Rambutyo Island (or Rambutso Island) is one of the Admiralty Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago. Politically, Rambutyo Island is part of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. The population (unknown) is concentrated on the west coast. Villages include Mouklen (pop.500+, close to a defunct plantation) and Lengkau.
Rambutyo Island is 88 km2 and is located 50 km SE of Manus Island, part of the Hornos Island Group. It is roughly triangular in shape with a base 16 km in diameter East-West. The centre of the island has a volcanic peak about 230 m high. Offshore lie important reef complexes.
The island was surveyed in 1958 by the Royal Australian Survey Corps. [1]
The vegetation is moist tropical and subtropical forest, with around 3,000mm of rainfall per year. Logging and coconut groves displaced forest at different times. There are endemic species of rats, bats, birds and a cuscus (Spilocuscus kraemeri, Admiralty Island cuscus) across the Admiralty Islands [2]
The island has been populated for thousands of years by farmers and fisherfolk, with strong interchange with and movement between other islands in the Admiralty chain. [3] The population has Melanesian and Micronesian ancestry and patrilineal descent rules operate. [4] Shell money, sourced on islands to the north, was used as a means of exchange.
Sago is the most important local food along with fishing, but rice was traded from the period of colonial rule. [5] Free diving for beche-de-mer or sea cucumber generates income.
European discovery of the island took place as part of the 1616 expedition by the Dutch navigators Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, who "traversed Manus, Los Negros,Los Reyes, Pak, Naura, Rambutvo, Baluan, Sauwai, Lou, Tong other small islands". [6]
In 1885 the Admiralty Islands were declared a German Protectorate, administered by the New Guinea Company. German presence ended in 1914. They were governed by Australia until independence in 1975. The Australian presence was small, but introduced health programs, censuses and patrols, dispute adjudication and schooling, leading to greater use of Pidgin and English. [7]
During World War II, the island was occupied by a small contingent of Japanese soldiers. On 3 April 1944, Allied forces led by the U.S. 12th Cavalry Regiment landed on Rambutyo. [8] By 23 April, the forces were withdrawn for mop-up by the native police force.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead, who lived on Manus Island in 1928-29 and 1953, reported a "cargo-cult" movement began on Rambutyo just after WWII, in which people destroyed all their possessions in expectation of a millennial coming. The movement spread to other islands but the "prophet" Wapi was killed when the spirits of the dead never materialized with the "white man's cargo". [9]
The island had copra plantations under private European and Japanese ownership during the period of German and Australian rule. The Japanese trader and entrepreneur Isokichi Komine owned a plantation under German rule, assisted Australian conquest of the islands, but was eventually disenfranchised by Australian anti-Japanese sentiment. [10] Lengendrowa plantation was bought in 1964 to form a cooperative, with 269 people moving from Mouk Island off Baluan. [11] Initial cooperative success was followed by financial collapse, and the plantation was later divided into blocks.
The geography of Papua New Guinea describes the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, the islands of New Ireland, New Britain and Bougainville, and smaller nearby islands. Together these make up the nation of Papua New Guinea in tropical Oceania, located in the western edge of the Pacific Ocean.
The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island.
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km.
Seeadler Harbor, also known as Port Seeadler, is located on Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea and played an important role in World War II. In German, "Seeadler" means sea eagle, pointing to German colonial activity between 1884 and 1919 in that area. The bay was named in 1900 after the German cruiser SMS Seeadler.
The Bismarck Sea lies in the southwestern Pacific Ocean within the nation of Papua New Guinea. It is located northeast of the island of New Guinea and south of the Bismarck Archipelago. It has coastlines in districts of the Islands Region, Momase Region, and Papua Region.
The Admiralty Islands languages are a group of some thirty Oceanic languages spoken on the Admiralty Islands. They may include Yapese, which has proven difficult to classify.
