Sie

The Sie, whose language is also called Sye or Erromangan, are the main people of Erromango, a large volcanic island in southern Vanuatu. Their ancestors were Lapita seafarers who settled the island some three thousand years ago, leaving pottery and, in refuge caves, clan rock art.

James Cook landed near Potnarvin in 1774 and clashed with the islanders, naming the nearby peninsula Traitor's Head. After Peter Dillon reported the island's sandalwood in 1825, trading ships crowded its bays, and a Hawaiian expedition under Boki arrived to seize the trade in 1830.

Trade, warfare and the epidemics that followed shattered the island's population: villages were abandoned or merged, the neighbouring Ura and Utaha languages withered, and Sie became the common speech of the surviving Erromangans.