Columbus named Dominica for Sunday—Kalinago still say Waitukubuli
Dominica, a Windward Commonwealth isle with capital Roseau, is the youngest Lesser Antilles volcanic island, still geothermal enough to host Boiling Lake, the world’s second-largest hot spring. Arawaks arrived in the fifth century; Kalinago displaced or mixed with them before Columbus sighted land on Sunday, 3 November 1493.
Roseau sits on the western coast, and the nearest neighbours are two French overseas departments, Guadeloupe to the north-west and Martinique to the south-south-east. The island covers 750 square kilometres and rises to 1,448 metres at Morne Diablotins; the 2011 census counted 71,293 people. It first rose from the sea in the Oligocene about 26 million years ago, the last Caribbean island built by the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc, and magma still stirs beneath it.
Known as the Nature Island of the Caribbean, it has steep rainforests full of rare plants and animals, dry scrub on parts of the west coast and heavy rain inland. The critically endangered Sisserou parrot, or imperial amazon, lives nowhere else; it is the national bird and appears on the flag, making Dominica one of only two sovereign states with purple on theirs.
Paleo-Indians may have come first, in the late Pleistocene. Kalinago tradition speaks of living alongside and marrying into the Arawak rather than simply expelling them. Their name for the island, Wai'tu kubuli, means tall is her body, probably picturing the land as a goddess. France dominated from 1690 to 1763 and brought enslaved West Africans to work coffee estates; Britain took over after the Seven Years' War, kept forced labour and gradually made English official. Independence as a republic came in 1978.
Columbus's name abbreviates Latin dies Dominica, the Lord's day, and is stressed on the second i in the Spanish way. Because of confusion with the Dominican Republic, including misdirected mail, some islanders want to rename the country Waitukubuli; opponents say the change would cost too much.
Source: Dominica