The Manus languages are a subgroup of about two dozen Oceanic languages located on Manus Island and nearby offshore islands in Manus Province of Papua New Guinea. The exact number of languages is difficult to determine because they form a dialect continuum. The name Manus originally designated an ethnic group whose members spoke closely related languages and whose coastal dwellers tended to build their houses on stilts out over the sea.
Baluan Island is the southernmost island of the Admiralty Islands group which makes up the majority of Manus Province in Papua New Guinea. It belongs to the Pam Islands, an island subgroup to the south of Lou Island. It is formed from an extinct volcano, also named Baluan.
The Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. Papua New Guinea has approximately two million Catholic adherents, approximately 27% of the country's total population.
The Manus monarch, also called the Admiralty Islands monarch, the Admiralty monarch, the Admiralty pied monarch, the somber monarch and the unhappy monarch, is a species of bird in the family Monarchidae. It is endemic to the Admiralty Islands of Papua New Guinea.
The northern common cuscus, also known as the gray cuscus, is a species of marsupial in the family Phalangeridae native to northern New Guinea and adjacent smaller islands, but is now also found in the Bismarck Archipelago, southeast and central Moluccas, the Solomons, and Timor, where it is believed to have been introduced in prehistoric times from New Guinea. It was formerly considered conspecific with the allopatric P. intercastellanus and P. mimicus.
Japanese settlement in the Territory of Papua and German New Guinea dates back to the early 20th century when migrants from Japan established copra plantations and trading businesses in the islands, specifically Rabaul. The Japanese community remained small throughout the first half of the 20th century, although there were Japanese migrating in and out of New Guinea in different years from 1901 to 1945, it generally never exceeded more than 100 as a whole community. Some Japanese stayed for short terms and were replaced by newer emigrants from Japan, others stayed for longer periods depending on their roles. Most Japanese in Papua were businessmen and plantation managers, although a few became fishermen. As almost all the migrants were men, many of them married local Papuan wives and raised mixed-race Japanese-Papuan families while other Japanese men staying only for short periods also had sexual cohabitations with local Papuan women, but in most cases without marrying. Many of them did produce offspring but they were generally abandoned by their Japanese fathers and raised by their single Papuan mothers or sent to the orphanage. These abandoned mixed-race children's were recorded as ethnic Papuans in the census as the ethnicity of their fathers was unknown.
Baluan-Pam is an Oceanic language of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. It is spoken on Baluan Island and on nearby Pam Island. The number of speakers, according to the latest estimate based on the 2000 Census, is 2,000. Speakers on Baluan Island prefer to refer to their language with its native name Paluai.
The Pam Islands are an island group of the Admiralty Islands archipelago in the Bismarck Sea, within Papua New Guinea.
Lenkau is an Oceanic language spoken in a single village on Rambutyo Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in Lenkau village, Rapatona Rural LLG.
Loniu is an Austronesian language spoken along the southern coast of Los Negros Island in the Manus Province, immediately east of Manus Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. Loniu is spoken in the villages of Loniu and Lolak, and there are estimated to be 450–500 native speakers, although some live in other Manus villages or on the mainland of Papua New Guinea.
Little Ndrova Island, also called Ndawara Islet, is an island of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, one of the Admiralty Islands.
Ponam Island is located off the north coast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
Michelle Nayahamui Rooney has dual Papua New Guinean and Australian nationality. She is a research fellow at the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University and publishes extensively on matters relating to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific islands.
Manus Naval Base was a number of bases built after the World War II Battle of Manus by United States Navy on the Manus Island and a smaller island just east, Los Negros Island in the Admiralty Islands chain. The major naval base construction started with the Los Negros landings on February 28, 1944. The Navy repaired and did the expansion of the airfields on the Admiralty Islands. United States Navy Seabee built or repaired the facilities on the islands. The large Manus Naval Base, also called the Admiralty Island base, supported United States Seventh Fleet, Southwest Pacific command, and part of the Pacific Fleet. The base was abandoned by the US Navy after the war.
