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Geography
The island is part of the Bismarck Archipelago and is often described as having the shape of a musket. The tropical island of New Ireland is long, narrow and mountainous covered by several mountain ranges and dense rainforest. For much of its 320 km length, it is less than 10 km across, yet the central mountainous spine is very steep and rugged. The highest peak is Mount Lambel (2,150 metres or 7,054 feet). The island lies between one and five degrees south of the equator.
New Ireland is surrounded by the Bismarck Sea in the southwest and by the Pacific Ocean in the northeast.
History
The first inhabitants of the Bismarck Archipelago arrived around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now Papua New Guinea. Later arrivals included the Lapita people.
In 1616 the Dutch sailors Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten were the first Europeans to set foot on the island.
In the 1870s and 1880s, Marquis de Rays, a French nobleman attempted to establish a French colony on the island called New France. He sent four ill-fated expeditions to the island, the most famous of which caused the death of 123 settlers.
From 1885 to 1914 New Ireland was a part of German New Guinea and bore the name Neumecklenburg. Germans managed several highly profitable copra plantations and built a road to transport the goods. This road is currently in service and is named the Boluminski Highway after the German administrator of German New Guinea, Franz Boluminski. After World War I New Ireland was ceded to Australia. In World War II, it was captured by the Japanese forces and was under their control.
Culture
- Malagan - funerary arts that originate in New Ireland and elsewhere in Oceania
- Tatanua - "The person who organizes a tatanua performance must select the music and dancers, assemble a male chorus, and acquire the masks. The masks are usually rented from one of the sculptors who makes them." [1]
References
- ^ d'Alleva, Anne [1998]. in Kara Hattersley-Smith: Arts of the Pacific Islands (in English). New York: Perspectives - Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 75. ISBN 0-8109-2722-5.
External links
- Entry at the Linköping University
