The population of the island of Mauritius has a complex national and religious composition. Main ethnic groups: Creoles, Indo-Mauritians, Muslims, Sino-Mauritians, French. The most common religions are Hinduism, Catholicism, and Islam. Ethnic processes in the previous period followed the path of integration of ethnic communities, in particular, the Creole language was widely spread, which is now native not only to Creoles, but also to the majority of the island's population. However, in the recent past, marriages between the main ethnic components were very rare, and endogamy remained. Currently, an increase in the number of such marriages has been identified, the share of which has reached 1/10 of all marriages, and in some ethnic communities (Creoles, Chinese) even higher. A rapidly growing significant layer of the mixed population has emerged. Some Mestizos do not refer to themselves as a particular community, but consider themselves only Mauritians. If these trends continue to develop, then in the future we can expect the emergence of a new ethnic community called "Mauritians ".

Keywords: Mauritius, ethnic composition, endogamy, ethnically mixed marriages, consolidation, integration, mixation, language assimilation, Creoles, Indomavrikians, Sinomavrikians.

Let me remind you of the main milestones in the formation of the population of the island-state of Mauritius. It was uninhabited when it was discovered by the Portuguese in the early 16th century. The Dutch were the first to take possession of the island (1598-1710) and named it Mauritius. After the Dutch left it, the French settled here (1715-1810) and named the island Ile-de-France. The development of the plantation economy required labor, and the importation of slaves from the east coast of Africa and Madagascar began. Most of them were imported from the territory of modern Mozambique. At the same time, mixing, cohabitation of planters with slaves began, which led to the emergence of a significant group of mulattoes. The foundations of the local, so-called Creole culture, formed as a result of mixing on plantations of immigrants from different tribes of Africa, began to be laid. A new language "creole" was formed on the basis of simplified, distorted French. The British captured the island in 1810 and returned it to its former name - Mauritius.

By 1839, out of the 100,000 population of the island, Negroes and mulattoes ("colored") accounted for 93%, Europeans, mainly French-7% [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 96]. The British were very lenient with the French, did not force them to emigrate, allowing them to keep their wealth, privileges, plantations and slaves. The language policy was also quite liberal, and the French language retained its position [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 122]. The English who settled here mostly occupied the very top of the social ladder, but their numbers were small, and many of them lived here temporarily, after which they returned to the mother country. Much greater influence on the ethnic composition of the population was exerted not by the British themselves, but by their policy of expanding the plantation economy, which required additional workers.

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They were also needed because after the abolition of slavery, the Creoles left the plantations. A flood of indentured labourers poured in from India. Since 1834, 25.5 thousand Indians were imported within five years [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 96-97], later migrations increased, from 1843 to 1907, 450 thousand people were imported (through Calcutta 60%, Madras - 33%, Bombay - 7%).

Another ethnic component that emerged under the British - a certain number of Chinese coolies - was incomparable in scale to Indian immigration. The first Chinese appeared in 1861, when there were 1,552 people. [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 102], later their number exceeded 20 thousand, by 1977 it became 25 thousand - 2.7% of the island's population [Stepanchuk, 1987, p.107], by now the number of Chinese on the island has stabilized, remaining at the same level.

At the end of the contract, some of the Indians returned to their homeland, some settled permanently on the island. By 1911, the number of Indians was 2.5 times greater than all other ethnic groups combined, reaching two-thirds of the island's population. The ethnic and religious composition of Indians was not uniform. Most of them were natives of the north-east of India (the state of Bihar, etc.), Hindus by religion who use a colloquial language called Bhojpuri (the language of the Bihar people), and literates - the literary language of Hindi. The second component was Muslims, also mostly from the north of India, with the Urdu language. The third group consists of people from the south of India, Tamils, Telugu (most of all-Tamils), who speak the languages of the Dravidian language family, also Hindus, but with some differences from northern Hinduism. The numerical ratio of the three main groups of Indians is rather difficult to calculate due to the incompleteness of written sources, but in the ethnographic literature there are opinions that about 20% of Indians are Muslims, about 8-10% are South Indians (Tamils, etc.) [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 193], so the remaining 70% are northern Indians are Hindus.

In 1968, Mauritius gained independence, but this had little effect on the ethnic composition of the population - most of the French and some of the British remained on the island. In the future, integration processes gradually intensified, primarily in the field of language. Of course, with such a diverse population, you need your own lingua franca, a language of interethnic communication that everyone understands. At the level of writing and education, two languages competed - English and French, newspapers and books were published in them, broadcasting was conducted, performances were performed, and they were studied in schools. Despite the dominance of the English, the former privileges of the French language remained, and they competed on equal terms. But it is not these languages that are the leaders in interethnic communication.

