ABSTRACT
The islander is characterized by a sensibility that might, for want of a better word, be termed islecentrality. For Staten Islanders, as for St. Johnians, the most important distinguishing feature of a person was whether he or she was “an islander.” Insularity is a concept, to judge from its etymology that was thought up by non-islanders and it certainly has no purchase among islanders. Islanders are, in fact, by and large, anything but insular. The islander may be detached from land transport, suggesting that the islander is “stranded” and immobilized, but the opportunities for movement by water are enormous. It is through this movement, rather than through immobilization that the islander develops the special sense of being unto an island, distinct from settled, land-bound continentals. The sculptural form of the stone, grounded in the native landscape, and the tale of a distant doom, carved in runes, seemed to express two sides to the same island-centered story.
