Some of the islands have been populated continuously for thousands of years and others are still uninhabited today. The earliest known settlement was on Malo Island, where pottery at least 4000 years old has been unearthed. Prehistoric cultures in Vanuatu were plagued by inter-tribal warfare. The tribes' rich spiritual life attributed all natural and human-induced bad luck or calamities to sorcery, and they staged lavish festivals to appease the gods. The elaborate burial chamber of a nobleman buried in AD1265 was excavated on Eretoka Island, off the coast of Efate, and bears evidence of human sacrifice.

Explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros laid eyes on the islands in 1606, naming the first one he sighted Nuestra Señora de Austrialia del Espiritu Santo, known today simply as Santo. His lofty - if quixotic - ideal was to found New Jerusalem in the Pacific on the banks of a river he called the Jordan. But the locals didn't really want to be saved and the prevailing south-easterlies continually hindered the Spanish landings. De Quiros wandered off into the Pacific not long after he arrived, presumably believing his failure had condemned the unsuspecting ni-Vanuatu to burn for eternity. Among the Spanish, Portuguese and French explorers who followed was Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who wrote that he had been 'transported to the garden of Eden'. The Englishman Captain James Cook was perhaps less starry-eyed in 1774 when he wrote that the traditional manner of preparing kava 'is as simple as it is disgusting'.

Vanuatu's more recent history brims with a panoply of pulpit-pounding priests, scurrilous slavers and fumbling colonial bureaucrats. Hot on the heels of the explorers came the adventurers to harvest whales and sandalwood and the missionaries to harvest souls. The Europeans brought epidemics of influenza and measles, venereal disease and the slave trade, and the populations of some islands, particularly in the north, have never recovered. The English and French, often at war with each other last century, settled uneasily next to each other in the New Hebrides, as the archipelago was known until independence, and formed probably the strangest colonial administration the world has seen. Two declared enemies were sitting in each other's pockets and forced to cooperate in a far-flung outpost of the European empire. They finally settled on a joint mandate early this century with the Anglo-French Protocol (the 'Condominium', sometimes referred to as the 'Pandemonium'), establishing equal influence for both powers.

By far the greatest misery inflicted on the islanders was 'blackbirding', the South Seas' own version of slavery that continued into the early years of the 20th century. Thousands of ni-Vanuatu were persuaded and downright kidnapped to work on the sugar and cotton plantations of Queensland and Fiji, and many never returned. WWII brought a massive influx of US military personnel to Efate and Santo, which became crucial bases in the Pacific War. The country was awash with American know-how and dollars, and many ni-Vanuatu earned real wages for the first time in their lives. More importantly, the islanders observed black Americans enjoying the material benefits and luxuries afforded the whites, and this played no small part in their agitation for independence.

In the late 1960s the

Independence was set for mid-1980, but amid widespread secessions the Condominium fractured over its inability to agree on much more than the height to fly their standards. Anglo-French troops could not halt the violence and looting that broke out even in the larger towns, and the local government finally called in troops from PNG to restore order and declared independence on 30 July 1980. The 1990s have seen bouts of instability in government. A scheme by the paramilitary Vanuatu Mobile Force to overthrow the government and establish martial law over a pay dispute was thwarted in 1996. Allegations of massive bank fraud by members of the Carlot Korman government were aired the same year, and continuing political uncertainty has seen the economy slow down, foreign investment fall and the economy shrink despite the flood of money that has washed in owing to the country's tax-haven status. In February 1997 the government signed an agreement with the Asian Development Bank to significantly restructure the economy with private investment funds.

In November 1997 Vanuatu's president, Jean-Marie Leye, dissolved parliament and called fresh elections. He made the decision so Vanuatu could find a solution to its problems and because the current government had not kept its promises. Despite elections and a new governement in March 1998 there was another change late 1999. Around the same time Vanuatu was hit by an earthquake and tidal wave which caused extensive damage on Pentecost Island.

The ni-Vanuatu pride themselves on their musical instruments, of which the tamtam - also called the slit-drum or slit-gong - is a fine example. Traditionally used in ceremonies, it is an intricately carved log with a slice hollowed out from the centre from which the sound reverberates. Panpipes are also common in music, as are conch shells, which double as bush telephones. On Santo they play a three-holed flute, while on Ambrym a long, carved musical pipe is played. Ambrym is also home to the most elaborate sand drawings in Vanuatu, which villagers employ to illustrate legends, songs, ceremonies or to leave messages. Stone, wood and even treefern carving has developed into an intricate art form owing to the abundance of available materials, and in the north the sculptors sometimes use coral to carve small statues. Magic stones carved from pumice are part of Vanuatu's hidden life and are generally not on display. Tattooing was once a high art form but is becoming rarer, although body and rock painting are still widely practiced.

Vanuatu's fractured terrain has produced a kaleidoscope of cultures and more than 100 indigenous languages. Isolated from each other by sea or impassable mountains, disparate groups of islanders had hundreds or thousands of years to jealously guard their own cultures and languages or to throw them in the mix with their neighbours. The indigenous population is an assemblage of Melanesian - the black people of the Western Pacific with links to Papuans and Australian Aborigines - Polynesian, the lighter skinned people of the eastern Pacific, and varying degrees in between. While Bislama is a linguistically unifying factor, English, and more commonly, French are also spoken.

In a country that owns up to being predominantly Christian, traditional beliefs hold sway over much of the populace. The missionaries had success in imposing an alien faith over people who already had strong beliefs, but that success may have been due in part to some remarkable similarities between Christianity and local beliefs. Many islanders believed in a Creator Tahara who didn't sound too different from Jehovah, a Garden of Eden where the original man and woman ate fruit from the forbidden rose apple tree and fell from grace, and the demon Saratau, who neatly paralleled Satan. The ni-Vanuatu world is still inhabited by spirits and demons, despite the missionaries' best efforts to expel them. Anything tabu is sacred or holy, and the word is in common use - on signs it can mean simply 'no entry'. Traditional dances and ceremonies still play a major role in villagers' lives, with participants acting out the roles of mythical figures or their ancestors. The Nimangki system, or 'grade taking', is important to many islanders in the north. Participants publicly give away wealth through a series of ceremonies, including a full-blooded slaughtering of pigs. Pentecost Island's spectacular naghol or land diving is a significant fertility rite.