The palm was taken over by the unwritten "creole", which the white owners of the island treated with disdain and did not consider a language at all. But it was this language that the masses of newly arriving migrants - Indians and Chinese-began to switch to. Although Creoles are now a minority on the island, their language has become truly native to both Indians and Chinese. As a result, the island has developed a stable trilingualism - almost everyone knows Creole, the vast majority consider it their native (first, mother) language.

In second place is French, it is known to very many, the vast majority of the island's population, but, with the exception of white Frenchmen, for them it is the second, often mastered only in school. Only the illiterate or illiterate old Indians do not know it. The position of English in everyday life is weaker than that of French, and not everyone knows it, especially in villages, although it is taught in schools. The Constitution of Mauritius does not specify the official language. English is the official language of Parliament, although members of the National Assembly can also speak French. However, in general, English is considered to be the official language of Mauritius, as the language of state power, administration and administration-

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It's a good idea. It is better spoken by those who are connected with the tourist business (this business has taken on a significant scale on the island in recent decades, which makes the further spread of the English language very promising) [Burygin, Sheiko, Nepomnyashchy, 2007, p. 96].

Other languages spoken on the island include Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, and two Chinese languages - "Mandarin" (North Chinese) and" Hakka " (South Chinese). Both Indians and Chinese tried to preserve their native languages and even won the right to teach them in schools. But these attempts have led to very modest results. School cannot replace the main language of the family. And if the family's native language is creole, if Creole has become the native language of the parents and the child has spoken it since childhood, then learning another language at school does not change the language situation much. Talking to dozens of informants (and if we talk about Indians, then with hundreds), I was convinced that very few of them know Hindi or Bhojpuri, and if they do, they are weak, and in fact do not communicate in them. Only a few old people in the villages speak Indian languages more or less well. Some informants mentioned that there are purely Indian villages in the interior of the island, where everyone knows their native Indian language, although-along with Creole, that is, even there the Indians are bilingual. But for the bulk of North Indian Hindus, the main language is Creole ("creole"), and Bhojpuri and Hindi are clearly outgoing cultural phenomena, despite the efforts of the school. The situation is similar for Muslim Indians - many of them learned Urdu at school, but few mastered it enough to communicate fluently in it, by the way, as well as in Arabic, which some of them learned in madrasas at mosques. Knowledge of these languages is the lot of the most devout elderly people. But even for them, these languages are not native - creole is native to all.

Some of the descendants of Tamils studied Tamil at school, but I did not meet a single Tamil who could speak it fluently. There are very few" pure-blooded " Tamils here (I will tell you more about this below), according to informants, there is not a single village on the island where descendants of Tamils would predominate. The Chinese have made and continue to make attempts to preserve the Chinese language, but their success in this is even more modest. It is a hindrance that some schools teach the official Northern language ("Mandarin"), and the local Chinese are all from the south of China, and spoke a Cantonese dialect, which they called Hakka. It is known that the dialects of northern and southern China differ to the point of complete misunderstanding. I met a few older Chinese people who knew a little Hakka (from their parents) or "Mandarin" (they learned it at school), but almost everyone I met was Creole. In the past, attempts were made to teach the South Chinese (Cantonese) dialect at school, but later this was abandoned [Burygin, Sheiko, Nepomnyashchy, 2007, p. 110].

How has the country's ethnic composition changed in recent decades?

In 1989, with a total population of 1 million 90 thousand people, Indo-Mauritians, including Muslims, accounted for 66.1%, Creoles-27.5%, and Chinese-2.3% (World population..., 1989, p. 450).

In 2010, the total population reached 1.294 million (July estimate). The natural increase, as can be seen, is small - only 0.75% (1.8 births per woman). The decline in the birth rate has occurred in recent decades due to increasing wealth, educational attainment, and urbanization. Of this number, there were Indo-Mauritians-68%, Creoles-27%, of the rest most Chinese - 25 thousand, French-about 10 thousand. The number of Chinese and French people has stabilized over the past decades and remains virtually unchanged. In the first half of the 20th century, there was an increased natural increase in Indians compared to Creoles and French, but later they also switched to family planning.

Native language data for 2000 were as follows: Creole - 80.5%, Bhojpuri and Hindi-12.1%, French-3.4%, English-less than 1%, other languages-

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ci - 4%. More recently, the indicators were different: in 1977, Creole was considered native by 52%, Hindi, Bhojpuri-by 32%, and French-by 5% [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 111]. There is a rapid spread of Creole and a decline in Indian languages.

