Duau

The Duau are the people of Dobu, a small extinct-volcano island set in the Dawson Strait between Fergusson and Normanby at the heart of the D'Entrecasteaux group. Despite its modest size, their Dobuan language, an Austronesian tongue, became the lingua franca of the whole archipelago, carried abroad by their traders.

Dobuan society is built on matrilineal lineages and tight village clusters, whose pile houses stand in inward-facing circles amid coconut and betel palms, and on a subsistence economy centered on yams with taro, bananas and lagoon fishing.

The island's true distinction lies in trade: as a key node of the kula ring, Dobuans sailed north to the Trobriands and south to Milne Bay, exchanging shell valuables and pots with hereditary partners and building renown across the Massim. In 1792 d'Entrecasteaux's French expedition became the first Europeans to sight the D'Entrecasteaux Islands.