Cemuhi

The Cemuhi are the Kanak clans of the north-east coast of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, whose Cèmuhî language, also called Wagap after the coastal district of that name, is spoken around Touho, Koné and Poindimié in the Paici-Camuki customary area. With Paicî it forms the central-northern New Caledonian group, descended from the Austronesian speech brought by Lapita settlers after 1100 BC.

Cèmuhî is a tone language in which three pitch registers distinguish words otherwise sounded alike, giving everyday speech something of the melodic precision of a chant. Society turned on clans and hereditary chiefs, taro irrigation in steep valleys and fishing from outrigger canoes, while the chief's great house and rooftop carving linked the living to the ancestors.

James Cook noted the coast in 1774, yet the steep mountains behind it kept Cemuhi villages effectively beyond European reach through 1837.