There are three major religions on the island: Catholicism (French, Creoles, and Chinese), Islam, and Hinduism (Indians). The heritage of the British helped to create a certain number of Protestants, including both Indians and Creoles, who for some reason changed their religion. The data for 1961 are as follows: Hindus - 50.8%, Muslims-16.8%, Catholics-30.5%, Protestants-1.5% [Afrika..., 1969, p. 32]. Four decades later, the situation has changed somewhat, with Hindus accounting for 48% (2000 census), followed by Catholics at 23.6%, Muslims at 16.6%, and Protestants at 8.6%. A significant increase in the number of Protestants due to Catholics and Hindus is noteworthy, although in general the main religions have retained their positions.

In the case of mixed marriages, if the newlyweds belonged to different faiths, one of the spouses, more often the bride, accepts the religion of the other. As a result, there were Catholic Indians, Hindu Creoles or Muslims on the island. It is rare, but it happens that newlyweds agree to stay with their religions. So, in the village of Creole River, I found 11 such families, or 1.3% in relation to all families in the village. This is not much, there are many more mixed marriages here, but in most cases, after the wedding, one of the spouses changes their religion. By the way, the owner of the hotel in Maeburg, where I lived, grew up in such a family. Both of her parents are Indo-Mauritian, but her father is a Hindu, and her mother became a Protestant in her youth. After the wedding, everyone kept their religious beliefs, but they still live together. But before the daughters there was a question of choice. The hostess of my hotel chose Hinduism and married a Hindu, and her sister became a Protestant and married a Protestant Indian.

The short duration of the ethnographic trip to Mauritius in January 2013 made it necessary to narrow down the possible research topics, but it was impossible to ignore such an important topic for the further ethnic development of the population as endogamy within individual ethnic components.

After gaining independence, the authorities announced the creation of a united Mauritian people in the near future. Despite the great commonality of historical destinies and active integration processes, it was clear to everyone that there was no need to talk about full ethnic unity yet, since the ethnic components of the Islanders were too heterogeneous. And one of the obstacles to the future hypothetical emergence of a new ethnic group under the name "Mauritians" is the presence of endogamous barriers that separate individual groups of the population and prevent their merger.

Researchers of the early and mid-20th centuries noted that mixed marriages between the main groups of the population are very rare, almost nonexistent. The French and English, because of the great social and property difference, did not marry Creoles and Indians (which did not prevent, however, during the period of slavery, French planters cohabited with slaves, taking advantage of their legal vulnerability, but these are still not marriages). There was almost no intermarriage between the two largest groups of the population - Creoles and Indians, apparently due to large cultural and religious differences.

It was more difficult for the Chinese to maintain endogamy, due to the small number and, possibly, the disparity of the sexes in the first period of residence on the island (usually more men than women were imported to the plantations), but in the second or third generation, when the gender structure is leveled, the Chinese usually restore endogamy almost everywhere, in the countries to which they emigrated and they try to preserve the language and culture. However, in Mauritius, the Chinese initially failed to preserve their religion - almost all of them are Catholics (I rarely met Buddhists), and this potentially makes it easier for them to communicate, including in the marital sphere, with fellow Creoles. Within the Indian community, which later became possible to call special

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as an ethnic group and under the name "Indomavrikians", at the first stage three groups of sub-ethnic level began to form. The basis of one was made up of North Indians-Hindus, the second - Muslims, the third-south Indians-Dravidians.

Endogamy is a stabilizer of ethnic groups, contributes to their preservation and transmission to the next generations of national culture in the fullest possible extent. Violation or breakthrough of endogamy often precedes the destruction of ethnic groups, the development of ethno-transformation processes that lead in different situations to assimilation, as well as to the consolidation of closely related ethnic groups into a new ethnic group, or to mixation - the merger of heterogeneous groups and the formation of a new ethnic group.

If we talk about a possible breakthrough of endogamy and the merging of all ethnic components into one, then it is appropriate to talk about the process of mixing, since there are completely different components originating from different remote countries and even continents (Europe, India, China, Africa). However, consolidation can also be considered an integral part of this mix, if we are talking about the merger of three culturally similar Indian components (North Indians-Hindus, Muslims and south Indians-Dravidians).

I used two sources to study the level of endogamy. First, I studied the data of the mayor's office on marriages in the city of Maeburg (in various sources in Russian, the spelling Maebur, Maeburg is found). Secondly, he conducted a random sampling of a significant part of the population of the cities of Maebourg (a small town in the southeast), Port Louis (the capital, the largest city) and the village of Rivieres des Creoles (Rivieres des Creoles) in order to identify nationally mixed families, as well as people of mixed origin, i.e. the population of the city of Maebourg (a small town in the south-east).e. mestizos of different combinations of nationalities in their pedigree. More than 100 mixed families were identified using this method, and photos were taken. I think that the sample turned out to be quite representative and allowed us to draw some conclusions about the level of marital mixing of different ethnic components.

