Ethnicity in Fiji

Ethnicity, Language & Religion of the Fiji Islands

Approximately 60% of Fiji's inhabitants are ethnic Fijians, mainly Melanesians, but with significant Polynesian remains (and perhaps more culturally similar to Polynesia). It is this mixture of melanesic and polynesian that makes the peoples of New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu their close family.

Fijians, however, have considerable quantities of Polyynesian genealogy in them, which makes them related to the Tongans and Samoans, among others. Almost 40% of the populace is ethnic in India, although this is a general concept for those who come more from the subcontinent than from ethnicity.

Most of these individuals are from different ethnical groups in India and today almost all of them are a mixture of nationalities. A further 1% of the local inhabitants are known as Rotuman, a distinct ethnical group living on the Rotuma isles. They are really a mixture of Melanesians, Polynesians and Micronesians, but even these Polynesians are closest to the Polynesians in cultural terms, as they consider Samoa to be the birth place of their forebears.

Fiji's population and communities

Perhaps the most metropolitan of all South Pacific countries. Please be aware that the word "European" is used to refer to Fiji's whites, unless otherwise stated. Ratu Sukuna, the deceased Fiji official, called Fiji a "three-legged stool" that needs the help of Fijians, Indians, Europeans and other breeds to maintain it.

Fijian, the aborigines of Fiji, are Melanesians who have a blend of Polyynesian roots that is very pronounced on the east isles ('the Lau group') but less so in the western and interior of the major isles. Most of the present day family descend mainly from foreigners who were sailing or drifting from far away isles to these banks, settling individually or in small groups among the Melanesians who were already occupation of the country.

Polynesia's powerful impact, both physically and culturally, is primarily due to Tongan visitor groups, many of whom have remained or resided in Fiji for years. Thus, Eastern Fiji is the border where two migratory flows - Melanesians from the Western and Polynesians from the Eastern - came together and mixed.

In Fiji, the mixture of these two breeds has created a multitude of natural species, which range from the humans in the south of Lau - light-skinned and very large, with aquilean traits - to the mountain dwellers (Kai Colo), who are dark-skinned, brief and shallow-nosed. The northern Indians-the' Calcuttas' or'Calcutta Wallahs' - came from Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh through the immigrant point of Calcutta and spoke'village' Hindustani.

Enrolled from Madras, Malabar, North Arcot, Vizakapatnam and Tanjore in South India, they talked Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam. Fiji Hindi" has become the lingua franca of Fijians from this cultural merge. Fiji's origins of the Fiji estate date back to the early nineteenth cent. In spite of intramittent commerce, the first 50 years of the 20th centuries ended with no more than 50 whites throughout Fiji.

By 1870, the American civil war and the faith that Fiji would be annihilated by Britain had led to an entrepreneurial and planting industry, and by 1870 the white populace had increased to 2000. Levuka was the most important city in Europe, the most important harbour and trading area. There are many offspring of white Australians, Americans or Europeans who settled either in Levuka, on the quarantined Vanua Levu or on the Fiji outskirts of the nineteenth and early nineteenthcenturies.

Rotumans, an independent group of Polynesians, come from the Rotuma Islands (386 km northwest of Fiji). Rotumans surrendered their islands to Fiji in 1881 and have since been ruled as part of Fiji. Many of them are fully citizens, and many have established themselves on Viti Levu to find greater opportunities.

For the first time, the Chinese, of whom there are about 5,800, came to Fiji in 1911. There are about 7,300 members of other Pacific Islanders. The Tongan people, who have been living in Fiji for centuries as merchants and soldiers, make up the majority of this population. There used to be trade between Tonga and Fiji, and later in the story of this relation the Fijians of the Lau Islands became minions of the King of Tonga.

A special group of Tongans and Samoans came to Fiji was to make druas (large double-hull canoes) that they could not make on their own archipelago because of a shortage of real wood. The Banabans, which originated on the tiny ocean isle, situated just South of the equator near the eastern length of the River 170th, were used by a UK mine to extract the abundant phosphorus resources that occupied their archipelago.

In 1942, when it turned out that the phosphates mining was condemning the Rabi Islands to destruction, the Great Council of Chiefs gave Rabi Islands, near Vanua Levu, to the Banabans as a new home. But before they could move towards the occupation of Rabi Islands, there was a great deal of suffering from the Banabans and a great deal of war.

By the end of the conflict, the remaining people were assembled, some from Nauru, others from the Gilberts (now Kiribati) and the Carolines; and the settlement was underway. On the island of Rabi and throughout Fiji live about 3000 Banabans. Others are Tuvaluans (formerly Ellice Islanders), Samoans and Solomon Islanders heirs.

Solomon Islanders were taken to Fiji in the nineteenth centuary by blackbirder workers (who could kindly be described as labourers) to work the plantation of trees and cottons.