Tiri

The Tiri are a Kanak people of the south-central coast of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, living within the Xârâcùù customary region. Their Oceanic language, also called Tinrin or Mea, splits into Tiri proper and Mea dialects and belongs to the New Caledonian branch of the Austronesian family.

The first settlers of Grande Terre were Lapita potters, who arrived around 1000 BC and whose culture underlies later Kanak societies, where each valley lived under its own clans without any island-wide chiefdom. James Cook landed on the island in 1774 and named it New Caledonia, though no European settlement followed in that period.