Atoll Research Bulletin No. 189 the Natural History Of
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ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 189 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NAMOLUB ATOLL, EASTERN CAROLINE ISLANDS by Mac Marshall with identifications of vascular flora by F. R. Fosberg Issued by THE SMITHSONIAN IYSTITUTION Washington, D.C., U.S.A. August 6,1975 TBrn OF CONTENTS LIST OF PLATES LIST OF TABLES INTRODUCTION PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION REEFS AND CURRENTS METEOROLOGY NON-AVIAN TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATES OTHER NON-AVIAN FAUNA AVIAN FAUNA URINE MOLLUSKS ACAMTHASTER PLANCI INSECTS VASCULAR FIDRA BIBLIOGRAPHY TABLES PLATES LIST OF PLATES 1 Aerial photograph of Namoluk Atoll dated 29 June lgw. U,S, Navy. 2 From Tbinom Islet looking across to Ullbap Islet with tip of Arnwes Islet in the distance. June 1971. Mac Marshall. 3 Mangrove forest, lagoon shore, Amues Islet. June 1971. Mac Marshall. 4 Bruguiera gymnorhim growing an open reef between Arawes and Umap Islets. June 1971. Mac Maxshall. 5 Forested interior, hues Islet, showing Asplenium nidus growing on Arbocaspus. June 1971. Leslie Be Marshall. 6 Forested interior, Namoluk Islet, showing abundant growth of Nephrolepis. June 1971, Leslie B. Marshall. 7 Sandspit (called "Piemann locally) at the southwest tip of Amwes Islet. June 1971. Leslie Be Marshall. 8 Forest of Pem$h acidula on Tbinom Iihlet. June 1971. Mac Marshall. 9 Lagoon beach on LhIslet. June 1971. Leslie B. Marshall. PO hagoon ahoreline of Toinom Islet with Amwes Islet in the distance. June 1971. Leslie B. Marshall. 11 Forested interior, Namoluk Islet, showing typical dense growth and undmbrush, June 1971, Mac Masshall, 12 Anwes Islet, looking east froa the long sandspit at the southwest tip (see plats 7). June 1971. Mac Marshall. l4 Mangrove forest along the lagoon shore of Amwes Islet, June 1971. Leslie Be Marshall, LIST OF TABLES Table J Infomation on Pacific currents revealed by messages con- tained in bottles that drifted to Namoluk Atoll during 1970, Table 2 Monthly rainfall and tsmperaLure data for Namoluk Atoll from 1 Januasy 1970 to 31 July 1971, 1 Aerial photograph of Namoluk Atoll dated 29 June 1944. U.S. Navy. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NAMOLUK ATOLL, EASTERN CAROLINE ISLANDS by Mae ~arshallg As of 1969, the scientific corrrmunity had no general information on the natural history of Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia, The only significant published source for the atoll was an ethnographic and linguistic account provided by the Ger~anphysician, Max Girschner (1912, 1913), that contained a few brief passages on the biology and physical environment of the atoll. With this lack of basic descriptive environmental information in mind, I resolved to make obser- vations and collections of specimens of use to other atoll scholars ancillasy to an anthropo ogical research projeot which I undertook on Namoluk from 1969-1971.2 This paper is design* to fill soma of the I/~e~artmentof Anthropology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, n / g~ieldresearch in cultural anthropology was conducted on Namsluk Atoll and with Mamoluk persons on Hoen Island, Truk, for a period of eighteen months during 1969-1971 supported by the National Institute of Mental Heajtth (MH 11871-01 and PM 42666-01), and the Department of Anthro- pology, University of Washington. Funds for gathering botanical data were mde available from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and the University of Hawaii (NIH Grant No. GM-15198)through the kind assistance of Douglas Yen, Preparation of this muscript was facil- itated by an Old Gold Summer Faculty Research Fellowship from the Graduate College, University of Iowa. I am greatly indebted to these sources of financial support. I would also like to express Iny appre- ciation to Sarel R. Agrippa for maintaining the laeteorological obsemations in my absence from June to December 1970, to Sapuro I. Kouch, Kichi Lippwe and Kino S. Ruben for assistance in gathering and preparing the plant collections, to F. R. Fosberg for material assis- tanae and encouragement, and to John Tandarich for technical help in preparation of the photographs for publication. During the period of reseaxch the de facto population of Namoluk Atoll fluctuated between 250 and 300 persons, depending upon how many happened to be away in the port town on Moen Island, Truk, or elsewhere at a given moment. Y The most recent census figures available from the Trust Territory indicate that this number has remained stable through 18 September 1973 (u.s. