Rambutyo Island

European discovery of the island took place as part of the 1616 expedition by the Dutch navigators Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, who "traversed Manus, Los Negros,Los Reyes, Pak, Naura, Rambutvo, Baluan, Sauwai, Lou, Tong other small islands".

The Australian presence was small, but introduced health programs, censuses and patrols, dispute adjudication and schooling, leading to greater use of Pidgin and English.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead, who lived on Manus Island in 1928-29 and 1953, reported a "cargo-cult" movement began on Rambutyo just after WWII, in which people destroyed all their possessions in expectation of a millennial coming.

The movement spread to other islands but the "prophet" Wapi was killed when the spirits of the dead never materialized with the "white man's cargo".

[9] The island had copra plantations under private European and Japanese ownership during the period of German and Australian rule.

[10] Lengendrowa plantation was bought in 1964 to form a cooperative, with 269 people moving from Mouk Island off Baluan.