Vangunu
| Vangunu | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Waters | Pacific Ocean | |
| Archipelago | New Georgia Archipelago | |
| Geographical location | 8 ° 38 ′ S , 158 ° 0 ′ E | |
|
||
| length | 30 km | |
| width | 25 km | |
| surface | 509 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 1082 m | |
Vangunu is an island of New Georgia archipelago in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands .
geography
With 509 km², Vangunu is the fourth largest of the 20 or so islands and is located in the southeast of the archipelago, between its main island New Georgia and Nggatokae . The active marine volcano Kavachi is located 28 kilometers south in the sea .
The highest point of Vangunu is 1082 m above sea level. In the north, off Vangunu's coast, lies the island of Marovo and in between the Marovo lagoon . In the northwest, the Bareke peninsula juts out into the lagoon. The coast in the south is called Vangunu, which western cartographers then adopted for the entire island. The interior of the island is characterized by extinct volcanoes and steep mountains.
Settlements in the southwest are the coastal villages of Nineveh and Halisi . The village of Patutiva, founded in 1912 around a Methodist mission, is located on the northwestern tip . On the east coast is the infrastructural center of the island, Batuna . The site was founded in 1924 around a Seventh-day Adventist mission .
fauna
In September 2017, Uromys vika , a new species of giant mosaic- tailed rats, was described for the first time . The only known specimen, besides two sightings, was caught in primary forest on Vangunu . It is half a meter long, weighs half a kilogram and has a scaly tail.
For birdlife the island include Pale Mountain Pigeon , Blass head cuckoo , Papua hornbill and Rovianaralle . The Pteralopex taki , which occurs on Vangunu, belongs to the monkey face flying dogs .
Residents
The inhabitants of the island speak the Vangunu language . In the north of the island they speak the dialect Bareke , in the southwest the actual Vangunu. Ethnologue has 910 speakers of the language.
history
In 1568, Pedro de Ortega was the first European to reach the island of Vangunu.
While the coastal inhabitants had contact with the surrounding islands early on, be it through alliances or through warfare, the inhabitants in the interior of the island kept their distance from the coastal inhabitants and remained to themselves. The relationship was hostile. At the end of the 19th century, Europeans reported head hunts for people in the bush, which is why they avoided the island's shore for fear of the coastal warriors. It is believed that the Bushmen themselves were former coastal residents who were displaced into the interior of the island by subsequent settlers.
Under Nunu , a ruler of Marovo, the bush inhabitants were allowed to return to the coast. Nunu founded his new ancestral home, Repi , on the Bareke peninsula and invited the inhabitants of the interior to resettle permanently under his protection. During the so-called Horevura between 1880 and 1920/25, most of the Bushmen returned to the seashore.
In 1943, during the Pacific War, the Battle of New Georgia occurred, during which the Americans landed on Vangunu near Wickham Anchorage .
literature
- Edvard Hviding: Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia , 1996, ISBN 9780824816643 .
Web link
Individual evidence
- ↑ UNEP Islands (English)
- ↑ a b c Edvard Hviding: Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia , 1996, ISBN 9780824816643 .
- ↑ Google Maps
- ↑ Giant new rat species discovered in the South Pacific orf.at, September 27, 2017, accessed September 27, 2017.
- ↑ Tyrone H. Lavery, Hikuna Judge: A new species of giant rat (Muridae, Uromys) from Vangunu, Solomon Islands , Jornal of Mammalogy, accessed September 27, 2017.
- ↑ Ethnologue: Vangunu , accessed September 27, 2017.