Taumako

Taumako is the largest of the Duff Islands. This 5.7-kilometre-long (3.5-mile) island has steep sides and rises to a height of 400 metres (1,312 feet) above sea level. It is composed of basaltic lavas and pyroclastics like the other islands in the Duffs .

The inhabitants of the Duff Islands are Polynesians, and their language, Vaeakau-Taumako, is a member of the Samoic branch of Polynesian languages. On the Duff Islands live about 439 people (1999 census). The islands were settled at least as early as 900 BC, by people who made pottery known as Lapita. Archaeological research has shown that this pottery was made using local clay and sand from the island. These Lapita people spread far as wide from the coastal area of Papua New Guinea to the islands of Tonga and Samoa; that is, throughout islands known as both Melanesia and Polynesia. Consequently, the people of Taumako experienced wide-ranging influences, and could be said to have been both Melanesian and Polynesian throughout their long history.

The way of life is traditional by subsistence gardening and fishing. Taumako has no roads, airport, telephones, or electricity. Contact with outsiders comes by battery-powered marine radio and the regular monthly inter-island ship from Honiara.

Studies of David Lewis and Marianne (Mimi) George uncovered that full traditional Polynesian navigational technique is still preserved in these islands (Finney and Lowe, 2006, p163). The people of Taumako are the builders of one of the oldest documented proa sailing canoe, called Te Puke and known to westerners as Tepukei.

People have been living in the Duff Islands for 3,000 years. The first people on these islands made pottery using clay and sand temper which was available locally. A small amount of this pottery was decorated in the distinctive Lapita style with dentate stamping. These first inhabitants made stone tools using high quality chert which was also local. This same chert has been found in archaeological sites in the nearby Reef Islands, dating at least two centuries before the first known evidence in the Duff Islands.

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