The ethnic and ethno-religious composition of the population of the city of Maeburg roughly corresponds to the ethnic composition of the entire country, at least this applies to Creoles and Indians, as well as in the composition of Tamil and Muslim Indians, i.e. the main components in terms of number. True, there are very few French and Chinese people in this city. In the village of Creole River, about 79% are Indians (including 16% Muslims), the remaining 21% are Creoles. All ethnic groups are represented in Port Louis, but

Figure 1. Mixed family: the husband is Indo-Mauritian, the wife is Creole

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Figure 2. Married couple: Creole husband, Tamil wife

compared to the rest of the country, there is an increased percentage of Muslim Indians, Chinese and French. These three localities collectively reflect the general ethnic, ethno-racial, ethno-religious, and ethnic composition of the island's population. I must say that when asked about the nationality of almost all the islanders we met, they first answer "Mauritian". At least if the questioner is a foreigner. And if we do not go into further details, we can draw a false conclusion that a new ethnic group has already developed. This was also noted by other researchers [Burygin, Sheiko, Nepomnyashchy, 2007, p. 109]. But after additional questions, they almost always refer themselves to one or another ethnic group - Indomavrikian, Muslim, Creole, or Sinomavrikian (Chinese).

Nationally mixed families and mestizos were identified as follows. When we arrived at the next block, we tried to find a group of local residents resting near the house. When we came up and introduced ourselves, we explained the purpose of the parish by suggesting that we indicate those houses in the neighborhood that have mixed families. Neighborhoods in Maeburg are small, consisting of about 10-15 two - and three-story houses (in general, the town is small, about 21 thousand people). Residents of the same block, as a rule, know their neighbors, so after consulting, they usually indicate the houses where such families exist, and sometimes among the informants themselves there were natives of such families or mestizos. Mauritians are quite friendly in their communication, they are willing to help a foreigner in his search, they can accompany him to the right house, call the owners, i.e. there is no such alienation that occurs in urbanized countries. Usually, on the section of street between two intersections, we found 1-3 ethnically mixed families, i.e. they are not uncommon here. The second way to find such families is to ask for help from the employees of the hotel where they lived, and each employee among friends, relatives or neighbors always had families of interest to us, which allowed us to add to our list.

In addition, we used the following method: we asked our informants, who come from all walks of life and ethnic groups, to express their opinion on the number of mixed marriages in their ethnic group. Of course, not everyone was an expert, they could name different figures, but when the number of respondents is several dozen, the picture begins to take shape. Often, among the informants, there were educated people who were interested in national issues, who were well-read,

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knowing the history of their ethnic group and the island as a whole, they gave the most realistic assessments on our issue.

Thus, a comprehensive approach was applied, different methods were used, and conclusions were drawn in cases where the data obtained by different methods were consistent and coincided with each other.

We will start with the materials obtained in the course of the study from the South Indians (these are mainly Tamils, Telugu is much less common). By the way, the first Tamils appeared on the island during the French rule, they were imported from the French colonies of India and used on the island as artisans-masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc. [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 107]. Under the British, the importation of Tamils increased dramatically, but more often as plantation workers.

Did the South Indians retain their separateness, and what were the prerequisites for this? It would seem that the North Indians, with whom they are separated by a large difference in language (the Indo-Aryan languages of the north of India and the Dravidian languages of the south belong to different language families), have a lot in common - all the peoples of India have many common features in culture and especially in religion (both are Hindus), but it turned out that it's as simple as that. Hinduism has its own currents and it turned out that in Mauritius, northerners and southerners belong to different Hindu currents, and the difference is so great that south Indians have their own separate temples. Among the North Indians, such trends as Sanatanists, as well as followers of the Arya Samaj are widespread [Stepanchuk, 1987, p. 104]. As for the South Indians, in Mauritius, their kind of Hinduism is called the "Tamil religion". Even officially, in documents, in the column "religious affiliation" they write - "Tamil", meaning religion, and not nationality. So there was not only a linguistic but also a religious boundary between the majority (North Indians) and the minority (South Indians).

