Rotuman New Zealanders

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Rotuman New Zealanders
Pure‘ag Rotuḁm ne Niu Sirḁgi
Total population
981 (2018)
Regions with significant populations
Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton, Napier, Christchurch
Languages
New Zealand English, Rotuman
Related ethnic groups
Pasifika New Zealanders, Samoan New Zealanders, Tongan New Zealanders, Fijian New Zealanders

Rotuman New Zealanders are Rotuman immigrants in New Zealand, typically from Rotuma Island or Fiji, their descendants, and New Zealanders of Rotuman ethnic descent. At the time of the 2018 New Zealand census, 981 people in New Zealand were surveyed as being of Rotuman descent.

Contents

Since 2018, Gasav Ne Fäeag Rotuạm Ta, or Rotuman Language Week has been celebrated in New Zealand. From 2020, the New Zealand Government has officially celebrated this as a Pacific Language Week.

History

The first known Rotuman who lived in New Zealand was Saturday, a Cook Strait whaler who worked for Dicky Barrett in the 1840s. [1] In the mid-19th century, labourers were recruited from to Rotuma to work in the Pacific, however this stopped in 1881 when Rotuma became a part of the British Colony of Fiji, and all sea traffic was routed between Rotuma and Fiji. [2] Rotuman labourers often could not contact their homelands, and many Rotuman labourers immigrated to New Zealand during this period. [2]

The modern Rotuman community developed after a wave of immigration beginning in the 1950s. [2] The Royal New Zealand Air Force had a major presence in Suva during the 1950s and 1960s. Many Rotuman women married New Zealand air personnel and immigrated to New Zealand. [3] Rotuman diaspora communities developed in Auckland, Napier and Wellington, [2] and immigration to New Zealand peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. [3] Between 1977 and 1978, the Auckland-based Pasifika community magazine Mana ran a regular community news column written in Fäeg Rotuḁm (the Rotuman language), written by Joseph T. Eason. [4] During this period, many Rotumans in New Zealand tended to describe themselves as Fijian or Polynesian. [5] [2] Methodist minister Jione Langi established the Rotuman New Zealand Fellowship in the early 1990s, after attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to create an organised society for Rotumans in New Zealand. [2]

In 2011, film-maker and musician Ngaire Fuata produced the film Salat Se Rotuma - Passage to Rotuma for Tagata Pasifika , documenting her return to Rotuma island. [6] In 2016, the Pacific Collections Access Project (PCAP) at Auckland War Memorial Museum worked with the Rotuman New Zealand community to properly label Rotuman cultural artefacts, as many had been labelled more broadly as Fijian cultural artefacts. [7]

In the late 2010s, the Rotuman language was classified as an endangered language by UNESCO, leading to a greater focus on supporting the Rotuman language in the Rotuman New Zealand community. [8] [5] The first Rotuman Language Week was organised by the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group in 2018. [8] In 2018 and 2019, the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group lobbied the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to recognise the week nationally. [9] After appealing to the Human Rights Commission in 2019, the week was officially added to the New Zealand Government's Pacific Language Week calendar in 2020. [10] [9]

A number of Rotuman organisations exist in New Zealand, including the Hata Collective, the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group, the New Zealand Rotuman Fellowship Inc (NZRF) and the New Zealand Rotuman Community Centre, located in Papatoetoe, South Auckland. [11] [12] [10] Traditional cultural aspects of the Rotuman community in New Zealand include Rotuma Day celebrations, [13] ‘ai peluag (traditional wooden club) carving [14] and ‘foh kava (kava ceremonies) with fakpeje and mạnu‘ (traditional chanting and exclamations). [15] [16]

Demographics

New Zealand national rugby sevens team player Rocky Khan Rocky Khan 2017 (cropped).jpg
New Zealand national rugby sevens team player Rocky Khan

