Ndrumbea

The Ndrumbea are the Kanak people of the south-western bays of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, around the sites later named Nouméa and Dumbéa, both derived from the name of the Dubea people and their language Naa Dubea, also written Ndrumbea.

Together with Numèè it forms the extreme-southern branch of the New Caledonian languages, heirs of the Lapita coastal settlement that began around 1100 BC. Ndrumbea is one of the few Austronesian languages that is tonal.

Dubea clans fished the protected lagoon, grew yams on the coastal plain and met allied and rival clans at ceremonies beneath the carved flèche faîtière. James Cook's ships passed these coasts in 1774, and American whalers began calling at the south-west from the 1790s, but through 1837 the bays still belonged to the Dubea and their neighbours.