RACIAL BACKGROUND
It is well established that the Fijians are a mixed people, derived mainly from Melanesian and Polynesian sources. Both of these parental strains in turn are commonly believed to be racial blends. Hooton describes the Melanesians as Oceanic Negroes whose composition includes Negrito, Australoid, "plus convex-nosed Mediterranean plus minor fractions of Malay and Polynesian."[5] Birdsell sees the same three strains in Melanesia which he believes contribute to the Australians, namely Negrito, Murrayan, and Carpentarian, plus a small amount of Mongoloid. He believes they differ from Australians in being "basically negritic in their genetic composition as a result of the rain forest environment."[6] Polynesians, however, are usually thought to be derived from Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid strains in which the Caucasoid component is more often the strongest.
The composite character of the Fijians has been variously explained as far as order and time of the contributing elements are concerned. One theory regards a Negroid stock as aboriginal to which a Polynesian strain was later added. An early explanation of this sort is that of Fornander who held that the ancestors of the modern Polynesians coming from southeastern Asia via Indonesia in the early centuries A.D. made a prolonged stopover in Fiji as they moved eastward. This left a Polynesian imprint on the native Fijian physical appearance as well as on their language and culture.[7] Later on, Churchill added a second movement of Polynesians from the west about a thousand years later. This was used to explain a certain amount of Mongoloid elements that needed accounting for in western Polynesia.[8]
A differing interpretation brings the Polynesian influence into Fiji from the east in relatively recent times. Thomson, for example, regards it as mainly Tongan. There are many references in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to Tongan presence in Fiji; they came to trade, to fight, and merely to visit.
Hocart believes the Polynesians at one time occupied most of Fiji until they were driven eastward to Tonga and Samoa by native Melanesians.[9] Howells tentatively suggests another possibility: originally all of Fiji was occupied by Polynesians except perhaps for some Melanesian tribes in the mountainous interior of Viti Levu. Around the eleventh century a wave of immigrants from the west reached Fiji. "The newcomers, taking possession of the archipelago, partly amalgamated with and partly pushed out the Polynesian tenants, just as did the hill tribes of Hocart's theory, the refugees fleeing to Somoa and Tonga."[10] Howells associates this immigration with the Fijian tradition of an arrival of ancestral families from across the western sea.
This Fijian tradition of their own origin includes a landing on the west coast of Viti Levu at Nandi by an ancestral chief and his sons who came across the sea from the west. Several of his sons moved eastward and eventually founded families with native wives in various parts of the archipelago. These families ultimately became consolidated into present-day tribes or federations. Most Fijian social units derive their origin from this or similar legendary immigrations. These eposodes occurred eight or ten and, in one case, fifteen generations ago.[11] Where these ancestors came from or what their racial affiliations were is not described in the stories. On the basis of supposed similarities of place-names, claims have been made for Africa as the place of origin, but the validity of them is dubious. It is likely that these traditions refer only to the more recent immigrations from the west. As to the racial make-up of the ancestors, it is commonly believed that they were Polynesians who, after settling in various parts of Fiji, took native wives, presumably Melanesian, and originated many of the existing family lines. This assumption does not rest on any actual physical reference to their appearance but on such cultural data as their patrilineal succession and their tradition of strong hereditary chieftainship.