The Melanesian peoples native to the Vanuatu archipelago (the former New Hebrides), whose ancestors — Lapita-culture Austronesian voyagers — reached the islands by roughly 1300-1200 BC. Ni-Vanuatu comprise dozens of distinct language communities (Vanuatu has the world's highest number of languages per capita, over 100 indigenous languages) bound less by a single precolonial state than by shared kastom (customary law, ritual and land tenure), a living identity distinct from mere Vanuatuan citizenship.
Not an ending: Ni-Vanuatu remain the people of Vanuatu. The map hands off to the Anglo-French New Hebrides Condominium and, from 1980, independent Vanuatu.
Focused monograph on ni-Vanuatu kastom (customary practice) specifically.
Major illustrated survey of ni-Vanuatu material culture, ritual and social organization across the archipelago.