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Oceania is a geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Australia is regarded as an island or a continental landmass within that continent. Spanning the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 44.4 million as of 2022. Oceania is the smallest continent in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea.
Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand.
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oceania or any other island located in the Pacific Ocean.
Polynesians are an ethnolinguistic group comprising closely related ethnic groups native to Polynesia, which encompasses the islands within the Polynesian Triangle in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Southeast Asia and are part of the larger Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, with an Urheimat in Taiwan. They speak the Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic subfamily within the Austronesian language family. The Indigenous Māori people form the largest Polynesian population, followed by Samoans, Native Hawaiians, Tahitians, Tongans, and Cook Islands Māori.
Ducie Island is an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Islands group, which also includes Pitcairn, Henderson and Oeno islands. Ducie lies east of Pitcairn Island, and east of Henderson Island, and has a total area of 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2), which includes the lagoon. It is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, measured northeast to southwest, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. The island is composed of four islets: Acadia, Pandora, Westward and Edwards.
Kula, also known as the Kula exchange or Kula ring, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The Kula ring was made famous by Bronisław Malinowski, considered the father of modern anthropology. He used this test case to argue for the universality of rational decision-making and for the cultural nature of the object of their effort. Malinowski's seminal work on the topic, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), directly confronted the question, "Why would men risk life and limb to travel across huge expanses of dangerous ocean to give away what appear to be worthless trinkets?" Malinowski carefully traced the network of exchanges of bracelets and necklaces across the Trobriand Islands, and established that they were part of a system of exchange, and that this exchange system was clearly linked to political authority.
Tanna is an island in southern Vanuatu.
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.
John Coleridge Patteson was an English Anglican bishop, missionary to the South Sea Islands, and an accomplished linguist, learning 23 of the islands' more than 1,000 languages.
The Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACoM), also known as the Church of the Province of Melanesia and the Church of Melanesia (COM), is a church of the Anglican Communion and includes nine dioceses in Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The Archbishop of Melanesia is Leonard Dawea. He succeeds the retired archbishop George Takeli.
Southern Cross is the name given to each of a succession of ships serving the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church and the Church of the Province of Melanesia. The first ship having this name succeeded the Undine, a 21-ton schooner built at Auckland and in service from 1849 to 1857.
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 linguistic relations, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night.
The Melanesian Mission is an Anglican missionary agency supporting the work of local Anglican churches in Melanesia. It was founded in 1849 by George Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand.
George Herrmann Tarr (1881–1968) was a New Zealand actor, scenic artist, theatre manager and film-maker. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; and died in Milford, Auckland, New Zealand.
Lyndonia, built 1920, was the second steam-yacht bearing the name and the third yacht built for publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis of the Curtis Publishing Company by the then Consolidated Shipbuilding Company of Morris Heights, New York. The name is taken from the historic name of his estate, Lyndon, in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.
Under the Southern Cross also known as The Devil's Pit or Taranga, is a 1929 American drama film set in New Zealand, directed and produced by Lew Collins for Universal Studios, who also wrote the screenplay. Originally titled Taranga by the original director Alexander Markey, the film was completed by Collins and released as Under the Southern Cross in 1929. After the introduction of sound, the film was given a soundtrack and retitled as The Devil’s Pit in 1930. The film was shot on White Island, which has an active volcano.
Alexander Markey (1891–1958) was an American filmmaker and founder of Markey Films. He was born in Hungary and died in Switzerland.
The River Wanganui is a 1913 silent documentary film shot in New Zealand in 1912 on the 1912–13 South Pacific film-making voyage of French director Gaston Méliès. Like many of his films shot on that trip, it is now presumed to be lost.
The civilian population, culture and infrastructure of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia were completely changed between 1941 and 1945 because of the logistical requirements of the Allies in their war against Japan. At the start of the war some of the islands had experienced up to 200 years of colonialism from Europe and its colonies, some on the verge of being fully annexed, others close to independence. The early Japanese expansion through the western Pacific then introduced a new colonial system to many islands. The Japanese occupation subjected the indigenous people of Guam and other Pacific Islands to forced labor, family separation, incarceration, execution, concentration camps, and forced prostitution.
References
- New Zealand Film 1912-1996 by Helen Martin & Sam Edwards p31 (1997, Oxford University Press, Auckland) ISBN 019 558336 1
