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Melanesian Foodways

Regional

⚠ THE MOST LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE REGION ON EARTH, AND THE WORST-NAMED. "Melanesia" was coined from the Greek for "black islands" — a classification by the skin colour of the inhabitants — and Pacific scholars have rejected it on exactly that ground; it groups together peoples of enormously different language, culture and settlement history. It is retained here because the specification asks for it and because the geography is real, but ⚠ IT IS NOT A CUISINE AND NOT A PEOPLE. PAPUA NEW GUINEA alone has over 800 living languages — roughly a tenth of all human languages — and was settled some 50,000 years ago, with the Highlands holding one of the world’s INDEPENDENT CENTRES OF AGRICULTURE: Kuk Swamp shows drainage and cultivation of taro and banana from around 7,000 BCE and is World Heritage-listed for it. So bananas were domesticated here, not brought here. The nations: PAPUA NEW GUINEA, SOLOMON ISLANDS, VANUATU, NEW CALEDONIA (French) and FIJI, plus West Papua under Indonesian administration. Shared: the MUMU or LOVO earth oven; SAGO in the lowlands and swamps; taro, yam, sweet potato — whose arrival transformed Highlands population and pig husbandry — banana, coconut, greens; PIGS as wealth and ceremony rather than daily meat; KAVA; and betel nut.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Melanesians community documented
  • Papuans community documented
  • ni-Vanuatu community documented
  • Kanak community documented
  • Fijians community documented

Languages: Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, English, Bislama, Fijian, French, Nengone, Paicî

What is recorded

  • "Melanesia" derives from Greek for "black islands" and was a classification by the inhabitants’ skin colour, rejected by Pacific scholars on that ground; it is retained here as a geographic umbrella and not as a cuisine or a people. Papua New Guinea has over 800 living languages, approximately a tenth of all human languages, and was settled approximately 50,000 years ago. Kuk Swamp in the New Guinea Highlands evidences drainage and cultivation of taro and banana from around 7,000 BCE and is World Heritage-listed as one of a small number of independent centres of agricultural origin; bananas were domesticated there. documented
  • Kuk Swamp in the New Guinea Highlands: drainage and cultivation of taro and banana, one of a small number of independent centres of agricultural origin, and where bananas were domesticated. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • part of Pacific Islands Foodways documented

    ⚠ The worst-named of the three: coined from the Greek for "black islands", a classification by the inhabitants’ skin colour, and rejected by Pacific scholars on that ground.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

Regional cuisines

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.