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Hawaiian

(Encyclopedia)Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught...

Moorea

(Encyclopedia)Moorea môrāˈä [key], volcanic island (2002 pop. 14,226), c.50 sq mi (130 sq km), South Pacific, second largest of the Windward group of the Society Islands, French Polynesia. The island is mountai...

Nuku Hiva

(Encyclopedia)Nuku Hiva no͞oˈko͞oˈ hēˈvä [key], volcanic island, 127 sq mi (329 sq km), South Pacific, largest of the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. The island is fertile, with well-watered valleys; it...

Atuona

(Encyclopedia)Atuona ätwäˈnə [key], town, in the Marquesas Islands, South Pacific, in French Polynesia. Situated on the southern coast of the island of Hiva Oa, Atuona overlooks the Bay of Traitors. Gauguin liv...

Hale, Horatio Emmons

(Encyclopedia)Hale, Horatio Emmons, 1817–96, American-Canadian ethnologist, b. Newport, N.H.; son of Sarah Josepha Hale. He served as ethnologist on the Charles Wilkes exploring expedition (1838–42) and wrote V...

Gambier Islands

(Encyclopedia)Gambier Islands gămˈbĭr [key], volcanic islands (6 sq mi/15.5 sq km), South Pacific, near the ...

Jarves, James Jackson

(Encyclopedia)Jarves, James Jackson järˈvĭs [key], 1818–88, American art critic and art collector, b. Boston. He spent some years in Honolulu, where he founded and edited a weekly newspaper, the Polynesia; it ...

Austral Islands

(Encyclopedia)Austral Islands ôˈstrəl [key], volcanic island group, South Pacific, part of French Polynesia. They are sometimes known as the Tubuai Islands. The group comprises ...

Oceania

(Encyclopedia)Oceania ōshēănˈĭkə [key], collective name for the approximately 25,000 islands of the Pacific, usually excluding such nontropical areas as the Ryukyu and Aleutian islands and Japan, as well as T...

Makatea

(Encyclopedia)Makatea ôrôrˈə [key], island, South Pacific, one of the most northwesterly of the Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia. The center of the island was once a solid mass of phosphate that was mined ...

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