Puka-Puka (Tuamotu Islands)

Puka-Puka
NASA image by Puka-Puka
Waters	Pacific Ocean
archipelago	Tuamotu Archipelago
Geographical location	14 ° 49 ′  S , 138 ° 48 ′  W Coordinates: 14 ° 49 ′  S , 138 ° 48 ′  W
Number of islands	17th
Land area	4 km²
Lagoon area	2.2 km²
Residents	157 (2007)

Puka-Puka is an inhabited atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago in the South Pacific and politically belongs to French Polynesia . The island is relatively isolated in the north-east of the archipelago and is geographically part of the Îles du Désappointement ( Islands of Disappointment ), a subgroup of the Tuamotus.

geography

The almost oval atoll measures 5.7 km by 3 km and consists of 17 islets ( motu ) with 4 km² of land, which enclose a shallow, 2.2 km² large lagoon. The water exchange between the ocean and the lagoon takes place via several shallow flow channels ( Hoa ), there is no connection with boats.

The landscape today is shaped by the extensive coconut plantations, almost nothing of the original flora has survived.

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  Puka-Puka

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  Copra laid out to dry

Politics, administration, infrastructure

Politically, Puka-Puka is one of 17 municipalities ( Communes des Tuamotu Gambier ) of the Tuamotu-Gambier subdivision ( Administrative Subdivision of Tuamotu-Gambier ) in French Polynesia and has 167 inhabitants (2012). The municipality's INSEE code is 98737, the postcode is 98774.

The only village is Teonemahina (other spelling: Tehonemahina) in the west of the atoll. In the north there is a 930 m long, asphalt runway ( ICAO code: NTGB) which is approached with small propeller planes from Tahiti .

Puka Puka has no harbor, only a pier facing the ocean, which can only be served by small boats due to the narrow and dangerous reef passage. The residents are self-sufficient. Important food crops are coconuts , yams , taro , sweet potatoes and tropical fruits. The main food, however, is fish, supplemented by chickens and the meat of the pigs that roam free. Puka-Puka is rarely visited by tourists and there is no tourist infrastructure.

history

Puka-Puka is probably identical with the island "San Pablo", which Ferdinand Magellan reached on January 24, 1521. According to the logbook of Francisco Albo, the navigator of the Victoria , the uninhabited island was tree-lined and full of birds.

The Dutch sailors Schouten and Le Maire reached the atoll on April 10, 1616 and named it "Honden Eylandt" (Dog Island) because they were the only inhabitants to find three feral dogs.

The Beagle with Charles Darwin passed the atoll under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy on November 9, 1835 on her second voyage (December 27, 1831 - October 2, 1836):

"On the 9th we saw Honden Island, one of the low coral formations just a few feet above the sea, thickly covered with coconut palms."

- Robert FitzRoy : Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836. . . London 1839, Volume 2, p. 506

The Beagle's crew did not enter the island either and could not find any evidence of any residents.

The first detailed map was drawn during the United States Exploring Expedition (US Ex. Ex.), Which explored the Pacific and Antarctic regions for the United States Navy from 1838 to 1842 under the command of Charles Wilkes . The scientists of the US Ex. Ex. Landed on August 19, 1839 on Puka-Puka and explored the island for a day and a half. They noticed the warm and - compared to the ocean - very salty water of the shallow lagoon. They described the low vegetation as consisting mainly of Pandanus , Pisonia and Boerhavia . They did not see coconut trees on the island. They found no trace of residents:

“We couldn't find any evidence of residents on this island. The state of the bird population and other indications showed that it had not been inhabited for at least a long period of time. "

- Charles Wilkes : Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 by Charles Wilkes, USN, Philadelphia 1845, Volume 1, p. 329

On the beach, some sailors found broken oars and parts of a boat, but could not identify them.

In the early twentieth century the missionaries Henry Bodin and Hervé Audran of the "Congrégation des Sacrés-Cœurs de Picpus" (in Germany: Arnsteiner Fathers ) were able to persuade part of the population of Fakahina to move to the uninhabited Puka-Puka in order to use coconut palms there to plant the then very lucrative copra production. The soils were - in relation to other Tuamotus islands - very rich in nutrients due to the centuries-old accumulation of guano and offered the best conditions for the plantations.

Natural disasters

In 1958, Puka-Puka was hit by a typhoon that surprised and killed a large part of the male population while fishing. The male deficit that ensued was made up a few years later by immigrants and applicants from other, partly overpopulated islands.

During this time, Puka-Puka acquired the reputation of a lively marriage market, which continues to this day and attracts numerous men, but also women willing to marry, although the male deficit has long been balanced.

In 1996 the settlement was again almost completely destroyed by a typhoon. The buildings could only be rebuilt with financial help from France. On the outskirts of Teonemahina, a massive building has been erected on concrete stilts, into which the residents can take refuge in the event of natural disasters.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Institut statistique de la Polynésie Française - Recensement de 2012
2. ↑ Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano sailed around the world, 1519–1522
3. ↑ Magellan's "Unfortunate Islands" , accessed on May 15, 2019
4. ^ Henry Evans Maude : Spanish discoveries in the Pacific . In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Vol. 68 (1959), No. 4, pp. 285-326, ISSN  0032-4000 ( online ).
5. ^ Te Rangi Hīroa : An Introduction to Polynesian Anthropology. European Discoveries in Polynesia . Kraus Reprint, New York 1971, p. 20 (reprint of the Honolulu 1945 edition).
6. ^ Julia Hecht: The Culture of Gender in Pukapuka. Male, Female and the Mayakitanga "Sacred Maid" . In: Journal of the Polynesian Society , 86 : 183-206 (1977), ISSN  0032-4000 ( online ).