Aniwa is a small island in the southernmost province of Tafea, Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...

. As a coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

 island (a raised coral atoll

Raised coral atoll

A raised coral atoll is a typical atoll which has been lifted high enough above sea level by tectonic forces to protect it from scouring by storms and enable soils and diverse – often endemic – species of flora and fauna to develop...

), it rises a mere 42 m above sea level. In the northwest is Itcharo (Tiaro) lagoon, which is open to the sea. The nearest large island is Tanna, about 24 km to the southwest.

Like the nearby West Futuna, it is a Polynesian outlier

Polynesian outlier

Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian islands which lie in geographic or political Melanesia and Micronesia. Based on archaeological and linguistic analysis, these islands are believed to have been colonized by seafaring Polynesians, mostly from the area of Tonga, Samoa and...

, and thus its inhabitants originally came from Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

, and the Wallis and Futuna

Wallis and Futuna

Wallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands , is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific between Tuvalu to the northwest, Rotuma of Fiji to the west, the main part of Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast,...

 group instead of the Melanesia

Melanesia

Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...

ns of other nearby islands, although there has been much intermarriage with Tanna over the generations. The language of both islands is Futunan

Futuna-Aniwan

Futuna-Aniwa is the Polynesian language spoken on the outlier islands of Futuna and Aniwa in Vanuatu. It is also occasionally called West-Futunan to distinguish it from East-Futunan spoken on Futuna and Alofi in Wallis and Futuna....

, in the Futunic branch

Futunic languages

-External links:*...

 of Nuclear Polynesian languages

Nuclear Polynesian languages

Nuclear Polynesian refers to those languages comprising the Samoic and the Eastern Polynesian branches of the Polynesian group of Austronesian languages....

, though the dialects between the two islands are distinct. Population is about 500 in five distinct villages:

1. Itamotou
2. Imalé
3. Isavaï
4. Ikaokao
5. Namsafoura

The main village is Ikaokao, located in the centre of the south of the island, followed by Isavai in the islands' centre. The John Frum

John Frum

John Frum is a figure associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. He is often depicted as an American World War II serviceman, who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him. He is sometimes portrayed as black, sometimes as white; from David Attenborough's...

 cargo cult

Cargo cult

A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices...

exists in Ikaokao, and is unaffected by the touristic involvement that has modified the cult in Tanna. There is an air strip in the north with flights from Port Vila twice a week. Anchorage is challenging in 20m on the west coast of the island, identifiable by a white square painted onto the coral face.