Tafahi

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Tafahi
Satellite image of Tafahi (top right) and the neighboring island of Niuatoputapu
Satellite image of Tafahi (top right) and the neighboring island of Niuatoputapu
Waters Pacific Ocean
Archipelago Niuas
Geographical location 15 ° 51 ′ 0 ″  S , 173 ° 45 ′ 0 ″  W Coordinates: 15 ° 51 ′ 0 ″  S , 173 ° 45 ′ 0 ″  W
Location of Tafahi
length 2.8 km
width 1.2 km
surface 3.42 km²
Highest elevation Piu-ʻo-Tafahi
560  m
Residents 31 (2016)
9.1 inhabitants / km²
main place Tafahi
Historical map of Tafahi and Niuatoputapu
Historical map of Tafahi and Niuatoputapu

Tafahi is a sparsely populated, 3.3 km² island in the north of the Niua Group in the Pacific Ocean, near the date line . Politically, it belongs to the Kingdom of Tonga . Older names are Boscawen and Cocos Eylandt (Coconut Island), Cocos Insula is also written on old cards . The next inhabited island is Niuatoputapu , about seven kilometers to the south.

geography

The island of Tafahi consists of a single, long-extinct stratovolcano , which from a distance offers the ideal image of a volcanic mountain. No recent or historical eruptions are known. The summit is named Piu 'o Tafahi. The mountain slopes are densely overgrown with tropical vegetation up to the now eroded and overgrown crater rim at a height of 560 m. The continental shelf drops steeply into the sea, the island is surrounded by a close-fitting, not very extensive coral reef with an artificially widened passage in the northwest in the 1980s, but which is only suitable for small boats. There is no coastal plain and only narrow beaches. Tafahi is 2.8 km long, a maximum of 1.2 km wide and has an area of ​​3.3 km².

Kolokakala, the only village, is located on a plateau on the northern tip of the island. At the 2016 census, there were 31 residents in eight households. That is a significant decrease compared to the already low population of 2006 with 69 inhabitants. Young people are leaving the remote island as they find better job opportunities on the main island of Tongatapu or abroad.

Tafahi's infrastructure is underdeveloped. There are no paved roads, no ports and no airfield. The main means of transport is the boat. There is no central water supply, the residents are dependent on cisterns . The power supply, which is not always guaranteed, is provided by diesel generators. Tafahi has no doctor or other professional health care. There is a small church for the predominantly Catholic residents of the village.

climate

The climate is tropical hot, but is tempered by constantly blowing winds. Like the other islands in the Niua Group, Tafahi is occasionally hit by cyclones . On the morning of January 7, 1998, cyclone Ron hit Niuafoou , Niuatopotapu and Tafahi and damaged several houses. On January 9, 2004, cyclone Heta caused considerable damage to the plantations on Niuatoputapu and Tafahi.

flora

The slopes of the stratovolcano are densely overgrown, in the lower areas mostly with secondary vegetation, which from about 300 to 400 m above sea level changes into a damp forest with numerous, predominantly indigenous, partly endemic species. Several rare orchid species also grow there, for example:

  • Acanthephippium splendidum , syn. Acanthephippium papuanum ; the orchid, which grows close to the ground and is up to 80 cm high, occurs at heights of 150 to 400 m.
  • Vrydagzynea vitiensis , syn. Vrydagzynea whitmeei , a small-flowered, low-growing orchid that occurs on the north side of the volcano at heights of 400 to 500 m.
  • Phreatia matthewsii , syn. Oberonia myosurus , a small epiphytic orchid in the summit area of ​​Piu 'o Tafahi.
  • Phaius amboinensis , syn. Phaius graeffei , a large (up to 1 m) orchid that grows close to the ground, which has so far only been found in Tonga on the islands of Kao and Tafahi. Since it predominantly grows on the edges of the agricultural areas up to heights of 400 m, the habitat is threatened by the overflowing kava cultivation.
  • Dendrobium dactylodes , syn. Dendrobium involutum , the epiphytically growing orchid of medium size, occurs in the wet forest on Tafahi and otherwise only on Rarotonga and some islands of Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa.

