Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji

Names: Melanesian ancestral religions, kastom (Vanuatu), Indigenous Fijian religion, Kanak spirituality (New Caledonia).
Scope: Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia (Kanaky), and Fiji.
Nature: Polytheistic and animistic, centered on ancestor worship, land spirits, sacred chiefs, and ritual exchanges.

Origins: Austronesian and Papuan cultural synthesis over 3,000 years.
Pre-colonial: Clan-based religions structured by ancestors, sacred chiefs, and ceremonial exchange.
Colonial & missionary era: 19th–20th centuries saw mass conversion to Christianity, destruction of shrines.
Modern: Christianity dominates, but kastom and ancestral ritual remain active in villages and political identity.

Supreme beings/creator gods:
- Fiji: Degei (serpent creator, judge of the dead).
- Vanuatu: Qat (culture hero, creator of night/day, land).
- New Caledonia: Ancestors as demi-gods, sky and sea beings.
- Solomon Islands: Sea gods, fishing spirits, and ancestor deities.
Ancestor spirits: The most important across all islands, dwelling in stones, trees, reefs.
Nature spirits: Guardians of reefs, yam fields, forests.
Trickster/culture heroes: Qat (Vanuatu), Tagaro (Solomon Islands).

Creation myths:
- Fiji: Degei creates islands, judges souls in afterlife.
- Vanuatu: Qat creates land, sky, stars, and introduces death.
- Solomon Islands: Islands raised from sea by culture heroes.
- New Caledonia: Ancestors emerged from stones or arrived in canoes.
Cosmos: Sky, earth, sea, and underworld filled with spirits and ancestors.
Cycles: Life governed by yam cultivation, kava cycles, and exchange feasts.

Solomon Islands: Offerings at shrines, feasts for fishing/hunting success.
Vanuatu: Grade-taking ceremonies (sukwe) with pig sacrifice; yam festivals.
New Caledonia: Ancestor rituals, taro planting ceremonies, clan feasts.
Fiji: Kava (yaqona) ceremonies, war rituals, fire-walking in Beqa, first-fruit rites.

Shrines: Stone altars, sacred groves, ancestral houses.
Objects: Carved slit-drums (Vanuatu), shell valuables, whale teeth (tabua in Fiji).
Sites: Caves, reefs, rivers, megalithic structures (e.g., Vanuatu stone platforms).
Symbols: Yams, pigs, kava, taro central to ritual exchange.

Priests/diviners: Interpreted spirit will, led offerings.
Shamans: Healers, spirit mediums.
Sacred chiefs: Considered living embodiments of ancestors, especially in Fiji and New Caledonia.
Secret societies: In Vanuatu and Solomons, graded initiation controlled ritual knowledge.

Symbols: Pigs (wealth, sacred exchange), yams/taro (fertility), kava (peace and sacred communion), whale teeth (Fiji).
Art: Masks, slit drums, canoes, carved ancestor figures.
Performance: Dance, chant, panpipes (Solomons), kava ceremonies (Fiji).
Colors: Red (sacred, chiefly), black (death, spirits), white (purity, ancestors).

Colonial suppression: Missionaries banned pig sacrifice, graded rituals, shrines.
Cargo Cults: John Frum (Vanuatu), Maasina Rule (Solomons), New Caledonian millenarian movements.
Syncretism: Ancestors reinterpreted as saints or merged into church rituals.
Modern: Christianity dominant, but kastom villages preserve yam rituals, pig exchanges, kava, and ancestor feasts.
Political use: Custom and ancestral law form basis of identity and land claims today.