Naming the sea. Offshore fishing grounds as place names on Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island

Abstract

Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island place names depict a colourful aspect of the history of the islands. This paper presents and develops an undocumented facet of esoteric and unofficial place-naming on both islands namely locating and naming offshore fishing grounds and argues that this taxon is an important component of the place name landscape as well as the cultural history of the islands. A list of 10 Pitcairn fishing ground names and a list of 10 Norfolk fishing ground names are analysed considering (1) the nature of the place name lexicon, (2) the spatial aspect of locating and talking about the fishing grounds, and (3) the similarities between naming and locating of fishing grounds on Pitcairn and Norfolk. Data elicitation techniques are also described. The results suggest that the names of these offshore locations form a type of sea-based cognitive map especially important in the isolated island situation and argues that the implications of this research and field methods to other island environments should not be underestimated.