NIUE (

See also:

• SAVAGE
• SAVAGE, MINOT JUDSON (1841– )
• SAVAGE, RICHARD (d. 1743)

SAVAGE

See also:

• ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

ISLAND Or NIUE-FEKAI, as the natives

See also:

• CALL (from Anglo-Saxon ceallian, a common Teutonic word, cf. Dutch kallen, to talk or chatter)

call it)  , an island in the South Pacific Ocean, 14 M. long by Io in. wide, in 19° lc' S., 169° 47' W . The entire island is an old coral reef upheaved 20o ft., honeycombed with caves and seamed with fissures . The soil, though thin, is, as in other limestone islands, very rich, and coco-nuts, tara, yams and bananas thrive . There is an abundant rainfall, but owing to the porous nature of the soil the water percolates into deep caves which have communication with the sea, and becomes brackish . The natives, a mixed Polynesian and Melanesian people of Samoan speech, are the most industrious in the Pacific, and many of the young men go as labourers to other islands . The consequent minority of men has been destructive of the sexual morality of the women, which formerly stood high . The. natives are keen traders, and though uncouth in manners when compared with their nearest neighbours, the Tongans and Samoans, are friendly to Europeans . Their hostility to Captain Cook in 1774, which earned from him the name of Savage for the island, was due to their fear of foreign disease, a fear that has since been justified . The population (4079 in 1901) is slightly decreasing . The natives are all Christians, and the majority have learned to read and write, and to speak a little English, under the tuition of the London Missionary Society . They wear European clothes . The island became a British protectorate on the 20th of April 1900, and was made a dependency of New Zealand in October 1900, the native government, of an elected " king " and a council of headmen, being maintained .

In 1900 there were thirteen Europeans on the island . The exports are

copra, fungus and straw hats, which the women plait very cleverly . See T . H . Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S . "Fawn" (Edinburgh, 1863) ; J . L . Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of the " Curacoa " (London, 1873); B . H . Thomson, Savage Island (London, 1902) .