Nui ,Tuvalu:

Nui is an atoll and one of nine districts of the Pacific Ocean state of Tuvalu. It has a land area of 3.37 km² and a population of 548 (2002 census).The people of Nui speak the Gilbertese language, the language of Kiribati, and Tuvaluan, the official language of Tuvalu. The ancestors of Nui came from both Samoa and the Gilbert Islands in what is now Kiribati. Traditionally Nuian culture is organised in three family circles - Tekaubaonga, Tekaunimala and Tekaunibiti families.The island was first sighted by Europeans on 16 January 1568 by Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña, who named it Isla de Jesús (Spanish for "Island of Jesus") because it was discovered on the day following the feast of the Holy Name. There are no less than six accounts of this event, that of Mendaña himself being as follows:

"A little after nine o'clock in the morning, a lad called Trejo, being aloft, first sighted land upon the starboard side to the southwest...When we drew near, we found it so small that it was no more than six leagues in circumference. This island was very full of trees like palms; towards the north it had a reef, which entered the sea a quarter of a league, and towards the south was another smaller reef. On the west side it had a strand lying lengthways, with reefs in different parts. This is on the west side, for we could not go round the east side because of the weather. Taking this island from the sea outwards, it has the shape of two galleys, with a copse in the middle which appears like a fleet of ships"Mendaña found the island inhabited and five canoes came nearly within bow shot of his ship, when their occupants raised their paddles and turned back with shouts. Mendaña thereupon ordered signals to be made to them with a white cloth to try and get them to return, instead of which they landed and in turn stuck up signals along the shore. At night one one of the ships showed a light, it was copied by a fire, and when it was put out the fire extinguished also. Hernán Gallego pilot of Mendaña says the natives were "naked and mulattoes" and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, cosmographer in the expedition reported that the island "had a large fishery". As it was late Mendaña decided to defer landing until the morning and kept the ships tacking all night. With the dawn, however, a strong westerly storm blew up, and although they tried all day to regain the island they were at length compelled to give up.

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