Kiribati

Known as Tungaru in the indigenous language, the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati was previously known as the Gilbert Islands (from the local word for “Gilbert's”) and is composed of 33 islands inhabited largely by Christians. Located at the intersection of Micronesian and Polynesian cultural areas, nearly all the citizens are indigenous, living in the Tungaru chain of islands, with more than one third of the total population residing in urban south Tarawa. Fifty-five percent of the residents adhere to Roman Catholic Christi anity, with the indigenous Kiribati Protestant Church claiming another 36%. Smaller religious communities include the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (2%, though the church the independently claimed 11% of the population in 2009), the Baha'i (2%), and the Seventh-Day Adventists (2%). Christian missionary activity has greatly influenced traditional beliefs, but spirits (known [Page 670]as anti) remain important figures and enjoy wide respect into the 21st century. In traditional Kiribati mythology, the world was created by the giant spider Nareau, who was followed by anti, half-anti, and finally humans. Traditional deities were thought to take the form of animals or natural phenomena and had great symbolic importance as totems for communities; a Kiribatian's island of origin remains an important marker of identity that predates colonization.

Most westerly islands have had residents for more than 3,000 years, while other islands in the archipelago have only been inhabited since the 20th century. Colonials from Great Britain arrived on the islands in 1837, soon followed by Protestant missionaries from the Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions and the London Missionary Society in 1857 and 1870, respectively. Catholic missionaries from the Order of the Sacred Heart arrived in 1888, and the resulting rivalry still resounds in the demographics of Kiribati, with mostly Catholic northern islands and a largely Protestant south. In 1870, the British replaced the clan system that had been operative on the islands since the 1400s, and they would later abolish the monarchic structure in 1963 to give governance to councils of elders (unimane), which governed daily local activities into the 21st century. After it officially became a British protectorate in 1892, the history of Kiribati was dramatically shaped by World War II; several islands were occupied by Japanese forces, and the battle of Tarawa in 1943 remains one of the bloodiest in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. Kiribati gained full self-governance on July 12, 1979, and established the central national government, which was still extant at the time of this writing. The United States had claimed rights to some of the Phoenix and Line islands and had used them for early nuclear tests but relinquished all rights in 1983.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the nation was ideologically divided into a conservative south and a more progressive northern and central region, which follows the introduction of the varied Christianities active in Kiribati. Where a largely French and English clergy previously held sway over the population, they now have been replaced by more indigenous religious officials. Kiribati's plurality cannot be spoken of monolithically; where some spirit mediums and other practitioners from the nation's precolonial past are still active, they are often regarded with a degree of ambivalence by the extant communities. Some locales allow preaching and missionizing from foreign sources, while the traditional leadership of others has repelled non-Christian preachers. All religious life in Kiribati has its greatest threat from the consequences of global warming, as a great many of the atolls in the nation rise a little over 13 feet above sea level, putting the people at risk from the rising seas.

...