Creation legend

According to a legend of the inhabitants, a demon of Samoa is responsible for the creation of Tafahi with the characteristic cone shape. At night he stole the mountain top of the neighboring island Niuafoou, at this point the deep crater, which is now filled with water, remained. The shark god Seketoa of the island Niuatoputapu noticed this and sent the "Matapules", his assistants, to pursue the demon. The assistants crowed like roosters, so that the demon thought it was morning and he had lost his power. He dropped the mountain into the sea and the island of Tafahi was formed.

history

Archaeologist Thomas S. Dye from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa carried out field studies on Tafahi in 1984 and dug house platforms, chiefs' platforms (esi), mounds for pigeon hunting (sia) and burial mounds for chiefs (faʻitoka). On a narrow plateau in the southeast, a place called Fatuloa, Dye found a conspicuous accumulation of ceramic shards and the remains of a house platform, which suggest that there may have been a second settlement in prehistoric times. It is not known how long it lasted. In the summit area of ​​Piu 'o Tafahi, Dye excavated the remains of a fortification, consisting of a two meter deep and two meter wide trench and a wooden palisade on the mountain side.

The oldest, very simple and undecorated ceramic finds from the southeast side of the island can be traced back to around 500 BC. To date. They indicate a very early and continuous settlement, but are around 800 years younger than the finds of Lapita pottery from the neighboring island of Niuatoputapu. The island's unfavorable topography with its steep slopes left little space for residential buildings and agriculture. The same areas have therefore been redesigned and used intensively over the centuries. The archaeological finds and reports from European explorers suggest that the population is significantly higher than it is today.

Tafahi was discovered for Europe on May 13, 1616 by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire . Because of the large number of coconut trees , Le Maire named the island "Cocos Eylandt":

The Eendracht by Schouten and Le Maire before Tafahi, Merian engraving from 1631

“The Jnſul is a high mountain / close by / like the Moluckiſche Jnſuln / full of trees / but mostly whose ſo Cocos are called / drumb we ſie also called Cocos Jnſuln. As soon as we had anchored / came three ships / and drove round about from the ship / soon nine or ten canoes on our side / and among others let two white flags flee to the sign of peace. Which we did. Jre Canoes, each of whom led three or four men / were fornen flat / tapered behind / equipped out of an outcropped red tribe / with which they drove on the allergenic over water. As they got close to the ship / they jumped out of their canoes and boom completely / had their hands full of coconut nuts / and Vbes roots / which ſie vmb nails and corals / whose ſ they eagerly gave four / wanted to swap coconut: ſie Just a nail / or a small coral grain / that we passed the 180th time of the day. They finally came to the ship with a bit of pressure / that we hardly knew / where to turn or turn. "

- Johann Ludwig Gottfried : Newe Welt vnd ​​Americanische Historien .: Complete and complete descriptions of all West Indian landscapes, islands, kingdoms and provinces. . . , M. Merian, Frankfurt 1631, p. 500

150 years later, on August 13, 1767, Tafahi was rediscovered by Samuel Wallis . He named the island "Boscawen" after the British Admiral Edward Boscawen (1711–1761).

Others

The Swiss author Alex Capus hypothesizes in the biographical novel “ Travels in the Light of the Stars ” about the life of Robert Louis Stevenson that Tafahi is the real treasure island from the famous novel “ Treasure Island ”. Stevenson himself recovered the legendary church treasure from Lima on Tafahi, allegedly stolen in 1821, and thus achieved immeasurable wealth. It is more likely, however, that Stevenson's model was Coconut Island (Costa Rica) .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Presumably yams roots are meant, Polynesian uhi or ubi (Edward Robert Tregear: The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Wellington 1891, new edition Oosterhout (NL) 1969), p. 573

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tonga Tonga National Population and Housing Census 2016. Statistics Department Tonga, 2016, accessed April 9, 2018 .
  2. ^ Tonga - 2011 census
  3. ^ Center for International Disaster Information
  4. ^ Art Whistler: The Rare Plants of Tonga. Isle Botanica, Honolulu 2011
  5. ^ Tom Dye: Archaeological Investigations on Tafahi Island. In: Patrick Vinton Kirch: Niuatoputapu: The prehistory of a Polynesian chiefdom. Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum Monograph No. 5, Seattle 1998, pp. 278-287.
  6. ^ Andrew Sharp: The Discovery of the Pacific Islands. Greenwood Press, Westport (CT) 1985, p. 74
  7. ↑ Joris van Spilbergen and Jacob Le Maire: Oost ende West-Indische spieghel, was in beschreven de twee laetste navigatien, ghedaen inde jaeren 1614. 1615. 1616. 1617. ende 1618. Jan Jansz, Amsterdam 1621, p. 172 f.
  8. ^ John Hawkesworth: An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. . . W. Strahan, London 1773, volume 1, p. 493