“Eukonbsian”

The Need For A New Word

Letter to the Editor, THE term “half-caste” is not a pleasant one. Sometimes it is also inaccurate, as when applied to “quarter-castes”. Moreover, the term gives no indication of racial deriva tion.

A new name is needed for peoples of mixed European and Pacific Islands races. We cannot have “Anglo- Polynesian”, because one parent may not have been English, but German, Scandinavian, or French; or, instead of Polynesian, one parent may have been Fijian, Papuan, Micronesian, or Melanesian.

Why not introduce the name “Euronesian”, instead of “half-caste”, or “persons of native and European descent”, as Fiji’s 1936 Census Report states? Euro-nesian, meaning of European and Islands origin, would be applicable to any “white” paren tage, and also would include all Poly nesian, Melanesian or Micronesian races. As a name for persons of mixed descent, it sounds far better than “half-caste”.

People born of European and East Indian parentage have long been called “Eurasian” (European and Asiatic), though during the past quarter of a century it has been the proper thing to refer to this com munity in India as “Anglo-Indian”.

But that is no reason why such people in the north-west Pacific should not be called “Eurasian”, if we can bring into general use “Euronesian”, along side Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian.

And, to complete and simplify the racial classification among the Pacific peoples, why not refer to “Sino nesians”, for the numerous offspring of Chinese'and Islands peoples; and maybe Japonesians for those with Japanese parentage?

In particular, I would like to re commend to your numerous readers the use of the tern* “Euronesian” in journalism, official reports, etc*., as passed on to me as a suggestion by one who has lived for many years among the “half-qastes” of Fiji, and esteems them highly, I am, etc.,

Anti-Caste.

Suva, Fiji, 17 July, 1938.

Editorial Note: The suggestion probably will comsmend Itself to everyone who knows the Pacific ter ritories, and who has felt diffidence in describing the usually attractive and intelligent people of mixed blood as

“half-castes”. There is no reproach, actual or implied, in “half-caste”, yet few people like it. In Western Samoa, for instance, the 3,000 or 4,000 people of mixed parentage—who unquestion ably are the best-looking and brightest community in that territory—are re ferred to always as “local-born”. It is a term that practically is meaning less —all children born in Samoa could be described as “local-born”— but it has been generally adopted as an alternative to “half-caste”, which is a word never used in Samoa.

There are many thousands of good class people in the Pacific Islands who are offspring of unions between Europeans, on the one side, and Poly nesians, Melanesians or Micronesians on the other—marriages between Europeans and Polynesians especially have been numerous—who are en titled to a better racial description and status than are indicated by the word “half-caste”.

We hope that the suggestion will find favour among the Administra tions, and among those who write frequently on Pacific Islands affairs.