Tagula

The Tagula are the people of Vanatinai, also called Tagula or Sudest, the largest island in the Louisiade Archipelago. It is a long volcanic landmass cloaked in rainforest and enclosed by coral reefs, lying about 360 kilometres southeast of the New Guinea mainland.

Their language, Sudest or Tagula, belongs to the Oceanic branch of Austronesian, as does the related Nimoa speech of the neighboring islets. The islanders live in small coastal villages, gardening the coastal flats and fishing the lagoon behind the reef.

In 1606, the Spanish expedition of Luís Vaez de Torres sighted the island while charting the Louisiades. For more than two centuries after that it remained a remote and little-visited shore, known to passing navigators by its two capes, Tagula and Sudest, from which the island and its language take their European names.