Tivaevae or tivaivai (Cook Islands Māori : tīvaevae) in the Cook Islands, tifaifai in French Polynesia, is a form of artistic quilting traditionally done by Polynesian women. The word literally means "patches", [1] in reference to the pieces of material sewn together. The tivaevae are either made by one woman or can be created in groups of women called vainetini. The vainetini use this time together to bond, sing and catch up on village news. [1]
Tivaevae are often given on very special occasions either to important visitors, as birthday and wedding gifts or used to cover the body of a loved one who has died. They are often displayed during important events like the traditional boys' hair-cutting ceremonies, birthdays and weddings. [2]
By custom, a tivaevae is not measured by monetary value nor production cost. Its value is said to be reflected by the love and patience that the creator(s) have put into making a stunning work of art. Cook Islands women often described their tivaevae as being "something from the heart". [3] Artist Vereara Maeva-Taripo has described tivaevae as central to the identity of Cook Islands women. [4]
Tivaevae are rarely seen for sale on the islands. The Atiu Fibre Arts Studio on Atiu is the only place in the Cook Islands where they are commercially produced and available for purchase. [5]
The tivaevae's origins are uncertain. Rongokea (1992) believes it to be an imported art form, and cites two sets of Christian missionaries in the 19th century as possible origins. While it is known that these female missionaries taught the indigenous women how to sew, it is not certain that they taught them the craft of quilting or making bed coverlets. The appliqué style of tivaevae quilting appears to have been influence by Pennsylvanian German scherenschnitte or Victorian folded paper-cutting traditions. [6] Multiple origins and influences thus seem likely.
As an art form, tivaevae replaced barkcloth production in Tahiti and the Cook Islands by the late 19th century: the function and nature of barkcloth production was transferred to tivaevae. [7] Vereara Maeva-Taripo [8] and Tungane Broadbent are important tivaevae artists of today from the Cook Islands, [9] and both artists have been displayed in Queensland Art Gallery [10] and are in the collection in Cook Islands National Museum [11] and Queensland Art Gallery, [8] [12] as well as Christchurch Art Gallery. [13]
The Cook Islands is a self-governing island country in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand. It comprises 15 islands whose total land area is 236.7 square kilometres (91 sq mi). The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,960,027 square kilometres (756,771 sq mi) of ocean.
Lahaina is a census-designated place (CDP) in Maui County, Hawaii, United States. On the northwest coast of the island of Maui, it encompasses Lahaina town and the Kaanapali and Kapalua beach resorts. As of the 2020 census, Lahaina had a resident population of 12,702. The CDP spans the coast along Hawaii Route 30 from a tunnel at the south end, through Olowalu, and to the CDPs of Kaanapali and Napili-Honokowai to the north.
The history of Hawaii describes the era of human settlements in the Hawaiian Islands. The islands were first settled by Polynesians sometime between 1000 and 1200 AD forming the modern population of Native Hawaiians. Hawaiian civilization was isolated from the rest of the world for at least 500 years.
The aliʻi were the traditional nobility of the Hawaiian islands. They were part of a hereditary line of rulers, the noho aliʻi.
The culture of the Native Hawaiians encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms practiced by the original residents of the Hawaiian islands, including their knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits. Humans are estimated to have first inhabited the archipelago between 124 and 1120 AD when it was settled by Polynesians who voyaged to and settled there. Polynesia is made of multiple island groups which extend from Hawaii to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean. These voyagers developed Hawaiian cuisine, Hawaiian art, and the Native Hawaiian religion.
Tapa cloth is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. In French Polynesia it has nearly disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas.
Pius "Mau" Piailug was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Mau's Carolinian navigation system, which relies on navigational clues using the Sun and stars, winds and clouds, seas and swells, and birds and fish, was acquired through rote learning passed down through teachings in the oral tradition. He earned the title of master navigator (palu) by the age of eighteen, around the time the first American missionaries arrived in Satawal. As he neared middle age, Mau grew concerned that the practice of navigation in Satawal would disappear as his people became acculturated to Western values. In the hope that the navigational tradition would be preserved for future generations, Mau shared his knowledge with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). With Mau's help, PVS used experimental archaeology to recreate and test lost Hawaiian navigational techniques on the Hōkūleʻa, a modern reconstruction of a double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe.
