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28-404: The Niuafoʻou language is spoken on the island. Niuafoʻou is a volcano located on an underwater ridge 190 kilometres (120 mi) west of the line along which all the other volcanoes of Tonga are ranged. The island contains a steep-sided caldera ; its rim is over 120 metres (390 ft) high. It rises to a height of 250 metres (820 ft) at Mokotu. The coastline is rocky and steep, with only

56-596: A few beaches, all of which are stony, with black sand . The only landing place on the island is at the end of a lava flow in Futu , in the western part of the island. All the villages are in the north and east. Public places — like the post office, telecommunications station and airport ( Kuini Lavinia Airport ) — are in Angahā in the north; there's a high school in Muʻa . The island ring encloses two lakes. The larger one, Vai Lahi ,

84-471: Is a crater lake 23 m (75 ft) above sea level , 4 km (2.5 mi) wide, and 84 m (276 ft) deep. It contains three islands and a submerged island that appears when the water level drops. Vai Lahi is separated from the smaller lake, Vai Siʻi (or Vai Mataʻaho), by a desolate landscape of sand hills. The inner walls of the crater lake, and the island's eastern and western slopes, are forested. Either one or both are soda lakes . The island

112-570: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Tonga -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tafahi Tafahi is a small (1.2 km × 2.8 km or 0.75 mi × 1.74 mi) island in the north of the Tonga archipelago , in fact closer to Savaiʻi (Samoa) than to the main islands of Tonga. It is only 9 km (5.6 mi) north-northeast away from Niuatoputapu , and fishermen commute in small outboard motorboats almost daily between

140-435: Is a government primary school. It is told in local mythology that some naughty ʻaitu from Samoa one night wanted to steal the mountain of Niuafoʻou to bring it to Samoa . It started off well for them, they got the mountain, leaving Niuafoʻou behind with a big lake in its centre, and were dragging it through the sea, already halfway near Niuatoputapu. They had to hurry because ʻaitu law prescribed that they had to complete

168-462: Is an active volcano, and has erupted regularly since 1814. In 1853, an eruption destroyed the village of ʻAhau and killed 25 people. An eruption beginning in August 1886 destroyed buildings and crops and created a new island in the lake. Another in 1912 involved thirty active cones and threw lava to a height of 500 feet. In 1929 an eruption destroyed the village of Futu, cut off the harbor, and killed all

196-463: Is closest to its neighbour, Tongan , as one of the Tongic languages . In September 2022 language campaigners called for it to be taught in primary schools on Niuafo’ou. The phonology of Niuafoʻou is similar to that of Tongan, with twelve consonants and five vowel phonemes. Vowels are more centralized when unstressed. /i/ and /u/ are de-voiced under some conditions. Sometimes the phoneme /t/

224-414: Is extremely suited for growing kava and vanilla, whose exports to the rest of Tonga and beyond is the main occupation of the population. The harbour (merely an opening in the fringing reef , only passable by small boats) is at the northwest of the island. A steep staircase leads up to the village, with about 69 residents at the census of 2001, located on a plateau on the north side of the mountain. There

252-429: Is realized as a apico- alveolar flap ( / ɾ / ). /h/ is only realized as / h / at the beginning of words. In the middle of words, it is either / ɦ / or / x / . Niuafoʻou has a very simple syllable structure, (C)V. However, it is apparently transitioning towards allowing consonant clusters, due to the influence of foreign languages and the de-voicing of vowels. This article about Central Pacific languages

280-575: The Indians who approached their ship in their swift canoes. The trading went well, until the islanders tried to steal one of the ship’s small sounding boats, and the Dutch responded by firing on them. After this incident, the Dutch left the vicinity of Niuatoputapu and continued to sail west as they had planned. But they ended up veering northwards, and so happened upon Futuna and Alofi . 1896 Niuafoʻou

308-518: The globe in 1616. After their not so successful encounter with the islanders of Niuatoputapu , they approached this island with some more hope to find refreshment, so they called it Goede Hoop island. They found black cliffs that were green on top, plenty of coconut trees, some houses along the seaside, and a whole village near a landing place. But their ship, the Eendracht (Unity), could not anchor, so they had to limit themselves with some trade with

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336-457: The globe in 1616. They gave it the name Cocos Eylant because of the abundancy of coconut palms. A multitude of natives in their outrigger canoes came to see their visitors. As the explorers describe in their journal, the natives were peaceful, willing to come on board, leaving barely any space for the Dutch themselves, and they traded large quantities of coconuts and ubes roots (probably ʻufi ( yam )) for iron nails and strings of beads. But as

364-669: The inhabitants initially planned to stay, in mid-October the Tongan government issued a compulsory evacuation order. An initial attempt to evacuate the island using the New Zealand vessel Matua failed, as the ship arrived before the inhabitants were ready. The island was finally evacuated on December 21. The inhabitants were resettled in Nukualofa, where land had been provided by Queen Salote. In 1948 they were resettled in ʻEua . When they resettled, they named various places in ʻEua after

392-478: The island did not offer a suitable place to anchor, the ship the Eendracht (Unity) proceeded next to Niuatoputapu . It is speculated by Swiss author Alex Capus , that Robert Louis Stevenson , the author of Treasure Island , found the Treasure of Lima around 1890 on this island while living on the nearby island of Upolu and which made him and his family very rich. Jacob LeMaire tried to collect words from

