The indigenization of Islam Tanna (Vanuatu)
Résumé
Religious specificities in the island of Tanna (Republic of Vanuatu) have been historically shaped by the long reign of a “Christian theocracy” and, later on, by a millenarian movement called “John Frum”. Islam was unknown in Vanuatu before independence (1980) and in Tanna before the end of the 1990s. I will examine, since then, how people of Tanna has been particularly receptive to their discovery of the “Man Muslam” (Muslims). Today, Tanna host the largest Islamic community in Vanuatu and has become a coveted destination for Muslim missionaries. I will focus my presentation on the main religious, political and economical aspects of that phenomenon, on the way Islam has been largely converted to local cultural realities and adapted to the island political game.