Melanesian?

Micronesian or Melanesian?

Correct Classification of Fijian

Letter to the Editor ARE you correct in describing the Fijians as “Micronesions?” Are they not Melanesians? I know they are so described by most scientists —although all admit that they have been very strongly influenced by their contacts with Poly nesia.

Micronesia (“the sea of many small islands”) is the area north of the Equator which contains mostly the Caroline, Mari ana and Marshall archipelagoes. How, then, can Fiji be regarded as part of Micronesia?

I am, etc.,

Anthropologist

Sydney, 17/3/47.

Editorial Note:

MAYBE we are wrong in describing the Fijians as Micronesians. But, if they are not Micronesians, what shall we call them? They are one of the best races in the Pacific, and it is not fair to them to grade them with the more backward peoples embraced by the term “Melanesian.”

Here are some definitions from standard works of reference which have a bearing on the point. Webster’s Dictionary de fines “Micronesian”:— “A native of Micronesia, which is in habited by a variety of people mostly of mixed Melanesian, Polynesian and Malay sian stocks. The types vary from the almost Polynesian people of the Gilbert Islands to the Malayan people of the Ladrones (Mariana Islands).”

Here is what Chamber’s Encyclopaedia says of the Fijians; “They are in race akin to the Papuans . . . but an ad mixture of the lighter Polynesians has been brought in from Tonga and else where and has, especially in the eastern islands, leavened the native Melanesian breed.”

This is from the Fiji Government’s Hand book, edited by Mr. L. G. Usher: “In Fiji, the broad ethnological divisions known as Polynesia and Melanesia meet; and while the Fijians are predominantly Melanesian, there are in certain coastal areas, and particularly eastwards of Viti Levu, strong evidences of Polynesian in fluence of long standing.”

Scientifically, the Gilbertese is classi fied as a Micronesian; but the Gilbertese, while a man of excellent type, is not nigher in the human scale than the Fijian.

WE contend that, as the terms Poly nesian, Micronesian and Melanesian have an ethnological as well as a geographical meaning, we may call the Fijians Micronesians, even although they do not live in Micronesia proper. Strictly, the Gilbert Islands may not be in Micro nesia; but no one will question the classi fication of the Gilbertese as a Micronesian.

The majority of the Fijians seem to more closely resemble the Gilbertese than any other racial type.

There are pockets of Polynesians away over westwards, in Melanesia. They are still Polynesians.

True, there is a wider diversity of racial types in Melanesia than in any other part of the Pacific —maybe, than in any other similar region in the world. Dr. lan Hogbin, in a recent article in an anthro pological magazine, named about a dozen types of “Melanesians” which are mostly dark-skinned. On that basis, one could easily enough include the Fijians.

But the term “Melanesian” implies a somewhat backward people. The Fijians are not backward—they compare favour ably with any Pacific Islands race. Apart from strict anthropology, there are just as good reasons for calling them Micro nesians, as Melanesians; and the former term carries no reproach. Even on an anthropological basis, it is possible to claim that they are Micronesians. Presumably, the Webster Dictionary definition was written by an anthropologist.