Melanesia

Melanesia is one of the twenty-two geographic subregions into which the UN divides the world for statistical purposes, and one of the four belonging to Oceania. It is made up of five countries: Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, the Western New Guinea region of Indonesia and a territory dependent on France, New Caledonia.

It was defined, for the first time, by the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832. It extends from the western Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea and has Australia to the south, its western limit is the line of Weber (in Indonesia), to the north Micronesia and to the east Polynesia. This term was proposed to refer to a group of islands that were considered ethnically and geographically distinct from those of Polynesia and Micronesia.

Traditional Melanesia

Dumont d'Urville divided Oceania into four distinct regions:

• Malaysia, a term under which Dumont d'Urville regrouped current Malaysia, the Philippines, and most of Indonesia.
• Melanesia, the black islands of the Greek Melas"black," and nerds"Island."
• Micronesia, the small islands of the Greek micro"small," and nerds"Island."
• Polynesia, the numerous islands of the Greek poly"multiple," and nerds"Island."

The nations of Papua New Guinea, Solomon, Vanuatu and New Caledonia use the term Melanesian to describe themselves, because it reflects their common colonial past and present regional situation. The aforementioned areas form the core of modern Melanesia. However, some adjacent islands in other countries are often considered an outlying part of Melanesia.

The following islands are traditionally considered part of the region Melanesia:

• Ethnic population islands Papua:
  • Island of New Guineadivided into 2: east by the Independent State of Papua New Guinea and west New West Guinea (Indonesian Provinces of Papua and West Papua).
  • Bougainville Island, belongs to Papua New Guinea.
  • Torres Strait Islands, belong to Australia.
  • The Moluccas Islands belonging to Indonesia (Indonesian Provinces of Molucas and Northern Moluccas).

• Ethnic population islands Melanesian-oceanic:
  • Archipelago Bismarck, belonging to Papua New Guinea and where the largest island is New Britain.
  • Archipelago of Solomon Islands, are part of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
  • Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea.
  • Vanuatu Islands, called New Hybrids in the Anglo-French colonial era.
  • New Caledonia, with particular status dependent on France.

Other islands near the Melanesian region whose population has diverse ancestors are:

• Fiyi (related to polynesians), usually considered part of Melanesia.
• Isla de Flores (Indonesia)
• Nauru, a micron republic.
• Sumba (Malayos and Melanes), Indonesian island.
• Tonga (Polynesians), kingdom of islands east of Fiyi.
• Norfolk Island (Poliness), belongs to Australia.

Melanesia between Far Oceania and Near Oceania

This traditional subdivision is today the subject of controversy for lacking a geographical, historical, ethnological and linguistic basis. Although the indigenous populations use it to redefine their identity after colonial decline, experts today prefer to adopt the concepts of Near Oceania and Far Oceania, used in the latest anthropological, archaeological, biological and linguistic research carried out during the last third of the century. XX.

According to this new classification, most of Melanesia is included in Near Oceania, while the islands located southeast of the Solomon Islands, such as Vanuatu and Fiji, are part of Far Oceania.

Ethnic and linguistic characteristics

Many currently consider that their ethnic classification is inadequate, due to the cultural and linguistic diversity of Melanesia. Unlike Polynesia, the peoples of Melanesia (like those of Micronesia) do not show a homogeneous historical-cultural past. Studies of their languages, their human biological variations, and their cultures defy any attempt at categorization, and demonstrate a diversity and heterogeneity not found anywhere else in the world of a similar size. This region encompasses two linguistically distinct groups., speakers of Papuan languages and those of Melanesian Oceanic languages; the latter related to the Micronesian and Polynesian languages (Austronesian family); For their part, the languages spoken by the indigenous Australians of the Torres Strait Islands, located north of the state of Queensland, are genetically related to the Papuan languages.

Melanesia is an example of extreme multilingualism, with languages spoken by sometimes very small ethnic groups: the island of New Guinea alone has around 750 Papuan languages, and the other Austronesian languages are spread across many islands. This linguistic diversity has led to the appearance of many pidgins in urban areas where it was necessary to have a common language of communication. They are mostly derived from Kanaka Pidgin English spoken in the Australian state of Queensland, on whose plantations the islanders of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and to a lesser extent New Guinea worked in the 20th century XIX and early 20th century. The multilingualism of the cities and the high percentage of marriages between people from different ethnic groups have allowed these pidgins to stabilize and that some have recently become recognized as creole languages. In Vanuatu, Bislama has official language status along with English and French. In Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin is the official language along with English and another pidgin, hiri motu. In the Solomon Islands, pidgin is the country's lingua franca but has no official status. These languages are mutually intelligible despite lexical and syntactic differences.

Ethnic considerations

The natives are dark skinned; The hair of the Papuans is almost black, generally curly, but the Oceanic Melanesians, who are also dark-skinned, have hair in various shades ranging from black to bright blonde or intensely golden, which is due to their own genetic variant. of the region linked to chromosome 9, with no relation to European blonde hair. Although these racial considerations based on the mere observation of physical features have predominated in the century XIX and in the first part of the XX century, are considered today as obsolete, given the high degree of miscegenation and linguistic diversity. However, researchers from the University of Washington (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have discovered a significant amount of Denisova man DNA in their genes. Specifically, 2% to 4% of the genome of these natives is Denisovan.

Agriculture and hunting

The basic agricultural technique consists of choosing a piece of land in the forest, clearing it with the ax and fire and cultivating it until the plot is exhausted, at which time a new piece of forest land is cleared. The cultivation plots of the Melanesians are scattered throughout the surrounding forest, extending from the coast itself to considerable distances into the heights of the immediate mountainous area. In this way, four levels of cultivation can be distinguished: the sandy belt that rises progressively from the beach itself, where the coconut trees grow; the flat lands, with rich and fertile black soil where yams and fruit trees are planted; the gentle slopes of the mountain and finally, the higher levels, where the harder yams and taro are grown.

At the same time, if we focus on hunting, pigs are not the only source of meat in Mellanesia. Men dedicate part of their time to hunting, to provide themselves with that supplement. Wild pigs, rats, bats and a large number of birds, which are the most abundant animals, are hunted. The most common hunting weapon is the bamboo or wooden bow, which requires arrows of various types, with a tree-shaped bamboo head. The spear is used to hunt larger animals. Nets or traps are also used, sometimes made of bamboo spikes, covered with branches and leaves.

Melanesian group Punta de Lanza

A representative group of the region is the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), which is a commercial and cultural agreement conceived in 1986 by three Melanesian countries: Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Later, Fiji and an independence group from New Caledonia (French dependency) joined, in addition to having a relationship with pro-Republic activists from West Papua (Indonesian territory).

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