Lelepa (or Lélépa) is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the southwestern Pacific island nation of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. It is located off the northwest coast of the island of

Efate Efate (), also known as Île Vate (), is an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the Shefa Province in Vanuatu. Geography It is the most populous (approx. 66,000) island in Vanuatu. Efate's land area of makes it Vanuatu's third larg ...

Geography

Lelepa has a length of about five kilometres in north-south direction and an area of 160 hectares. The highest point is Mt. Tifit (202 m). The population of Lelepa is about 500 people. The largest town on the island Natapao (pop. 350), is located on the southern edge of the island. At the northern end of the island lies the village Lelo. On the island there is a school, a kindergarten and two churches (

Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Christianity, Reformed Protestantism, Protestant tradition named for its form of ecclesiastical polity, church government by representative assemblies of Presbyterian polity#Elder, elders, known as ...

and

Seventh-day Adventists The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabba ...

). Together with the neighbouring islands Moso and Efate, Lelepa forms the natural harbor Havannah Harbour, named after the British ship ''HMS Havannah'' that twice anchored there in 1849-50. The local language is Lelepa language, spoken by about 400 people. It is sometimes considered a dialect of

South Efate language The Nafsan language, also known as South Efate or Erakor, is a Southern Oceanic language spoken on the island of Efate in central Vanuatu. , there are approximately 6,000 speakers who live in coastal villages from Pango to Eton. The language's g ...

Fele's Cave

On the southwestern side of the island is Fels Cave. The name ''Falesa'' denotes a cave in the Nakanamanga language, ''Fels'' or ''Feles'' are local dialect variants. Within the cave, there are many rock drawings, up to 3000 years old rock. Since 2008, the cave has been part of

Chief Roi Mata's Domain Roi Mata (or Roy Mata, Roymata) was a chiefly title in the Shepherd Islands, central islands of Vanuatu. It was borne by a long dynasty of chiefs, from the 11th century, 11th to the 17th century.#bessis, Bessis (2023), pp.56-57, 88-90. Among the ...

, which was designated a

UNESCO World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

. According to legend, the principal chief

Roi Mata Roi Mata (or Roy Mata, Roymata) was a chiefly title in the central islands of Vanuatu. It was borne by a long dynasty of chiefs, from the 11th to the 17th century. Bessis (2023), pp.56-57, 88-90. Among the bearers of the ''Roi Mata'' title, the ...

died in this cave, towards the end of the sixteenth century. From the entrance, there is a direct view of

Eretoka Eretoka (also Hat Island, Érétoka, Retoka, Artok) is a small uninhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. The island lies off the western coast of Efate Island. There is a lighthouse built in the 1960s. Geography Eret ...

, where he was buried. In other legends the cave was the residence of the first carrier of the title Chief Roi Mata. Fels Cave, at an elevation of 22 metres, opens from a six metre high entrance to a height of 35 metres. Its diameter is about 50 metres, with an approximately circular floor plan. The surrounding rock, locally called ''fta'', consists of volcanic

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

and

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of extremely vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicula ...

. It is protected from erosion by the overlying

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, an uplifted

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

Except for the darkened rear wall, all the walls of the cave are covered to head height with

cave paintings In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by ''Hom ...

, some of which overlap each other. The oldest ones are red spots and handprints, probably dating from the first millennium BCE, assigned to the

Lapita culture The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian peoples, Austronesian people and their distinct material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed t ...

. However, most of the pictures are black line drawings. Among them are some that are 1,500 years old, but most were made much later; the most recently dated ones are from the eighteenth century. The illustrations show birds, fish, and anthropomorphic figures. Abstract designs include simple and complex geometric figures such as angles, triangles and diamond shapes. The largest human representation, according to tradition, is that of Roi Mata. Excavations show no evidence that the cave was ever inhabited. In earthquakes, it is regularly threatened by

rockslide A rockslide is a type of landslide caused by rock failure in which part of the bedding plane of failure passes through compacted rock and material collapses ''en masse'' and not in individual blocks. Note that a rockslide is similar to an ava ...

s. In the last major earthquake in 2002, part of the entrance collapsed. For residents of Lelepa the cave is considered tapu. According to local beliefs, after death one's soul moves into the Fels Cave. It is said that one can then find their footprints at the entrance. There is a tradition to sweep that area after a death and to look for the footprints the next morning, which is still occasionally observed.

Tourism

Fels Cave has attracted European visitors since the nineteenth century. At the entrance of the cave, there is graffiti from travelers going back to 1874. The municipality Natapau operates a travel company that brings visitors daily by canoe to the island. The island gained fame from the opening sequence of the US television show Survivor: Vanuatu, in which the contestants are on the beach of Lelepa. However, the actual jungle camp was on Efate in Mangaliliu. In October 2019, the

Prime Minister of Vanuatu The prime minister of Vanuatu is the head of government of the Vanuatu, Republic of Vanuatu. The office of prime minister was created under the Constitution of Vanuatu upon the country's independence in 1980, with independence campaigner Walt ...

and

Royal Caribbean International Royal Caribbean International (RCI), formerly Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line founded in 1968 in Norway and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Florida, it is the l ...

announced plans for the cruise line to develop a private resort on the island.

References

External links

Entry
on UNESCO World Heritage Site
Nomination
(PDF, 43 MB) from the Republic of Vanuatu for the entrance of Chief Roi Mata's Domain in the World Heritage List, 2006–07
Lelepa Island ToursTravel report
and pictures from Lelepa

article in the ''

Vanuatu Daily Post The ''Vanuatu Daily Post'' is a newspaper published in Port Vila in Vanuatu. It is the only daily newspaper in Vanuatu. In 1993, British journalist Marc Neil-Jones acquired the rights to publish the periodical ''The Trading Post'' and used it ...

'', September 29, 2008 {{authority control Shefa Province Islands of Vanuatu