Vanuatu

A women’s dance from Vanuatu, using bamboo stamping tubes. *Photo from Wikipedia July 30 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Vanuatu from the United Kingdom and France in 1980. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island in 1606. As the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies had been unified under the king of Spain in 1580 (following the vacancy of the Portuguese throne, which lasted for sixty years, until 1640, when the Portuguese monarchy was restored), Queirós