ANZ presents
Countries and the Cultures, pt. 4
New Caledonia
(143
delegates, 7 VIPs)
.jpg) New
Caledonia is located in the southwest Pacific Ocean approximately
746 miles east of Australia. Its capital Nouméa is the
seat of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the sponsoring
organization for the Festival of Pacific Arts.
New Caledonia
is an ancient fragment of the Gondwana super-continent. New Caledonia
and New Zealand separated from Australia 85 million years ago,
and from one another 55 million years ago. This isolated New
Caledonia from the rest of the world's land masses and the archipelago
is now considered one of the world's most botanical-important,
and critically endangered environments.
It is believed
that this area of the Pacific was populated over 50,000 years
ago. Coming around 1500 B.C. a diverse group of people known
as the Lapita settled the area and are the same people who traveled
to Samoa and Tonga and evolved into Polynesians. From about the
11th century Polynesians also arrived and mixed with the populations
of the region.
Once again it
was the British explorer James Cook who sighted Grande Terre
in 1774 and named it New Caledonia, Caledonia being the Latin
name for Scotland.
Colonized by
the French in 1853, the unique status of New Caledonia is in
between that of an independent country and a normal Overseas
department of France. For the population of French origin, "New
Caledonia is France." However, in the 1970s, local nationalist
movements took up the name "Kanak" as a symbol of the
colonized people's unity.
The country is
split along lines of racial heritage - on one side are Kanaks
with their customs and nationalistic intentions while on the
other side are communities that wish to keep New Caledonia as
part of the French republic.
New Caledonia
will decide whether to remain within the French Republic or become
an independent state in a referendum sometime after 2014.
New Zealand (120 delegates, 2 VIPs)
 The
land of New Zealand was also formed by the seperation from the
ancient super continent of Gondwana 80 million years ago, evolving
over time to become modern New Zealand.
Polynesians discovered and settled New Zealand some time between
950 and 1130 AD. The Moriori people settled, possibly around
the same time, the Chatham Islands, or Rekohu, a small group
of islands off the coast of New Zealand.
The descendants of the Polynesian settlers became known as the
Maori, evolving into a distinct culture of their own; linguistic
evidence indicates that the Moriori were mainland Maori who ventured
eastward.
In 1642 the first
of the European explorers, Abel Janszoon Tasman from Holland,
sailed into New Zealand waters and the first encounter between
Maori and European was violent, leading to bloodshed.
In 1769 Brit
explorer James Cook had competition from Jean François
Marie de Surville, commander of a French trading ship. Both arrived
by coincidence in New Zealand waters at the same time. But to
Cook, his reputation as "first" among explorers was
preserved because neither ship ever sighted the other.
New Zealand today
is an independent nation within the British Commonwealth.
In 1840 the Treaty
of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various
Maori chiefs.
While the Treaty
gave Maori control over their lands and possessions and all of
the rights of British citizens, what it gave the British in return
depends on the language-version of the Treaty to which you refer.
The English version is said to give the British Crown sovereignty
over New Zealand but in the Maori version the Crown receives
kawanatanga.
A literal translation
of the word would be governorship. From an idiomatic perspective,
this word had little meaning to the chiefs who signed the treaty,
since the concept of being governed by an overseeing authority
was alien to Maori. Dispute over the true meaning and the intent
of either party remains an issue.
Niue (number of delegates
& VIPs unknown)
 One
of the world's largest coral islands and smallest self governing
states, Niue is located about 350 miles southeast of Samoa. The
origin of the word Niue has not been discovered. It is in free
association with New Zealand.
Even though Niueans
are believed to have descended from both Samoan and Tongan voyagers,
today one can find the Samoan influence more prominent, as Christianity
came with Samoan missionaries.
Early, the island
included two warring factions that occupied separate territories
of the 10 mile by 7 mile island in a northern region called Motu
(Samoan) and a southern region called Tafiti (Tongan). It was
not annexed by one of the European powers until 1900, long after
most other Pacific islands.
Captain James
Cook and his crew who attempted to land on Niue in 1774 were
forcefully repelled by parties of men uttering blood curdling
screams and brandishing spears. Hastily leaving after little
actual combat, Cook called the place "Savage Island,"
a name that appeared on maps into the twentieth century.
Formed by volcanic
upheavals, the island sits atop 100-foot cliffs rising straight
out of deep ocean with no surrounding protective reefs or sheltered
lagoons. The capital, Alofi, is on the western side of the island
at the only place where a wharf could be constructed.
Niue has always
had a small population, probably never more than 5,000, and the
concern now is depopulation, not overpopulation. In the late
1990s, just over 2,000 people remained on the island while 15,000
Niueans live in New Zealand.
Some "outsiders"
have migrated to Niue. In the early 1980s, about 100 people from
Tonga, where pressure on land is intense, mobilized kin ties
and moved to Niue. In the 1990s, a handful of people from Tuvalu
settled in a deserted village, escaping the threat that rising
seawater posed to their homeland.
Land, however,
cannot be sold or deeded permanently to non-Niueans. The Land
Court is probably the most important and contentious aspect of
the judiciary. Major political struggles revolve around means
to resolve the dilemmas posed by absentee landowners.
Read part 1 of series
Read
part 2 of series
Click to read part 3 of series
To send comments
on this series, email: webmaster@samoanews.com
© Osini Faleatasi Inc. dba Samoa News reserves
all rights.
|