Becoming One Body

Palmerston Island: An atoll located in the Cook Islands, it was discovered by explorer James Cook in 1774. The Island was first settled in 1863 by Englishman William Marsters; but here is where things get weird…

William Marsters settled the island with “multiple Polynesian wives” (three) and sired a large family of some 23 children! His youngest daughter died in 1973, at which point the descendants of William Marsters number well over 1000, most of which left the Island and live in New Zealand.

Today some 50 people live on the Island - all descendants of William - and they are essentially broken up into three groups (tribes), each group hails from a particular wife with the established law forbidding marriage within a particular group. In 1954 the family was granted full ownership of the Island.

Talk about starting a new world.