FIJI minoneMIRONEMI crones1aMIRONESIAslaSIA GUAM AND OTHER nonpolynesianNON polynesian AREAS by R lanier britschbri tseh As a rule the peoples of this area have black rather thanthenbrown skin curly or kinky hair rather than the generally straighterstraigliter As we have slowed down to look around wrote president hair of polynesia and smaller but taller body build there is ebbie L davisdayis in 1973 as he reflected on his missionary little question that LDS missionaries were kept away from the responsibilityresponsibiliiy it has become increasingly clear that there is melanesian areas during earlier times because of the mormon so much to do here that we are going to get very little done restriction against blacks holding the priesthood until the there are so many programs construction real estate mid to late 1950s however no one with high ecclesiastical translation leadership training increasing numbers of authority in the church had seriously looked into the question missionaries church schools localization of leadership new of the eligibility of the melanesians holding the priesthood areas to open etc that we will only be able to push all of even after missionaries were assigned to fiji in 1954 there was them forward a little way rather than pushing a few programs a some question about this matter but president mckay was satis- long way with our six separate national governments to fied by anthropologists at the national museum in suva that the deal with five kinds of money ten major languages and the melanesian peoples were in no way related to african negroes in great distances between our areas in the mission at times it 1958 he authorized church leaders to ordain fijiansFiji ans who have a seems like an impossible task half of the mission presidents considerable mixture of polynesian blood to theahe priesthood time is usually spent away form the office and home we have all although some fijian families had joined the church prior to that three major south pacific ethnic groups in our mission there time this move by president mckay did much to give the work are polynesians in rarotongaRarorarotongantonga and niue melanesians in fiji the momentum among the local people new hebrides and the solomons and micronesians in the gilberts the history of fiji is filled with all the drama and and laurunauru variations and adaptations are required in the interest of the old south pacific the local people were missionary program and the leadership training program for all of regarded by foreign visitors settlers and missionaries as these distinct peoples it seems quite clear that this is a treacherous and dangerous cannibals from 1860 to the end of the mission of missions some day divisions will have to be made century however a complete social revolution took place along ethnic and cultural lines if not national lines until credit for this change goes to dedicated civic and governgovernmentgovernmenmen t their time comes it will be the responsibility of the mission leaders both fijian and british and to christian missionaries president to try his best to make sure all areas get equal and lasting missionary efforts had been started by methodistme t hod I1 s t appropriate time and care for their particular needs 11i1111 I preachers in 1835 by 1840 a printing press had been imported ebbie davis was describing the fiji suva mission in 1973 from britain and portions of the new testament were soon but his words with only a few name chaangeschnangesehachaangesengesmight well have published in fijian2Fijian 2 described the micronesiamicronesiaguamguam mission area in 1980 in fact in the accomplishments of the missionaries were many As a interview with president ferronperron C losee in 1984 he reported latourette says their preaching their training of teachers almost the samesomesituation he said that his mission field their translation and printing of the bible their creation of a fulfilled the prophecies relating to those on the isles of system of elementary schools their systematic preparation of the sea helielleilepointed out that the micronesiamicronesiaguamguam mission covers inquirers for church membership and their own devotion had a vast amount of territoryitterritory it is 6000 miles across and has marked resusits 3 among these results were the cessation of numerous cultural groups at least nine major languages are tribal warfare and the end of cannibalism before the turn ofor spoken in different island groups plus english japanese and the century the vast majority of fijians had espoused christi- some filipino dialects there are six governing bodies in the anity as taught by one or another of the various denominations micronesiamicronesiaguamguam mission all of the problems of newness that there are some interesting similarities between the history president davis mentioned concerning fiji certainly apply here and geography of hawaii and of fiji hawaii lies 22 degrees north and fiji 17 degrees south of the equator and their climates THE FIJI MISSION AREA HUBHUROPOFTHE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC are similar although hawaii has only seven islands of importance and fiji has thirteen along with another ninetytwoninety two for the first 110 years that the church was in the pacific that are inhabited and two hundred that are not the islands of mssisonary work was limited to the peoples of polynesia and viti levu on which suva nandi and lastokalautoka are situated and australia it was not until 1954 that missionary work began in hawaii the big island are almost identical in size even the the melanesian islands specifically in fiji anthropologists total populations of the two areas are similar hawaii with generally classify the peoples of fiji new caledonia vanuatu 965000 and fiji with 612046 in 1980 hawaii and fiji have both formerly the new hebrides the solomons and new guineaguineeas part relied on sugar and tourism as important sources of income of the pacific negroid family great diversity exists however this development of the sugar industry in both states has determined to an unusual degree the racial and therefore their cultural configurations before the 1860s and the amerameri-I1 can civil war the southern states of the united states produced a large percentage of the worlds supply of cotton rutbutput durduringi ng 2 the civil war while the US supply almost ceased planters in sent elders boyd L harris and sheldon L abbott to begin working hawaii and fiji invested heavily in cotton before their efforts in suva they organized the suva branch on september 5 1954 had produced a profit however the american south was back in only two missionaries were allowed into the country by immigr- business and hawaii and fiji had to look for a better agricultu- ation officials and these elders probably would not have been ral industry sugar was the answer in both places allowed had there not been a small group of tongan members of the just as in hawaii where the plantation magnates brought church living thereathere5there 5 for several decades cecil B smith a laborers in from china japan the philippines and elsewhere partTpartttonganpart tongan and mele mary vea ashley and their families the sugar producers in fiji imported first other melanesians and carried on church meetings on a small scale when the firstf I1 r s t then thousands of indians the fijian government made arrange- missionaries arrived in suva they spent their time working with ments with the british government of india in 1878 to bring in all people who were interested in their message but concentrated indian laborers for a period of five years if the laborers their efforts on the tongan and samoan minority this population stayed for that time they were free to go home at their own base was too small for much success expense if they remained for an additional five years however the work in fiji did not recellereceiverecelvethe necessary encouragement their return passage would be paid or they could remain in fiji for it to grow until january 1955 when president david 0 mckay if they wished although there were abuses in the socalledso called stopped over in suva he like many missionaries and mission indenture system thousands of indians preferred life in fiji leaders before him traveled through fiji without considering it to that at home in india by 1916 when recruitment stopped seriously as a mission field because he was delayed for a day there were almost forty thousand indians in fiji the indian in suva he happened to meet elders harris and abbott on the part of the population has grown rapidly far outdistancing the street evidently he was not aware that there were missionalmissionarmissionariesmiss ionarlonariesles fijian by 1978 there were 272447 fijians and 306957 people of or members of the church there on sunday january 9 president indian extraction and sister mckay and elder franklin D murdock attended a sacra- most of thethie indian immigrants were hindus and members of ment meeting at the home of brother cecil smith in attendance castes highly restricted groups which because of religious and were twentyeighttwenty eight members of the church president mckaymekaytold ennomiceonomicsanctions remained separate from one another but by the little group that he considered the occasion significant he crossing the sea the laborers lost caste as far as the people in said that when he and hugh J cannon visited suva in 1921 they india were concerned futhermoreFutherfurthermoremore the conditions on ships and in did not feel that the time was right to introduce the gospel company housing