The Hawaiian archipelago consists of 137 islands in the Pacific Ocean that are far from any other land. Polynesians arrived there one to two thousand years ago, and in 1778 Captain James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to visit Hawaii. The art created in these islands may be divided into art existing prior to Cook’s arrival; art produced by recently arrived westerners; and art produced by Hawaiians incorporating western materials and ideas. Public collections of Hawaiian art may be found at the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Bishop Museum (Honolulu), the Hawaii State Art Museum and the University of Göttingen in Germany.
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition.
A grass skirt is a costume and garment made with layers of plant fibres such as grasses and leaves that is fastened at the waistline.
Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word which has come, since the 2000s, to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands.
Adrienne Lois Kaeppler was an American anthropologist, curator of oceanic ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. She served as the President of the International Council on Traditional Music between 2005 and 2013. Her research focused on the interrelationships between social structure and the arts, including dance, music, and the visual arts, especially in Tonga and Hawaii. She was considered to be an expert on Tongan dance, and the voyages of the 18th-century explorer James Cook.
Wood carving is a common art form in the Cook Islands. Sculpture in stone is much rarer although there are some excellent carvings in basalt by Mike Tavioni. The proximity of islands in the southern group helped produce a homogeneous style of carving but which had special developments in each island. Rarotonga is known for its fisherman's gods and staff-gods, Atiu for its wooden seats, Mitiaro, Mauke and Atiu for mace and slab gods and Mangaia for its ceremonial adzes. Most of the original wood carvings were either spirited away by early European collectors or were burned in large numbers by missionary zealots.
The culture of the Cook Islands reflects the traditions of its fifteen islands as a Polynesian island country, spread over 1,800,000 square kilometres (690,000 sq mi) in the South Pacific Ocean. It is in free association with New Zealand. Its traditions are based on the influences of those who settled the islands over several centuries. Polynesian people from Tahiti settled in the Cook Islands in the 6th century. The Portuguese captain, Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, made the first recorded European landing in the islands in the early 17th century, and well over a hundred years later, in the 18th century, the British navigator, Captain James Cook arrived, giving the islands their current name. Missionaries developed a written language, bringing schools and Christianity to the Cook Islands in the early 19th century. Cook Islands Māori, also known as Māori Kūki 'Āirani or Rarotongan, is the country's official language.
The i-sala is a traditional Fijian headdress, similar in shape to a headscarf or turban, and part of the traditional attire of the chiefly and priestly classes of the islands of Fiji as a sign of rank. Other variant of the name include sala, i-zinu, i-uso or i-uho, vauvau or paupau and masi turban. I-sala or ai Sala literally means "wrapper or envelope" in the Fijian language.
The Tahitian Dog is an extinct breed of dog from Tahiti and the Society Islands. Similar to other strains of Polynesian dogs, it was introduced to the Society Islands and Tahiti by the ancestors of the Tahitian (Mā’ohi) people during their migrations to Polynesia.
Mere Tepaeru Tereora is a Cook Islands artist and educator. Her Tivaevae work is internationally recognised and displayed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She is also a significant figure in the revival of Cook Islands Māori, establishing language nests for it in New Zealand. She was the sister of writer Kauraka Kauraka.
The Cook Islands National Museum is a museum in Avarua on Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. Its collection includes contemporary and historic artefacts, as well as replicas of objects in foreign institutions.
Vereara Maeva-Taripo was a Cook Islander political organizer also known for her quilting of tivaevae.
Tungane Broadbent is a Cook Islands artist, notable for her tivaevae/tivaivai, with her career making tivaivai spanning five decades. Broadbent founded the O’oa Fabric & Fibre Arts group in 2007, Rarotonga, to teach women to sew tivaivai.