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Discoveries.
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Luz, and Santa Maria. After having visited the latter, he made his way to a larger island seen to the southward, and remained a month in the great bay of SS. Philip and James in Espiritu Santo. Merlav was renamed Pic de l'Étoile by Bougainville, and is now Star Island. The eight islands of the Banks' group are: (1) Star Island, Merlav; (2) Sainte Claire, Merig; (3) Santa Maria, Gaua; (4) Sugarloaf Island, Mota; (5) Great Banks' Island, Vanua Lava; (6) Saddle Island; (7) Bligh Island, Ureparapara; and (8) Rowa[1]. One of these, named Saddle Island by Bligh, has no native name as a whole; another, the Reef Island of Rowa, has no geographical name. The Torres group consists of four islands, Hiw, Tegua, Lo, and Tog, and is now known as Vava; there is no native name to the group. The native names of the three islands which with Espiritu Santo make up the northern New Hebrides are, Maewo, Aurora Island; Araga, Pentecost Island; and Omba, Lepers' Island. The two latter names present a difficulty, and

  1. Quiros named seven islands before he reached Espiritu Santo: San Raymundo, Los Portales de Belen, La Vergel, Las Lagrimas de San Pedro, El Pilar de Zaragoza, Santa Maria, and Nuestra Señora de la Luz. The two latter alone are known. Bligh named Ureparapara after himself, Saddle Island and Sugarloaf Island (probably the Pillar of Quiros) after natural features, and Great Banks' Island, with the whole group, after Sir Joseph Banks. Besides the geographical names, these islands have mostly three sets of names. An island has its name in the local form and in the Mota form, which has come into use through the employment of the Mota tongue as a common language in the Melanesian Mission. Thus Vanua Lava, Gaua, Ureparapara, Meralava, are the Mota forms of Vono Lav, Gog, Norbarbar, Merlav. Another set of names was used by natives when sailing between the islands, with a view of concealing their course from unseen enemies; Mota was Ure-kor, the place full of dried bread-fruit; Ureparapara, full of slopes, was Ure-us, full of bows, Meralava, Ure-kere, full of clubs, the best bows and clubs being got there; others were named after the food and other natural productions thought to characterise them. Misspelt and then misread, the rock Vat Ganai has become in maps the island Vatu Rhandi; by a misreading of Gaua, Santa Maria, which is to its native inhabitants Gog, got with traders the name of Ganna. The Torres group has got the name of Vava, with the preposition 'at' Avava, Ababa, from a part of one of the islands which Ureparapara people used to visit. Traders have fixed on Tog the name of Pukapuka, originally unknown among the natives. The Mota name for Lepers' Island, Opa, for Omba, has become well known.