Vacations and Holidays Travel Blog

 Pukapuka South Pacific – A Unique Culture Preserved to Modern Day

The citizenry of Pukapuka populated the atoll for hundreds of years prior to the first European got sight of it. Alvaro de Mendana witnessed the atoll in 1595 and designated it as San Bernardo. Owed to its reclusiveness, contact with Europeans was uncommon before the mid 1800’s. The modern atoll comes with a lot of modern comforts. All the same, contact with the exterior world continues rare since air flights only happen every six weeks or so. The island rides closer to Samoan Islands than the Cook Islands capital island of Rarotonga. The flight from Rarotonga takes five hours one way.

The civilization of Pukapuka remains intact in spite of the modernization of recent years. The denizens maintain their own language, PukaPukan. The people continue to weave fine mats long familiar around the South Pacific. They also preserve their own sport of Kirikiti, a sport contributed from Samoa in the far past. Over six hundred individuals currently inhabit the island. The main settlements lie on the northern island of Wale. They employ the other islands for food yield. The uninhabited island of Ko is home to the landing strip. The island-dwellers also regulate the nearby island of Nassau. A sojourn to the atoll will take visitors away from the world they recognize.

Pukapuka is a region of the Northern Cook Islands. It is really among the most distant occupied areas on earth. The location is in reality an atoll in the configuration that is approximately three-sided with three main islands. The acreage of the atoll is barely over one square mile. All the same, that small measure of land has had dwellers for at least two thousand years. The citizenry of the atoll have conserved their singular culture in spite of contact with the exterior world. Owed to its remoteness, almost all tourists go around the island all together. The population speaks a dialect that is singular to the small atoll. Almost all speak some English nevertheless.

Owed to the scarceness of resources, the citizenry govern life on the Pukapuka atoll with strict preservation in mind. Settlements move from one island to the next on a regular basis to protect the resources on each one. The citizenry protect the trees by not cutting them down without express license. They protect all origins of food. Birds and seafood continue untouched until they are grownup. Foodstuffs stay on tree and vine until they are mature. This affords the islanders more command over their world. Waste is an uncommon affair on the island.