There were 981 people identifying as being Rotuman at the 2018 New Zealand census, making up 0.003% of the Pasifika New Zealander population, and 0.0002% of New Zealand's general population. This is an increase of 198 people since the 2013 census, and an increase of 360 people since the 2006 census. Some of the increase between the 2013 and 2018 census was due to Statistics New Zealand adding ethnicity data from other sources (previous censuses, administrative data, and imputation) to the 2018 census data to reduce the number of non-responses. [17] The New Zealand Rotuman population is approximately half the number of people living on Rotuman island, and one-tenth of the number who live on Fiji. [11]

There were 453 males and 525 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.863 males per female. The median age was 26.5 years, compared to 37.4 years for all New Zealanders. In terms of population distribution, 61.8% Pacific people live in the Auckland region, while 11% live in the Wellington Region and 8.5% in the Waikato Region.

Notable Rotuman New Zealanders

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Islander</span> Person from the Pacific Islands

Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oceania or any other island located in the Pacific Ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotuma</span> Island on Pacific Ocean

Rotuma is a self-governing heptarchy, generally designated a dependency of Fiji. Rotuma commonly referred to Rotuma Island, the only permanently inhabited and by far the largest of all the islands in the Rotuma Group. Officially, the Rotuma Act declares that Rotuma consists of Rotuma Island as well as its neighbouring islands, rocks, and reefs across the entire Rotuma Group. The dependency is situated around 500 km west of the French islands of Wallis and Futuna and a similar distance north of the Fijian mainland. Its capital is Ahau, a hamlet consisting of a number of colonial-era buildings. Rotuma exists as a dependency of Fiji but itself contains its own socioreligious pene-enclave known traditionally as Faguta where the chiefs and their villages adhere to the practices of worship, festival dates, and French-based writing system of the Marists, based at Sumi.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fijians</span> Ethnic group native to Fiji

Fijians are a nation and ethnic group native to Fiji, who speak Fijian and English and share a common history and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotuman language</span> Language

Rotuman, also referred to as Rotunan, Rutuman or Fäeag Rotuạm, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Indigenous Rotuma people in the South Pacific. Linguistically, as well as culturally, Rotuma has had Polynesian-influence culture and was incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji in 1881. Contemporary Rotuman is a result of significant Polynesian borrowing, following Samoan and Tongan migrations into Rotuma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jioji Konrote</span> President of Fiji from 2015 to 2021

Major-General Jioji Konousi "George" Konrote, is a Fijian politician and retired Major-General of the Fiji Military who served as the President of Fiji from 2015 to 2021. After commanding a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Konrote served as Fiji's High Commissioner to Australia from 2001 to 2006, as Minister of State for Immigration briefly in 2006, and as Minister for Employment Opportunities, Productivity and Industrial Relations from 2014 to 2015. He was the first non-iTaukei president, the first not to be a chief, and the first Seventh-day Adventist to be elected by parliament, as previous presidents were selected by the Great Council of Chiefs.

Gagaja is a Rotuman word denoting the position of "Chief" or "Lord". This could be a formal chiefly position in one of the seven districts or a village chief as well as to anyone else, such as the Chairman of the Rotuma Island Council to whom respect and deference is owed based on their own skills and attributes. Unlike in many other Pacific cultures, the official chiefly positions are not allocated according to any strict primogeniture, but rather are elected from all eligible males within certain kạinaga to whom the chiefly title belongs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotumans</span> Indigenous peoples from Rotuma

The Rotumans are a Polynesian ethnic group native to Rotuma, an island group forming part of Fiji. The island itself is a cultural melting pot at the crossroads of the Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian divisions of the Pacific Ocean, and due to the seafaring nature of traditional Pacific cultures, the indigenous Rotuman have adopted or share many aspects of its multifaceted culture with its Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian neighbours.

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Samoan literature can be divided into oral and written literatures, in the Samoan language and in English or English translation, and is from the Samoa Islands of independent Samoa and American Samoa, and Samoan writers in diaspora. Samoan as a written language emerged after 1830 when Tahitian and English missionaries from the London Missionary Society, working with Samoan chiefly orators, developed a Latin script based Samoan written language. Before this, there were logologo and tatau but no phonetic written form.

