Small-scale sea naming in Oceania: Island toponymies and Pitcairn Island fishing ground names

Abstract

This article reflects on the results of documenting fishing ground naming history on and around three islands in Oceania - Norfolk Island (South Pacific), Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island (South Australia), and Pitcairn Island (South Pacific) - and placenaming practices more generally encompassing islands, insularity, isolation, and the sea. The major study is Pitcairn Island. This island is both a toponymic dream and placenaming encumbrance. There are more than 500 placenames contained within an d just offshore the five-kilometre square island, a volcanic outcrop famed as the home of the descendants of the British mutineers of the Bounty and their Polynesian entourage. The Pitcairn Islanders have named hydronyms surrounding their island primarily as utilitarian linguistic and historical tools used for locating fishing grounds. These sea names are not only stark examples of maritime and aquatic cultural heritage; they illustrate how perceptions and processes of naming the marine environment relate to and can inform terrestrial naming. The interaction involving small - scale sea names and names as folk capital is presented as a possible mandate for creating a peaceful reconciliation between naming sea and land. The Pacific example is extended to the ongoing dispute between Korea and Japan regarding naming the East Sea/Sea of Japan .