Norfolk Pitcairn Bounty: Myth Narrative Place

The myth of Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island is significant for Pacific contact linguistics, anthropology, and narrative studies. Norfolk toponymy (placenaming) is used to explore aspects of cultural acclimatisation, narrative, and identity construction. The treatment of physical placename signs as observable narrative form and the idea of narrative construction through naming comprise the theoretical scope. Bounty as a heuristic observed in placenames is explored through contemporary small story narratives which operate within the broader big story constructions in the social and linguistic landscape of Pitcairn and Norfolk. Several narratives are put forward which examine how key road names on contemporary Norfolk Island make sense of a Pitcairn and Bounty-inspired past. Placenames as linguistic artefacts and cultural capital demonstrate how settlement, cultural and linguistic adaptation, and the eventual crystallisation of a quintessential way of viewing the Norfolk landscape through Pitcairn and Bounty-originated toponyms has become realised.