Archives, oral traditions and archaeology: Dissonant narratives concerning punitive expeditions on Malakula Island, Vanuatu

Violent clashes across the islands of the New Hebrides/Nouvelles-Hébrides (Vanuatu since 1980) (Figure 11.1) between Europeans and indigenous populations date from the very first contacts. As was the case for the wider Pacific, clashes related to a multitude of different reasons and motives and were matched by an equally diverse range of reactions and outcomes (e.g. Adams 1984; Douglas 1980; Muckle 2012; Nicole 2011). However, as European empires began to encroach and carve up the wider Pacific in the nineteenth century and their citizens began to settle and proselytise, these clashes became more frequent and increasingly lethal, with a regular