Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Pacific Islander Heritage

Situated in the South Pacific north of New Zealand, the Republic of Fiji was settled as far back as 3500 BC. With the help of foreign settlers, Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau united part of Fiji's warring tribes under his leadership and established a united Fijian kingdom in 1871. The British subjugated the island in 1874 and brought over Indian contract laborers. This film examines how, after gaining independence from British rule in 1971, Fiji has struggled to maintain political stability in spite of differences between the Fijian and Indo-Fijian people. With a culture that is a rich mosaic of Indigenous Fijian, Indo-Fijian, Asian, and European traditions, a unique way of life has developed on this beautiful island nation. Part of the series Islands and Life. (52 minutes)

his program immerses us in the Kanak culture and showcases traditional celebrations. For the Kanak, earth is the source of life, and the people belong to the earth not the other way around. Connected with this, yams and water are central symbols. Yams feature prominently in the community's traditions, including weddings and other key events, while water is associated with a woman's fertility, and has given birth to various rain rituals. This program also explores cultural markers including costume, masks, song, dance, and even speeches.

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Ian Wright visits the Pacific Islands, once infamous among explorers for head-hunting and cannibalism, in this Globe Trekker video. In Fiji he is welcomed with a Kava drinking ceremony. The mild narcotic is used to start chiefly conferences and commemorate special occasions. He goes diving on the Astrolabe Reef and feeds sharks before heading to Vanuatu where, on the island of Ambryn, he meets the chief of a tribe that used to practice cannibalism and witnesses the traditional Rom dance, where dancers pretend to be a spirit which lives inside their costumes. He also visits the hot spring on the island of Sesivi, and Tanna island, where he climbs the massive Yassur volcano. Ian continues to the Solomon Islands, where he dives down to one of many World War II shipwrecks, and ends up on Busu Island, one of many artificial islands made by people fleeing inter-tribal fighting. (47 minutes)

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The Conquerors of the Great Ocean looks at the history of Oceania, the fifth continent spread over nearly 10,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and scattered with island states. Three thousand years ago the greatest seaborne migration undertaken by humankind began there. This populating created a new civilization that is now broken up but which retains its own specific way of interpreting the world. Thanks to archaeological research over the last 60 years, these bonds have taken a new form, a new life. They are the "bonds of the Great Ocean."

Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands offers WWII history, beautiful blue waters and a fusion of cuisines and cultures.
“Ask a Local” uses a documentary-styled approach to sharing amazing travel experiences through the voices and faces of U.S. residents. These first-person recommendations highlight local attractions, food, nightlife, music, and scenery throughout the 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia.

Writing is a relative latecomer to the history of language. This program tracks its emergence in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica and its spread down through the millennia via conquest—usually violent, sometimes benign—and colonization. The creation of creoles and pidgins resulting from the interaction of specific populations is also addressed, and speculation is made about the first things to be written down. Noam Chomsky; Peter Daniels, coeditor of The World’s Writing Systems; the Manhattan Institute’s John McWhorter; MIT’s Michel DeGraff; and Salikoko Mufwene, of The University of Chicago, contribute. (48 minutes)

The islands which now form the Republic of Kiribati have been inhabited for at least seven hundred years, and possibly much longer. The initial Austronesian peoples’ population, which remains the overwhelming majority today, was visited by Polynesian and Melanesian invaders before the first European sailors visited the islands in the 17th century. For much of the subsequent period, the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands, was ruled as part of the British Empire. The country gained its independence in 1979 and has since been known as Kiribati.

This program travels the globe as it surveys a large portion of the world’s languages—25 percent of which are spoken by a mere 0.1 percent of the Earth’s population. Moving from Africa to Oceania and up to Asia and then west to Europe and across the ocean to the Americas, the program assesses how many languages are spoken in each region, the characteristics they share, and misconceptions about them. Historical background on some of the key languages of the regions is included as well. The commentary of Salikoko Mufwene, coeditor of The Ecology of Language Evolution; Larry Hyman, of U.C. Berkeley; Hua Lin, of the University of Victoria; Harvard University’s Jay Jasanoff; and Lyle Campbell, of the University of Utah, is featured. (48 minutes)

Nauru is one of the smallest countries in the world located in the South Pacific with an intriguing history. Please preview prior to using this video as it contains subject matter which may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Visit the continent, island, and country of Australia. View its geographical terrains and ecosystems and trace its history, culture, and economics. Then learn about Australia's neighbor, New Zealand.

Kayaking here provided a daily opportunity for absolute disorientation in an idyllic and wild setting, both challenging and beautiful. We visited both the inhabited and uninhabited, exploring the health of the reefs and the lives of the people who live and depend on these most-remote atolls. From Shark City in the giant lagoon of Rangiroa, to Toau (population 10), to Fakarava where we camped for days on spits of sand. Along the way we dove for pearls, spearfished and cracked open coconuts for milk and meat. We also discovered that a way of life, both culturally and environmentally, is at great risk here in paradise. (24 minutes)

When Dutch sailors landed on Easter Island, they found a warlike people recovering from anarchy and cannibalism. What had gone wrong with a civilization that had lived in peace for nearly a thousand years? In this program, Claudio Cristino, the island’s resident archaeologist; William Liller, of the Easter Island Foundation; Patricia Vargas Casanova, of the Easter Island Studies Institute at the University of Chile; and others offer their views on moai, rongorongo tablets, the Birdman Cult, and the devastating effects of overpopulation, to provide a captivating glimpse of a complex culture driven to the brink of extinction. Images of artifacts, 3-D computer graphics, and artwork enhance the program. (51 minutes)

Learn the history of Hawaii: timeline, Hawaiian history and culture | Hawaii becoming a state | When was Hawaii discovered by Polynesians

Lecture by Dr. Terry Jones on 3/18/21
The possibility of prehistoric Polynesian contact with the Americas has been considered by historians, archaeologists, and other scholars for centuries. Most evidence and most scholarly discourse have focused on South America, but as early as the 1930s, Alfred Kroeber suggested that cultural similarities between southern California and Oceania could be the product of prehistoric trans-oceanic diffusion. Here I review archaeological, linguistic, and other evidence for such contact in North and South America with an emphasis on recent genetic studies that challenge some longstanding ideas.

Art and spirituality are woven into the fabric of Polynesian cultures. In this video, students will come to appreciate the both distinct and subtle differences between the cultures of different Polynesian nations, the spiritual codes that guide the Polynesian way of life, and the art forms that have been mastered over generations.