"It's hard for anyone who has not actually lived on the island to realize its isolation from the rest of the world. It is so small that one is rarely out of sight or sound of the sea. [The maximum distance from the center of the island to the coast is three-quarters of a mile.] The native concept of space bears a distinct relation to this. They find it almost impossible to conceive of any really large land mass...I was once asked seriously by a group of them, 'Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?' Their confinement has another less obvious result. For all kinds of spatial reference they use the expressions inland and to seawards. Thus an axe lying on the floor of a house is localized in this way, and I have even heard a man direct the attention of another in saying: 'There is a spot of mud on your seaward cheek.' Day by day, month after month, nothing breaks this level line of a clear horizon, and there is no faint haze to tell of the existence of any other land."
Raymond Firth
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