Umboi (also named Rooke or Siassi) is a

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

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 ...

between the mainland of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

and the island of

New Britain New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...

. It is separated from New Britain by the Dampier Strait, and

Huon Peninsula Huon Peninsula is a large rugged peninsula on the island of New Guinea in Morobe Province, eastern Papua New Guinea. It is named after French explorer Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec. The peninsula is dominated by the steep Saruwaged and Finist ...

and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

by the

Vitiaz Strait Vitiaz Strait is a strait between New Britain and the Huon Peninsula, northern New Guinea. The Vitiaz Strait was so named by Nicholai Nicholaievich Mikluho-Maklai to commemorate the Russian corvette '' Vitiaz'' in which he sailed from Octob ...

. It has an elevation of . The Siassi Archipelago lies off the southeast coast of Umboi Island (a total of 18 islands, only seven are inhabited).

History

During the mid-1920s, the population of the Siassi Islands was a little over 700 people. It had more than doubled (to almost 1700 people) by the early 1960s, and then decreased to a little more than 1600 people by the early 1980s. In 1936 a Lutheran mission was established on the island which was headed by Pastor P.H Freund. in 1940 Freund was recruited by Lt. Commander Eric Feldt of the Royal Australian Navy to act as a

Coastwatcher The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II ...

. During 1943 the island was briefly occupied by 500 Japanese troops from the 51st Reconnaissance Regiment which was commanded by Col. Jiro Sato. By early December 1943, after several allied bombing runs, the Japanese withdrew from the island.

Inhabitants

The Siassi support themselves through traditional trade based on a barter system; they are important middlemen who deliver pigs, pots and ornate wooden bowls by sea in their canoes.The Influence of Overseas Trade on Housing Quality Among the Siassi of Papua New Guinea
/ref> The people of the Siassi islands continue to believe in witchcraft and consider it to be the root cause of unfortunate events such as illness or crop failure. The regional word for witchcraft is sanguma and the accused are often murdered.

Buildings

A majority of the buildings on the Siassi islands are constructed using

vernacular architecture Vernacular architecture (also folk architecture) is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range a ...

Languages

Languages are Papuan Kovai; and Austronesian: Mbula, Karanai, and Saveng languages. Umboi Island NASA

Volcano

The volcano is described as a complex Holocene volcano and has no recorded eruptions.

Folklore

Local

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

claims that a large

bioluminescent Bioluminescence is the emission of light during a chemiluminescence reaction by living organisms. Bioluminescence occurs in multifarious organisms ranging from marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms inc ...

winged creature, referred to as a Ropen, can be observed flying around the skies of this and other surrounding islands. Modern

Cryptozoologists Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness M ...

are still searching for this creature and no definitive evidence has ever been discovered.

References

* Islands of Papua New Guinea Volcanoes of Papua New Guinea Subduction volcanoes Complex volcanoes Morobe Province {{MorobeProvince-geo-stub