Tuvaluan

The Tuvaluans are the Polynesian people of nine low coral atolls and reef islands in the western Pacific, eight inhabited in pre-contact times, giving Tuvalu its name of eight standing together. Their ancestors spread from Samoa, with Nanumea recalling founders from Tonga. Canoes kept up regular traffic with Samoa and Tonga, whose Tuʻi Tonga empire drew Tuvalu into its sphere in the thirteenth century.

Their creation story tells of the Eel and the Flounder, who shaped the flat atolls and coconut palms. The first European to sight the islands was Álvaro de Mendaña, who passed Nui on 16 January 1568 and charted it as Isla de Jesús.

After Arent de Peyster named Funafuti Ellice's Island in 1819, the group became known to Europeans as the Ellice Islands. American whalers began calling from 1821.