Pukapuka: History
Human settlement of Pukapuka can be dated back about 1,000 years, after the sea level stabilised to its present height. According to oral tradition the island was discovered by Tamayei, a god from Tonga, and settled by ancestors from Tonga. The atoll served as a connecting hub between West and East Polynesia – a role that is reflected in Pukapukan material culture, and language, which is Samoic with a Tokelauan influence. Pukapukan traditions speak of frequent passages to Tuvalu, Tokelau, Niue, Tonga, Rarotonga and Tahiti, and basalt used for many of their adze blades can be geochemically traced to a quarry on Tutuila (Samoa). Tahitians are known to have passed through Pukapuka en route to islands in Samoa and Tonga.
The original population is likely to have numbered 1000 or more, but has recovered from extremely low numbers more than once. Oral traditions refer to at least two episodes of civil war, and inundation of the atoll from a major tsunami or cyclone, in which only two women and 15 men survived.
The island was first discovered by Europeans in 1595, when the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña saw it on the feast day of Saint Bernard and named it San Bernardo. It was sighted again in 1765 by a British Naval expedition under Commodore John Byron, who named it the "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 Yalongo lineage chief Tāwaki boldly took the captain's pipe out of his mouth, he was shot.
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. …