Malbars

Population: A substantial share of the island's population; no ethnic census exists under French law

Location: Throughout Réunion, historically in the sugar districts of the east and north

Language: Réunion Creole and French; Tamil retained liturgically and taught in associations

Language family: Dravidian (Tamil) heritage alongside French-lexified creole

Traditional governance: Temple committees and cultural associations; full French citizenship and institutions.

Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.

Clothing: Sari and dhoti for temple and festival; yellow and red cloth for the firewalking ceremonies; ordinary French dress otherwise.

Food: Cari with massalé spice, rougail, achards and pickles — the Indian contribution is the island's everyday cooking rather than a separate cuisine.

Ceremonies: Marche sur le feu, the firewalking at Draupadi temples after eighteen days of fasting; Cavadee for Murugan with body piercing; Dipavali; kabaré ceremonies attended across communities.

Marriage customs: Hindu ceremony alongside civil marriage; historically endogamous, now widely intermarried.

Initiation rites: Fasting and abstinence periods preceding firewalking or Cavadee constitute the community's principal personal disciplines and rites of commitment.

Every dish the Atlas publishes for Réunion, at national rather than community level — 6 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.

“Ti hach i coup gros bois.”

“A small axe fells a big tree.”

The island's shared proverb of persistence.

“The fire tests the promise, not the foot.”

Firewalking as a rite of vow-keeping.

“Spice makes strangers eat from one pot.”

Cuisine as the island's actual integration.

Creation: Hindu cosmology in its south Indian village forms, carried and adapted in a Catholic French department where many families are also baptised.

Beliefs: Tamil Hinduism centred on Draupadi, Murugan, Mariamman and Karli; Catholicism practised in parallel by many households; belief in protective ritual and in the efficacy of vows.

Ancestors: Ancestral rites within Hindu practice; many families also attend servis kabaré, so the island's two ancestral traditions overlap in the same households.

Traditional settlements: Temples with painted gopuram towers standing among sugarcane and among Catholic churches; the old estate camps where indentured families were housed.

Building techniques: South Indian temple construction in painted concrete and stucco; case créole housing shared with the rest of the island.

Village layout: Temple with forecourt for the fire pit and processions; house with jardin créole of food and medicinal plants.

1. 1848

   Abolition of slavery in the French colonies; sugar estates turn to indentured recruitment.

2. 1848–1880s

   Around 100,000 indentured workers arrive from south India.

3. 1900s–1940s

   Temples established; Tamil religious life takes public form despite official discouragement.

4. 1946

   Departmentalisation brings French citizenship and institutions.

5. Present

   Firewalking and Cavadee are island-wide public events; Tamil is taught in associations and some schools.