Bellona Island

Bellona is the small island on the left side; Rennell Island's northern end can be seen on the right of the picture. Courtesy NASA.

Bellona in the North of Rennell Islands

Bellona Island is an island of the Rennell and Bellona Province, Solomon Islands. Its length is about 10 km and its average width 2.5 km. Its area is about 17 km². It is almost totally surrounded by 30–70 m high cliffs, consisting primarily of raised coral limestone.

Population

Bellona Island is densely populated and its interior is lush and fertile. There are ten villages:

• Matahenua/Matamoana (west)
• Honga'ubea
• Tongomainge
• Ngotokanaba
• Pauta
• Ngongona
• Gongau
• Ahenoa
• Matangi
• NukuTonga (East)

Bellona Island is, like Rennell Island, a Polynesian-inhabited island within the Solomons, where most of the islands are primarily Melanesian with a few Micronesian island provinces. It is thus counted among the Polynesian outliers. The nearby Bellona Shoals were the site of several shipwrecks.^[1] On the western end of the island there were sacred stone-gods, at a place called Ngabenga- west Bellona. The stone-gods were destroyed by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in 1938. This island was named at the beginning of the 19th century after Capt. Lord Rennell's ship Bellona. However, its original name is Mungiki.

See also

• Polynesian outliers

Literature

• Subsistence on Bellona Island (Mungiki): A Study of the Cultural Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate by Sofus Christiansen. Publisher: Aarhus University Press, Pub. Date: January 1975, ISBN 978-87-480-0090-2

References

1. "THE KINSEN MARU.". Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld.: National Library of Australia). 18 March 1933. p. 6. Retrieved 3 November 2011.

External links

• pictures
• Cultural Ecology
• Beliefs and Rites of Pre-Christian Bellona
• Map of Bellona Island
• Bellona Travel Guide

Coordinates: 11°18′S 159°48′E / 11.30°S 159.80°E