurangi, now separated from the OJP by Cretaceous oceanic basins, are of similar age and composition and probably formed as a single plateau and a contiguous large igneous province together with the OJP. When eruption of lava had finished, the Ontong Java–Manihiki–Hikurangi plateau covered 1% of Earth's surface and represented a volume of 80 million km3 (19 million cu mi) of basaltic magma. This "Ontong Java event", first proposed in 1991, represents the largest volcanic event of the past 200 million years, with a magma eruption rate estimated at up to 22 km3 (5.3 cu mi) per year over 3 million years, several times larger than the Deccan Traps. The smooth surface of the OJP is punctuated by seamounts such as the Ontong Java Atoll, one of the largest atolls in the world.
Dr Herbert Ian Priestley Hogbin was a British-born Australian anthropologist. He conducted field work in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.
Sikaiana is a small atoll 212 kilometres NE of Malaita in Solomon Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is almost 14 kilometres in length and its lagoon, known as Te Moana, is totally enclosed by the coral reef. Its total land surface is only 2 square kilometres. There is no safe anchorage close to this atoll, which makes it often inaccessible to outsiders.
The Nukumanu Islands, formerly the Tasman Islands, is an atoll of Papua New Guinea, located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, 4 degrees south of the Equator.
Roncador Reef is a reef in Solomon Islands, south of Ontong Java Atoll and north of Santa Isabel Island.
The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across the sovereign states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the volcanic islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. The Santa Cruz Islands are not a part of the archipelago.
Harold M. Ross is a cultural anthropologist who studied the Baegu community and culture on the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands. He conducted his field research in the mid-1960s and summarized his research for his doctoral thesis, publishing his work and receiving a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1970. Following his research Dr. Ross taught Anthropology at the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana before moving onto positions in academic administration at multiple institutions.
Nukumanu is a Polynesian language, spoken by about 700 people on Nukumanu in the eastern islands of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the most endangered languages in the region.
Sikaiana is a Polynesian language, spoken by about 730 people on Sikaiana in the Solomon Islands.
Ontong Java is a Polynesian language located on the Ontong Java Atoll, in Solomon Islands. It has two dialects, Luangiua and Pelau; the name Luangiua is also commonly used to refer to the Ontong Java language as a whole.
Ernst Gotthilf Sarfert was a German ethnologist.
The Diocese of Malaita is one of the nine current dioceses of the Anglican Church of Melanesia. One of the four original ACOM dioceses, Malaita diocese was erected in January 1975; it is currently subdivided into six regions of 46 parishes.