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islaads l974), with 263 per- sons reported on Namoluk Atoll at census time. The total living population of *Naraoluk citimnse regardless of lacatisn numbered 416 on 1 January 1973. At present, the entire human population of the atoll resides on Namoluk Islet; Amwes Islet, which formerly supported a sep- arate community, has not been permanently inhabited since its populace was decimated by an epidemic in the late 1930s. The reader interested in further details on Namoluk demography is referred to an extended treataent of this subject (Marshall 1975). gaps in our knowledge of the wt historgr of Nmoluk by s iaing and reporting the inforraatisn so gcakhered thowh A % 1971, With the exception of a brief note on avifauaa (~mhall1971)~ these are the first systematic eraviromental data to b presented for the atoll, Until archseologica% investigations are underttaken, the prehistoq of Masloluk must remain conjectural. Although we hack any reliable estimate of the the depth sf hmm hbitation on the atoll, we axe fortunate to have a few ethnohistor%cd reco* th& sffer some sense of the atoll" early contact with the West, The first Westerner to sight Nmoluk was an herican whaling cap- tain, Richard Macy, aboard the Harvest in 3.827 (Day 19668 171; S 19601217), Less than a ye= later is 1828, a Russian suientific expedi-bion under the eo of Fedor LRtke visited Nmoluk, Although Namoluk men boarded Llltkeqs ship to trade, sane of the shipqs company put ashore (~(lltke1835: 88-91). Only scattered reuomls exist of vessels sighting or calling at Nameluk during the 1830s and 1840s. Ben jmin Momell, wptafi of the ship Antarctic out of Stonington, Connecticut, gassed olose by Naoluk in 1830, evidently without landing (Momell 1832,388-3891, Three yeam later an American whaler, the hptain Harnood, called at Maraoluk, and an extract *om t Log reaouaks what is believed to be the first arrival of Westerners on the atoll (ward 19678 3-4). By the 1840s traders bagan venturing into the Eastern Carolines, although relatively few historical documents see@ to have survived this era, The bark Zotoff out of Salem, Massachusetts, skippered by a trader named Captain Wallis, sailed past Namoluk without heaving to on 7 June 184.6 while en route f'rorn Manila to Fiji (~a~lis1851:195), In July of the same year the trader Andrew Cheyne odld at Mamoluk aboswed the -Naiad, and he comented that the islets were Haovered with cocoa-nuts and bread-Mt treesw (~heyne185211 129). Prom the 1840s there follows a thirty year hiatus for which no knoun historical naterials psrtainiag to Ns~srolulrhave been found. In rapid sucoession during the 1870s aad early 1880s, however, Protestant missionaries and resident traders cane to Mmoluk. The Reverend E, T, Doane stopped briefly at Namoluk in 1874 aboard the ~iissionvessel Star (~oane1874: 2w), and on 1 December 1879 a young Poncapean missionary couple took up residence on the atoll (Miasion~~syHerald 1880:175), The British trading schooner did not land a pasty when she reached Namoluk on 19 April 1875 bac e could loca o pass through the reef (~obertson1877: 51-52), but despite the s of Namaluk's barrier reef, a young American trader, Cearge Bzlrrows, settled briefly on the atoll ila 1880, and he was succeded shortly thereafter by a Dutch trader named mJLcebt*in 1881 (westwood 1905: 119, 131). Unfortunately, we lack records for many of the ships that must have called at Namoluk during this period, although we do know that the Henderson and MacFaxlane trading vessel Belle Cap* ain Harries, visited the atoll in early 1880 (~ana1935: 10 this time on, Naaol&@s esnhct with the outside world increased steadily, and con- tact has hen more or less continuous under the Ceru, Japanese, and AFtlericaasl colonial administrations. Naaaoluk is a small, triangnlar-rshap& coral atoll located at 5' 55* north latitude and 153' 08bsast longitude, approximately 200 kilo- meters southeast of TJpUk in the Eastern Caroline Islands, Namolukfs nearest neighbors atre Eta1 Atoll, lying sone 56 kilometers to the sadheast, and Lasap Atoll situated 105 kilometers to the northwest. Roughly 1.5 kilometers on each side, Pianoluk@sreefs completely encircle a lagoon of about 7.5 square kilometers. Reference to plate 1 shows that the atoll is divided into five isletsr Namoluk, Lukan, TBinola, Uaap, and Ames (also spelled has). The total land area of these five islets is ,834 square kilometers or around 83 hectares, and is distributed as follows a Nmoluk (31 hectares), Amwes (28 hectares), Tbinom (23. hectares), Lukan (l,$ hectares), and Umap (l,5 hectases). It is of geological interest to note that Ltitke (1835) circuaulavi- gat& the atoll early in 1828 and reported only four islets, Given the reliability accorded Llltke's observations by historians, it seers unlikely that this number is in error. Less than twenty years later, another reliable observer of the Pacific scene visited Namoluk and nentioned that the atoll consisted of five islets (~heyne1852s 129). On the basis of this evidencte, it seeas probable that Umap and Tbinom Islets separated into two distinct landforms sometiae between 1828 and 1846. Perhaps the sea broke through during a severe typhoon of uhioh we havs no record (see plate 2). Nmoluk's lagoon, which drops to a depth of 42 fathoms at its center, is among the dd~pestin the Pacific, and the ocean waters sur- rounding the atoll reabh depths well over 400 fathoms only 1.5 kilometers offshore, Soaetime between June 1944, when the U.S.