Owariki or Owa rigi (formerly Santa Catalina) 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 ...

Makira-Ulawa Province Makira-Ulawa Province is one of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands. It is mainly made up of the island of the same name, located east of Guadalcanal. The largest city and capital is Kirakira, in the north of Makira. The province is best know ...

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

Description

This small

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

island is 2.8 km long and 2 km wide. It is located off the eastern end of

Makira The island of Makira (previously known as San Cristóbal) is the largest island of Makira-Ulawa Province in Solomon Islands. It is third most populous of the Solomon Islands after Malaita and Guadalcanal, with a population of 55,126 as of 2020 ...

(San Cristobal) Island, separated from it by a 7.5 km wide strait, and just south of slightly larger

Owaraha Owaraha or Owa Raha (also known as Santa Ana) is an island in Makira-Ulawa Province, Solomon Islands. Description This relatively small coral island is 5.6 km long and 4.5 km wide. It is located at the eastern end of Makira (San Cristo ...

(Santa Ana) Island. The sound between Owaraha and Owariki is only 2.5 km wide. The inhabitants of Owariki speak the

Owa language The Owa language is one of the languages of Solomon Islands. It is part of the same dialect continuum as Kahua, and shares the various alternate names of that dialect. Description Owa is a member of the Southeast Solomonic languages and is spok ...

. They share the same culture with the people on Owaraha and on the eastern end of Makira.

History

First recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of

Álvaro de Mendaña Álvaro or Álvar (, , ) is a Spanish, Galician and Portuguese male given name and surname of Germanic Visigothic origin. The patronymic surname derived from this name is Álvarez. Given name Artists * Álvaro Carrillo, Afro-Mexican songwrit ...

on 4 July 1568. More precisely the sighting and also landing in Owariki was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Ol ...

''Santiago'', commanded by

Francisco Muñoz Rico Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Meaning of the name Francisco In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco (name), Paco". Francis of Assisi, San Francisco de A ...

and having

Hernán Gallego Hernán is a Spanish masculine given name, originating from Germanic Hernan in the Visigoth culture in Spain. It is the Latinized version of the compound name ''Fard-nanth'', which seems to mean "gentle traveler" or "spiritual traveler". The House ...

as pilot. They charted it as ''Santa Catalina''. Owariki was visited, along with neighboring Owaraha, by the

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

anthropologist and photographer

Hugo Bernatzik Hugo Adolf Bernatzik (26 March 1897 – 9 March 1953, born and died in the city of Vienna) was an Austrian anthropologist and photographer. Bernatzik was the founder of the concept of alternative anthropology. Early life Hugo Adolf Bernatzik was ...

in 1932. Bernatzik carefully documented daily life among the island people and published an ethnography a few years later.Hugo Bernatzik, '' Owa Raha''. Büchergilde Gutenberg, Vienna / Zürich / Prague, 1936.

References

External links

* Islands of the Solomon Islands {{SolomonIslands-geo-stub