Nov 16, 2009

Call It Courage | Setting

The story is set in ancient times before European traders and missionaries arrived in Polynesia, a group of widely scattered islands in that part of the Pacific Ocean known as the South Seas. In this region, there are typically two kinds of islands—low-lying, coral atolls, and high, mountainous volcanic islands.

A coral atoll is built up over centuries by the skeletons of the coral polyp and rises only a few feet above sea level. It seldom consists of more than a few square miles of land, planted with coconut groves and surrounding a peaceful, inner lagoon. Hikueru, Mafatu's...