420-459: The island was struck by a severe tropical cyclone , which destroyed houses and killed seven people. By 1912 the difficulty of ships landing had seen the inhabitants implement a "tin can mail service", with mail sealed in a biscuit or kerosene tin thrown overboard from passing ships and collected by swimmers. The popularisation of this method to stamp-collectors led to Niuafoʻou becoming known as "Tin-can islands" for many years. A wireless station

448-648: The languages, but mostly from Futunan and Samoan. Nowadays the people from Tafahi and Niuatoputapu speak Tongan. But up to the 19th century both islands must have had a quite distinct language. In 1835 the missionary Peter Turner, on his way to Samoa, had a stop in Niuatoputapu and found that "there are many Samoans here…". The theory that the Tuʻi Tonga empire had thoroughly "Tonganised" its colonies using Loʻau 's Falefā cannot be maintained. The real subjection of Niuatoputapu and Tafahi to Tonga does not start until

476-600: The natives. He put 32 words in his journal as the Vocabulaer: Oft Tale van d'Eylanden Salomonis , and some more of the Tale van het Cocos Eylant . It was not until 1945 that it was discovered that those labeled as from Cocoa Island were in reality words from Futuna , and those mislabeled as the Solomons Islands (where the Eendracht would not come at all) were actually from Tafahi. The many errors (e.g.,

504-471: The places they’d known in Niuafoʻou. As a result, the two islands now have many of the same place names, and a comparison of names on the two islands shows where each group of settled. In 1958, about half of the population returned to Niuafo'ou, and the rest remained in 'Eua. It is an 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) diameter shield volcano , with a broad lava shield capped by the remnants of a composite cone, which

532-464: The printer in Holland printed an 'n' as a 'u') do not help in the analysis. In addition, when the Dutch left Tafahi for Niuatoputapu, many canoes from there had already come to them. LeMaire probably recorded a mixture of the languages of both islands. When the words from his list are compared to modern Tongan , Samoan , ʻUvean and Futunan , as well as Fijian , it appears that they come from all of

560-559: The temperature of 35.5 °C (95.9 °F) reached on the island is the highest temperature ever recorded in Tonga. According to Niuafoʻou folklore, Niuafoʻou island originally had a mountain, rather than a lake in the middle. But the mountain was stolen one night and placed in the sea, and became the island of Tafahi . Niuafoʻou was put on the European maps by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire during their famous circumnavigation of

588-420: The two. The island has a population of 14 (in 2021). Other names for Tafahi are Cocos Eylant (coconut island) or Boscawen island. Tafahi is a volcanic island and has the typical cone shape of a stratovolcano . The mountain is called Piu-ʻo-Tafahi (fanpalm of Tafahi) and is 546 m (1,791 ft) high. (The island, 3.42 km (1.32 sq mi), is smaller than Niuatoputapu, but higher). The soil

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616-521: The vegetation on the western slopes of the island. In December 1935 an eruption centered on the Ahofakatau and Hina craters caused the evacuation of Belani and Togamamao, and produced a two-mile wide lava-flow. An eruption in September 1943 destroyed crops but caused no loss of life. A serious eruption began on 9 September 1946, beginning with a series of tremors and then a lava flow which destroyed

644-413: The village of Angaha, including the government buildings and the wireless station. The village of Aleleuta was also destroyed, and lava flows had left only one third of the island still habitable. When radio contact was lost, an RNZAF aircraft on a flight to Samoa was requested to investigate, and reported the eruption to the outside world. The eruption was followed by a series of violent earthquakes. While

672-408: The work before sunrise. But the fish god Seketoʻa saw them and did not like it. He ordered his matāpule (spokesmen) to cry as roosters, in the hope that the ʻaitu would think that dawn was close and they could as well give up. But it did not work, the ʻaitu were not ready yet to give up and only pulled harder. Then Seketoʻa himself acted. He swam in front of the ghosts, showing them his anus, which

700-729: Was constructed in 1930. That same year, scientists traveled to the island with a 65 foot long camera to observe the Solar eclipse of October 21, 1930 . In January 2002, the island was devastated by Cyclone Waka , which destroyed hundreds of homes and killed one person. The island is home to the Tongan megapode . Niuafo%CA%BBou language Niuafoʻou , or Niuafoʻouan , is the language spoken on Tonga 's northernmost island, Niuafoʻou . Niuafoʻouan has traditionally been classified as closest to ʻUvean and Tokelauan , in an East Uvean–Niuafoʻou branch. However, recent research suggests that it

728-440: Was destroyed during a caldera -forming eruption. The lavas contain variable amounts of subduction related components inherited from the Tonga subduction zone to the east in the tholeiitic magma series . These components result in a combination of MORB -like characteristics with those of ocean island basalt . Like most of Tonga, Niuafo'ou has a tropical climate , with the temperature being warm year-round. On 1 February 2016,

756-408: Was red. The ghosts were frightened. They thought they saw the red sun rising and that it was already morning. They dropped the mountain and fled to Samoa. That is the reason that Tafahi is now where it is. The legend has been interpreted as an account of a historic volcanic eruption. Tafahi was put on the European maps by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire during their famous circumnavigation of

784-449: Was visited by a Royal Navy surveying ship, HMS  Penguin in August 1895. Lieutenant Boyle Somerville published a description of the island the following year. He noted signs of recent volcanic activity, writing "[the island] is thickly covered with vegetation throughout, with the exception of one place on the south-west of the island, where a lava stream, recently formed, has not yet received its coating of green". In April 1909

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