ABSTRACT
Various groups of people are concentrated either in the interior highlands or along coastal zones in the region of Island Melanesia that includes New Britain, New Ireland, and the western Solomons. These islands have an abundance of reptiles, small mammals, birds, fish, and edible insects as well. The use of outrigger and plank-built dugout canoes in Austronesian-speaking groups led to sea-going mobility and trade interisland communication and warfare. One of the most interesting and hitherto little understood art styles in Island Melanesia is that of the Sulka people of Wide Bay, east New Britain, Papua New Guinea. The Tolai people are an Austronesian-speaking group, numbering about one hundred thousand, who live in the northeast part of the Gazelle Peninsula, the Duke of York Islands, and nearby islands near southern New Ireland. In the late-nineteenth century the canoes were made by Tolai clans in the Duke of York Islands, then transported and sold to Tolai on the Gazelle Peninsula.
