Buka

The Buka are the people of Buka, a flat, raised-limestone island separated from the larger Bougainville's northwest coast by the narrow Buka Passage. Human settlement here reaches back to Paleolithic times, with Kilu Cave showing occupation some thirty thousand years ago, while the present inhabitants trace their language to the Austronesian Lapita expansion of roughly two and a half thousand years ago. Their Halia tongue is Austronesian, also spoken on Bougainville's Selau Peninsula, rather than Papuan.

Outside contact in the early nineteenth century came mainly from whalers: the ship Eliza called in 1806, beginning decades of visits by British, Australian and American vessels seeking water and provisions.