But the anthropological boundary that I expected to meet was very blurred. North Indians are usually referred to as the southern branch of the Caucasian race, and South Indians as a special "South Indian" type, mixed between the large Caucasian and equatorial races, represented in southern India by the Veddas. In other words, I expected that the descendants of the South Indians should be distinguished from the north by their darker skin color and other characteristics of the equatorial race. However, everything was not so clear. Anthropologists note that in India there is no clear border between north and south Indians, signs of the equatorial race gradually increase from north to south, and people of mixed appearance can often be found in the north. And so it turned out. Most of the Indo-Mauritians on the island were descendants of immigrants not from the north-west of India, where the Caucasian features are most pronounced, but from the north-east, where the signs of the equatorial race are more noticeable. As already mentioned, most of the ancestors of Indomavrikians were more likely to come to the island from the territory of Bihar and Hindustan, the Indomavrikians I interviewed most often call the state of Bihar. Therefore, in the streets of Maeburg, from the first days I noticed a very large number of Indians with very dark, sometimes even brown skin color, and they were not at all from the south of India, but just from the northeast, i.e. from Bihar. Against this background, the descendants of Tamils practically do not stand out in terms of anthropology, at least visually (special anthropological studies, of course, would have revealed the difference, but I did not set such a goal).

So, did the descendants of South Indians (Tamils, Telugu)still survive isolation in the sphere of marriage? Among the Indo-Mauritians I interviewed, I met about 30 people who named Tamils among their ancestors (in three cases, Telugu). But almost all of them turned out to be of mixed origin, i.e. they had either a grandparent or a grandmother as Tamils, and the rest were North Indians. In other words, the endogamous barrier between north and south Indians has completely disappeared. Among the respondents, there were only two Tamils, a man and a woman, who, according to their opinion, were not native Tamils.-

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they may be "purebloods", but both were in mixed marriages. I didn't meet a single ethnic Tamil family. As already mentioned, there is not a single purely Tamil village in the country, all the descendants of Tamils live mixed with North Indians. Indians of mixed origin, although they remember that there are Tamils among their ancestors, do not call themselves such, consider themselves simply "Indo-Mauritians", so their assimilation is almost complete or close to completion, and the breakthrough of endogamy played an important role here. I did not meet a single descendant of Tamils who was fluent in Tamil (or Telugu), for all of them Creole became their native language.

Attempts to preserve the language have been made in the past - several people reported that they learned Tamil at school. But they did not learn to speak it fluently, only "understand a little". The only factor that in any way contributes to the preservation of at least the memory of the nationality of the ancestors for Tamils is the "Tamil temples", which preach a kind of Hinduism characteristic of South Indians. The parishioners of these temples are mostly descendants of South Indians, but most likely they no longer consider themselves Tamils (by nationality). By nationality, they became "Indo-Mauritians", and "Tamils" are only by religion. Therefore, it is quite logical to consider the descendants of north and south Indians as a single community-Indomavrikians. In the past, a small group of Marathas was distinguished from the North Indians [Eriksen, 1997], but their number is so small (2% of the population) that I did not find any traces of their ethnic separation; most likely, they completely merged with the rest of the North Indians-Hindus into one community. In the future, when talking about national mixed marriages and calculating their percentage based on the primary data of municipalities, I exclude marriages within the Indo-Mauritian community (i.e., marriages between descendants of Bihar, Marathi, Tamils, etc.), since I believe that they have all consolidated into a single ethnic community. Marriages between the main ethnic groups-Creoles, Indo-Mauritians, Muslims, and Sino-Mauritians (Chinese) - will be analyzed.

Muslims on the island are very visible, even purely visually - some of them wear special clothes peculiar only to them. They have their own mosques (about 100), and the cries of the muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer and amplified by powerful speakers, I had to hear in the city of Maeburg several times a day. And this is despite the fact that there were only about 15% of Muslims in the city. As I learned later, not all Muslims were distinguished by their clothing, and I met many Muslims who were indistinguishable from other Indo-Mauritians. According to anthropological characteristics, Muslims do not differ from other Indomavrikians. This statement, according to my observations, applies to the majority of Muslims, but not to all. In the capital, I occasionally came across people who looked somewhat different from the general type of Indians. They were more Caucasian than the rest of the Indians, without any signs of the Australoid race, with narrow, sharply shaped faces with a large nose-often with a hump. When meeting and talking to them, they always turned out to be Muslims. I have never met anyone with such a Hindu appearance. This anthropological type is widespread in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, in the territory of modern Pakistan. Apparently, there is a certain percentage of Muslims who come from these regions. Muslims live mixed with other ethnic groups throughout the island, but one of the experts-informants said that there are two purely Muslim villages on the island. But only a small proportion of Muslims live in these villages, and the rest live everywhere, although informants noted that there is a slightly higher concentration than among Hindus and Creoles in the capital, Port Louis. Perhaps this is due to the fact that one of the features of this group is a greater tendency to engage in trade than among Hindus, and, naturally, the capital provides more opportunities for trade.

