Within a few decades it had acquired the weight of history.The story of the Kaunitoni is only one part of the overall narrative.Behind the claimed migration sits a larger conviction, still widely held in some iTaukei communities and church groups: that Fijians descend from a Lost Tribe of Israel — one of 10 the Hebrew Bible describes as carried into exile and never heard from again.The belief has no support in mainstream science or archaeology He says many of those who have returned from peacekeeping tours describe them in unexpectedly personal terms."Some even looked at their tour of duty as a pilgrimage," Dunn tells SBS News."I hadn't really noticed until October 7 just how fully and completely it seems like the vast majority of Fijians were putting their support behind the nation state of Israel."To understand how a newspaper entry came to shape Fiji's origin story, we have to go back 40 years before it ran — to two Wesleyan missionaries, William Cross and David Cargill, who landed in 1835 on the island of Lakeba, in Fiji's far east, carrying the Old Testament.Fijians heard of a people chosen by God and organised into 12 tribes, each descended from a common ancestor — and Fijian society was built the same way, in clans tracing descent from a founding ancestor, each with its own plant or animal totem."They tried to assimilate themselves with the Jews," Baleidelabaci says.The idea took written form in the mission schools