Population
Given its small dimensions, it is not surprising that Araki Island has always had a low population. Census records as early as 1897 give 103 islanders, while there were 112 in 1989, and 121 in 1999. However, this number does not accurately reflect the number of persons, who really live permanently on Araki Island: because of sustenance difficulties, many Arakians are forced to seek work on the main island of Espiritu Santo. As a result, several men, or even whole families, divide their time between the island and the mainland.
The Arakian community is divided into 5 hamlets or villages. From west to east, these are: Pelinta, Parili, Parili-Aru, Vinapahura, and Sope. These are essentially extended family clans; these clans can be referred to as 'vapa' (literally 'cave'). In addition, there is a common area close to Sope, called the Mission. This is where the church, meeting house, cooperative, aid post, the Chief's house, the Pastor's house, and the women's club house are located.
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Famous quotes containing the word population:
“We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)