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Figure 3. Indo-Mauritian Muslims on a city street

The proportion of Muslims in the city of Maeburg corresponds to their share in the entire population of the country, so it is possible that the data obtained here on marriages are close to the total for the country. A calculation based on documents recording marriages in the local municipality showed that in 2012, Muslims had 12.5% of such marriages, mainly with Hindus. However, in the process of "combing" the city's neighborhoods, I constantly came across Muslim-Creole families, met people who had one of their parents was Creole, and the other was Muslim. So we can conclude that they marry with both communities-both Hindu and Creole Indians.

The situation with Muslims in Mauritius reminded me very much of the situation on the island of Sri Lanka, where I visited in 2012 [Krivonogov, 2013]. There has long been a large group of Muslims living there, making up about 7% of the population under the name "Moors", and statistics consider them a special ethnic group. However, there are also differences with Mauritius - the ethnic roots of the" Moors " go back to the Arab and Persian settlers, i.e. they have differences in ethnogenesis. However, in the future, there was a significant rapprochement of the descendants of Arabs with the local (Sinhalese, Tamil) population, they switched to Sinhalese and Tamil, mastered the culture of the local population, and mixing with local women in the initial period of formation was most likely significant - after all, Arab traders most often came without women. In addition, already in the last two or three centuries, Muslims from neighboring India arrived on the island and their merger with the local Moors took place, which further strengthened the Indian component in their environment. So" by blood " Moors are most likely more Indian than Arab (this is also noticeable to the naked eye - among the Moors I saw many representatives of the South Indian racial type, with rather dark, even brown skin, like the surrounding Sinhalese majority).

So it is possible that the formation of a community of Mauritian Muslims follows the same path that the Moors of Sri Lanka followed. By the way, official statistics distinguish Muslims in a special community from Indomavrikians. I even got the impression that a special ethnic group is being formed - "Mauritian Muslims", it is possible that it has already been formed. Data on mixed marriages do not contradict this conclusion, but rather confirm it; their total number is small among Muslims (slightly more than 1/10, endogamy is generally observed, thus,

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"blurring" of this community is not happening yet) indicates the possibility of preserving it as a special ethnic unit.

The largest community on the island is people from the north of India of the Hindu faith. They make up half of the island's population. Creole has become for most people not only the main spoken language, but also a truly native one. Indian languages, Bhojpuri and Hindi, are increasingly disappearing, despite the introduction of Hindi in the school curriculum. Almost all our informants and respondents considered creole to be their native language, and if they knew a second language, it was not Indian, but French (more often) or English (less often). Externally, the clothes of Indians can not always be distinguished - few women wear saris. As far as men's clothing is concerned, I have only met one man in the national costume. However, even in European clothing, you can distinguish Indian women from Creoles - Indian women prefer skirts below the knees and more closed blouses.

The situation of mixed Indo-Mauritian marriages determines the overall situation on the island. The proportion of Hindus in the population of Maeburg roughly corresponds to their share in the entire population of the island, so most likely the figures for marriages in this city are close to the indicator for the whole country. The calculation showed that 11.6% of mixed marriages were concluded in 2012, most of them with Creoles, as well as with Muslims. This figure is almost the same as for Muslims, but it should be borne in mind that there are several times more Hindus on the island than Muslims, the theoretical probability of such marriages among Hindus is correspondingly lower, so we can talk about a greater propensity for mixed marriages among Hindus.

Almost every village or small village has at least one or two shops owned by the Chinese, since trade is their favorite occupation. Although they came to the island as indentured plantation workers, they invariably turned to small-scale trade after the contract ended. Since the greatest opportunities for trade are most widespread in the capital, then gradually most Chinese people concentrated here. Not far from the center of the capital there is Chinatown - the place of maximum concentration of the Chinese population. Walking through its streets, I estimated that about every second person I met here was a Chinese (it is impossible to confuse them with Indians or Creoles). Half of the inhabitants is a lot, considering that in the total population of the country, the Chinese make up only 2-3%. The other half of Chinatown's merchants are mostly Indians, and not so much Hindus as Muslims, who, as mentioned above, also have a greater aptitude for trade.

Chinatown is two or three city blocks where the Chinese, despite having a small share of the capital's population, have made some progress in trying to preserve the national culture, although not to the same extent as in Thailand, the Philippines, or other countries with a more substantial Chinese diaspora. As already mentioned, the Mauritian Chinese are mainly Catholic, which brings them closer to the Creoles and French. There are far fewer Buddhists, and they don't really hold on to their faith — some have told me that while they are Buddhists, they are also Catholics - there is religious syncretism.