Rugby union in Rotuma is a major sport. Rotuma is a dependency of Fiji, although one with a distinctive culture and language more related to its neighbours in Tonga and Samoa.

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Ngaire Fuata is a New Zealand Television producer for TVNZ and a former Pop singer. She is of Rotuman and Dutch descent.

Letila Mitchell is a Rotuman performing artist from Fiji. She is the former director of the Fiji Arts Council and the founder of the Pacific Arts Alliance.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solnohu</span> Island in Rotuma Group, Fiji

Solnohu or Sol Nohu, also known as Solnoho, Solnahu and Solnahou, is a small crescent-shaped uninhabited island in the Rotuma Group of Fiji. The island is of special importance in Rotuman and Tongan funerary customs.

The dawn raids were crackdowns in New Zealand from 1973 to 1979 and then sporadically afterward on alleged illegal overstayers from the Pacific Islands. The raids were first introduced in 1973 by Prime Minister Norman Kirk's Labour government, who discontinued them in April 1974. However, they were later reintroduced and intensified by Rob Muldoon's Third National government. These operations involved special police squads conducting often aggressive raids on the homes and workplaces of overstayers throughout New Zealand, usually at dawn and almost exclusively directed at Pasifika New Zealanders, regardless of their citizenship status. Overstayers and their families were often prosecuted and then deported back to their countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasifika New Zealanders</span> Ethnic group in New Zealand

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Rachael Mario is a Rotuman New Zealand community leader, social worker, and advocate for the Rotuman language. She is Chairperson of the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group. She also helped setup the world's first Rotuman Community Centre in 2020, where language and culture is taught and promoted.

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References

  1. Mallon, Sean (25 May 2021). "Little-known lives: Rotumans in 19th-century Aotearoa New Zealand". Te Papa . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rensel, Jan; Howard, Alan (2014). "Rotumans in Australia and New Zealand: The problem of community formation". Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies. 2 (2): 191–203. doi:10.1386/nzps.2.2.191_1. ISSN   2050-4039.
  3. 1 2 Howard, Alan; Rensel, Jan (2001). "Where has Rotuman culture gone? And what is it doing there?". Pacific Studies. 24: 26.
  4. "Rotuman Language Week". Auckland War Memorial Museum. 2022. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  5. 1 2 Vai, Jioji (9 May 2022). "Identity, culture connections and Rotuma". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  6. Vui-Talitu, Sara (12 May 2021). "A diaspora rallies to reawaken the language of Rotuma, pop. 2000". Radio New Zealand . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  7. Vunidilo, Tarisi; Monolagi, Joana; Traill, Alipate (2020). "NAI YAU VAKAVITI:NA KA MAREQETI – Nai Talanoa Kei na Veiwasei". Auckland War Memorial Museum . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  8. 1 2 Kumar, Arvind (1 May 2018). "Rotuman community acts to save a dying language". Stuff . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  9. 1 2 Lee, Irra (13 May 2021). "Kiwi Rotumans fight to keep their endangered Pacific language alive". One News. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  10. 1 2 Taumoepeau, Akanisi (8 May 2022). "Rotuman Language Week: 'My love-hate relationship with my mother tongue'". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  11. 1 2 Mayron, Sapeer (8 May 2022). "Rotuman Language Week: Sustainability, Vetḁkia, at the heart of the language protection". Stuff . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  12. Rovoi, Christine (8 May 2021). "Rotumans celebrate language and culture 'together' amid Covid-19". Radio New Zealand . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  13. Rovoi, Christine (14 May 2021). "NZ's Te Papa comes alive for Rotuma". Radio New Zealand . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  14. Satele, Ruby (2022). "Carving continuity: Rocky Ralifo, Rotuman wood carving artist". Auckland War Memorial Museum . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  15. Leota-Mua, Jacki (11 May 2020). "Rotuma's kava ceremony". Te Papa . Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  16. "Double celebrations for Rotumans". Radio New Zealand. 13 May 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  17. "Rotuman ethnic group". www.stats.govt.nz. Retrieved 13 May 2022.