Ambae

The Ambae are an Oceanic-speaking Melanesian people who garden the slopes of Ambae, Vanuatu's largest active volcano, a rugged basalt island in the north of the archipelago long known to Europeans as Aoba or Lepers' Island.

The island has no permanent rivers and its only natural standing water lies in crater lakes near the summit, so villages draw on wells and stored rainwater while tending large gardens and managed forests above the coastal coconut groves. Their western language, also called Duidui, has its principal dialect at Nduindui, while kinfolk on the north, east and south speak the distinct East Ambae tongue.

The ships of Queirós's Spanish expedition first recorded a sighting of Ambae in the spring of 1606; Bougainville sailed through the group in 1768 and James Cook in 1774.