The absence of a religious and linguistic barrier helps bring Chinese people closer to the rest of the Mauritian population in the field of marriage. Apparently, Chinese endogamy is a thing of the past. I have been able to discover many ethnic mixed marriages and meet a number of people of mixed Chinese-Indian and Chinese-Creole descent. In the city of Maeburg, where there are few Chinese (according to local residents, no more than 100 people, but rather half as many), I was able to discuss this problem with several informants. The most competent of them, those who, according to them, know almost all the Chinese of the city, gave the following figures: there are about 5 pure Chinese families in the city, and about 20 mixed with Creoles and Indians, i.e. CME-

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Figure 4. Mestizo Chinese: mother-Chinese, father - "Muslim"

mixed families accounted for about 80%. Of course, in Port Louis, in Chinatown, such mixed families are much smaller. However, they also exist there. According to the most competent informants, the total number of mixed families among Chinese people in the whole country is about half of all families. I think that this opinion can be believed, although it is impossible to say more precisely. Municipal data on marriages will not help here - they only record religion, but not nationality. This suggests that if the number of mixed marriages continues to grow, then over time, complete assimilation of the Chinese by the surrounding majority is not excluded.

Who do Chinese people have the most contact with in the field of marriage? According to probability theory, there should be more such marriages with Indo-Mauritians, the largest group. But the mixed families and people of mixed origin that I have encountered suggest that the Chinese have about the same degree of contact with Indo-Mauritians and Creoles. Apparently, unity with the Creoles in religion is affected.

How do mixed-race Chinese define themselves? Is the Chinese identity dominant or otherwise? The mestizos I interviewed gave very different answers - some associate themselves with the Chinese, others-with the nationality of the second parent (Creoles, Indo-Mauritians or Muslims).

Apparently, there is no dominance of any one nationality among mestizos, opinions are very different. I also met some who identified themselves as "just Mauritians", without ethnic gradation.

The formation of the Creole group occurred as a result of their active mixing with Europeans, although this mixing cannot be called "marriages" - the cohabitation of French masters with slaves from Africa and Madagascar led to the emergence of a significant stratum of mulattoes. Of course, there was also mixing between the Africans themselves, who belonged to different tribes and nationalities. During the consolidation of this community, the "colonial French" language, or Patois, or creole - a distorted, simplified French-spread among them. Here the process was similar to that in other French colonies, such as the Caribbean Islands, and "Pidgin English" emerged in many English colonies. At the time of the change of ownership of the island from the French to the English, Creoles were the majority.

I knew from ethnographic literature that Creoles were Negroes and mulattoes. However, traveling around the island, I could not meet real Negroes, all the Creoles I met were mulattoes-and their skin is lighter than that of real African Negroes,

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and the hair is often not curly, but wavy, French blood in the Creoles is clearly noticeable. One day, for the first time, I saw a "real" Black man sweeping the street near a hotel in Maeburg. But when they met, it turned out that he was not a Mauritian, but a guest worker from Ghana. This exception only confirmed the rule - there are almost no pure-blooded Africans among the Creoles. All of them are of mixed origin. Apparently, after the abolition of slavery, Blacks and mulattoes did not separate from each other (as in some Caribbean islands), mixing continued, as a result, Caucasian genes spread to the entire population.

Creoles do not have national clothing, but there are some peculiarities in the use of purchased clothing. Creoles, in comparison with Indians, dress, if I may say so, in a more "light" way. If you meet a girl on the street in a mini-skirt or in short shorts, with bare shoulders (a tank top with straps), then most likely it is a Creole, but not an Indian. If you meet a group of young people on vacation in the evening, then the boys can be both Indian and Creole, but the girls are only Creole, I have never met Indian girls on the streets in the evenings. Some fashion guys can see a specific hairstyle, as far as I know, common in some islands of the Caribbean, consisting of many small braids. The" national " clothing of Creoles is limited to this specific feature. However, at concerts, on holidays, especially when Creoles dance their "brand" dance for Mauritius - sega, Creoles wear bright, often red, wide skirts, they can also be called "Creole national", although, of course, they "came" to Mauritius not from Africa, but most likely from Europe.

