Nauruan people - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The indigenous peoples of Nauru are an ethnicity, which inhabit the Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

of Nauru

Nauru

Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...

. They are most likely a blend of other Pacific peoples

Indigenous peoples of Oceania

The indigenous peoples of Oceania are those peoples identified as indigenous peoples, as per the modern global definition of the term.Many of the present-day Pacific Island nations in the Oceania region were originally populated by Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian peoples over the course of...

.

The origin of the Nauruan people has not yet been finally determined. It can possibly be explained by the last Malayo-Pacific human migration

Human migration

Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...

(c. 1200). It was probably seafaring or shipwrecked Polynesians

Polynesians

The Polynesian peoples is a grouping of various ethnic groups that speak Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic languages within the Austronesian languages, and inhabit Polynesia. They number approximately 1,500,000 people...

or Melanesians, which established themselves there because there was not already an indigenous people present, whereas the Micronesians were already crossed with the Melanesians in this area.

The Nauruans have two elements of their population: the native Micronesians and the Polynesians who had immigrated long before. The Micronesians are represented through coarse, dark hair; the Polynesians are lighter brown and have smoother, black hair. Through these two extremes the diverse transitions came to exist.

The Nauruans, which lived as indigenous before 1900, maintained hygiene and cleanliness and cared for their bodies. At about 1920, influenza

Influenza

Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...

spread through Nauru, which took a heavy toll on the indigenous people. In 1925 the first cases of diabetes was diagnosed by doctors. Today, depending on age, every second to third Nauruan is diabetic - a higher rate than any other country in the world.

See also