Duff Islands

The Duff Islands form a short chain northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands in Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. Taumako is the main island, accompanied by Tahua, Tohua and Tatumotu; the Bass and Treasurer's island clusters continue the scattered formation. The group stretches for about thirty-two kilometres, and some navigational descriptions once included remote Hallie Jackson Reef although it lies well to the west. Deep water, reefs and small landfalls make careful seamanship essential.

The islands carry a long record of settlement. Lapita people arrived about 900 BCE, followed by Melanesian and then Polynesian communities in the mid-fifteenth century. Their Polynesian descendants speak Vaeakau-Taumako, a Samoic language.

This small community preserved traditional Polynesian navigation. Spanish explorers under Pedro Fernández de Quirós anchored at the islands in April 1606 and recorded the name Taumako. In 1797 the missionary ship Duff, commanded by James Wilson, arrived and supplied the later European name. These visits sit atop a much older history of seafaring, in which islanders' inherited knowledge made the difficult passage between scattered shores possible.