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Pukapuka is a coral atoll in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, with three small islets threaded on a reef that encloses a crystal-clear lagoon. It is the most remote island of the Cook Islands, situated about 1140 kilometres northwest of Rarotonga. It is a triangular atoll with three islets comprising little more than three square kilometres of land area. On this small island an ancient culture and distinct language has been maintained over many centuries. In the 1990s Japanese archaeologists discovered evidence of human settlement up to 2,000 years ago. Pukapuka's closest prehistoric associations appear to be with Samoa and other islands to the west, but there was later a lot of contact with islands to the east. The traditional name for the atoll was Te Ulu-o-Te-Watu ('the head of the stone'), and the northern islet where the people normally reside is affectionately known as Wale (Home). ==European visitors== Pukapuka was the first of the Cook Islands to be sighted by Europeans. The Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña saw it on the feast day of Saint Bernard, on Sunday 20 August 1595 and named it San Bernardo.〔Sharp, Andrew, ''The discovery of the Pacific Islands'', Oxford 1960 p.52,53〕 On 21 June 1765 the British Naval expedition under Commodore John Byron ( and ) sighted the island. Byron gave the name "Islands of Danger" because of the reefs and the high surf that made it too dangerous to land. The name "Danger Island" still appears on some maps. According to oral tradition, an unknown ship called at Pukapuka in the mid 18th century, and when the lineage chief Tāwaki boldly took the captain's pipe out of his mouth, he was shot. (Tāwaki's grandson, Pania, and great-grandson, Vakaawi, protected the Aitutakian mission teacher, Luka, in 1857). Thirty years later, Pukapuka was given the name "Isles de la Loutre" (Isles of the Otter) by Pierre François Péron, a French adventurer who was acting as first mate on board the American merchant ship, ''Otter'' (Captain Ebenezer Dorr) after it was sighted on 3 April 1796. The following day, Péron, Thomas Muir of Huntershill (1765–1799) and a small party landed ashore but the inhabitants would not allow them to inspect the island. Trading later took place near the ship, when adzes, mats and other artifacts were exchanged for knives and European goods. "Everything united to convince us that we had the right to attribute to ourselves the honour of having discovered three new islands; and with this conviction I gave them the name "Isles of the Otter" (de la Loutre ) which was the name of our vessel. In order to distinguish them we named the eastern one 'Peron and Muir' (Kō ), the one to the north 'Dorr' (), and the name of 'Brown' was given to the third (Kotawa ), after one of our officers."〔 Péron believed that they were the first to discover the island, mostly because the people were so afraid of them. This was of course because Tāwaki had been killed during the ship visit about 30 years previously. Because of Pukapuka's isolation, few vessels visited before 1857 when the London Missionary Society landed teachers from Aitutaki and Rarotonga. Luka Manuae of Aitutaki later wrote an extended account of the first days of contact 5–8 December 1857: "No te taeanga a te tuatua o te Atua ki Pukapuka" ('The arrival of the Word of God at Pukapuka', dated August 1869).〔Luka Manuae, (2012) "The arrival of the word of God at Pukapuka", ''Journal of Pacific History'', Dec.〕 Some lineages wanted to kill the newcomers in revenge for an incident that had happened a month earlier, but Vakaawi, chief of Yālongo lineage, protected them. In the following days the island accepted Luka's Christian message, largely because of an encounter when two dead people were apparently raised back to life. In 1862 Rev. William Wyatt Gill found most of the people on the island converted to Christianity. Early in 1863 Peruvian slavers raided the island and took away a total of 145 men and women; only two returned, Kolia and Pilato (Malowutia). The London Missionary Society barque ''John Williams'' was wrecked on the western side in May 1864.〔Beaglehole, Earnest and Pearl (1938). "Ethnology of Pukapuka," ''Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin'', 150.〕 In 1868 the buccaneer Bully Hayes took about 40 people to go on a labour scheme, but none of them returned home. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pukapuka」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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