The situation of mixed families in Mauritius is primarily determined by marriages between the two largest communities - Indians and Creoles. The proportion of mixed marriages between Indians and Creoles, as shown above, is not so high, about one marriage in ten. However, the same marriages for Creoles give a completely different percentage, since Creoles on the island are two to three times less than Indians. The percentage of mixed marriages among Creoles in Maeburg, according to municipal documents for 2012, was 19.2%, i.e. every fifth marriage. This is already quite a large percentage. Although this number does not allow us to conclude that endogamy has completely broken through, we can say that this indicator has reached a critical milestone. I must say that when entering into marriages between Indians and Creoles, the attitude of relatives towards them is different. It has been noted, at least in the recent past [Eriksen, 1997], that Indian relatives often discouraged or expressed dissatisfaction with such a marriage, while Creole relatives were more tolerant of mixed marriage. For this reason, Creoles also marry more foreigners. The Indian family is clearly more conservative than the Creole family.

The rapid growth of the Protestant community on the island (from 1.5% to 8.6%) is noteworthy, although there are still fewer Protestants than followers of the three main religions - Catholic, Hindu and Muslim. However, this group is not united, there are representatives of several Protestant movements. How can the growth of this group affect mixed marriages? As it turned out, there are both Creoles and Indo-Mauritians among the Protestants. In my opinion, the interaction of two ethnic groups within Protestant religious communities can lead to an increase in ethnically mixed marriages among co-religionists, at least the probability of this is high, since confessional unity removes one of the obstacles to such marriages.

The rates of Creole-Indian marriages are very different from the situation on the island a few generations ago, when such marriages were extremely rare. Their number increased only by the beginning of the 1980s; in 1987, their share reached 8.8% (absolute number - 989) [Eriksen, 1997], and by now, according to our estimate, it has exceeded 10%. We can say that the integration processes expressed in such marriages are very active on the island. However, talk about the full

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you don't have to merge all the groups yet. Such a merger is characteristic only of numerically small groups - South Indians (the merger process is nearing completion) and to a lesser extent the Chinese. Mixed marriages indicate an active rapprochement of the main ethnic communities, primarily Indians-Hindus and Creoles. No information was collected on the marriages of French Mauritians, but it seems that they rarely marry with the rest of the population - at least, no such families were found during the survey. Apparently, there is a serious barrier between French Mauritians and the rest of the population - not so much national or cultural, but social - the Mauritian French belong to the upper stratum of society, and this contributes to their endogamy. Marriages between Mauritians and Frenchmen from Europe, as well as with other Europeans, were much more common. The reason for the increase in the number of such marriages is the growth of tourism, mainly from Europe, and from European countries - more often from France. These mixed families usually prefer to live in Europe, but they often come to the island on vacation. Usually, Creoles are more likely to marry Europeans from Islanders. Perhaps it is also important in such marriages that Creoles know French quite well and, like the French, Catholics.

In addition to several Franco-Creole families, a German-Creole family met (they live in Germany, they come to the island on vacation), and a Norwegian-Creole family, who was walking with a baby carriage in the center of Maeburg, decided to permanently settle on the island (the wife is an Indian-Creole Mestizo). It happens that a European woman also marries Mauritians, although this option is less common. We met a family with a local Indian husband and a French-Swiss wife. We also received information about an Indian-Russian family permanently residing on the island.

Among people of mixed origin, the ethnic orientation is very different - sometimes they define their ethnicity by their father, sometimes by their mother, but there are also those who insist that they are not Creoles or Indo-Mauritians, but "just Mauritians". The average number of mixed families throughout the island is approximately 10%, and it is assumed that the share of the mixed population (between the main ethnic communities) is close to this number. Of these, approximately half are undecided between the main communities, call themselves only Mauritians, their number in the total population is estimated at approximately 4-6%, it is impossible to say more precisely. It would seem that this is not much. But it is possible that they are the core of a future "common-Mauritian" ethnic community, if one is formed over time.

There is a possibility that in the process of further deepening interethnic integration and mutual assimilation, Mauritians, and not only from mixed families, will eventually increasingly call themselves this common ethnonym and less often-Indo-Mauritians, Creoles, etc., and then indeed in the distant future a new ethnic group may form.

list of literature

Africa. Statistical collection, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1969.
Burygin S. M., Shsyko N. I., Nepomnyashchy N. N. Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles. Pearls of the Indian Ocean, Moscow: Vschs, 2007.
Krivonogoe V. P. Vsddy, burghers, moors / / Vostochnaya kollektsiya. 2013. № 3 (54).

The world's population. Demograficheskiy spravochnik [Demographic Handbook], Moscow: Mysl', 1989.

Stspanchuk Yu. I. Zvezda i klyuch Indiskogo okeana [Star and Key of the Indian Ocean]. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1987.

Erikscn Т.Н. Tensions between the ethnic and the post-ethnic: Ethnicity, change and mixed marriages in Mauritius // The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness / Ed. by H. Vermeulcn, С Govers. L.: Macmillan, 1997.

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