Indigenous costumes and ceremonies are featured in Polynesian culture festivals.
Polynesia, an archipelago of more than 1,000 islands, stretches from New Zealand to Hawaii. The island groups have distinct cultures with many shared traditions and indigenous art forms. Festivals on many of the islands are as likely to celebrate the culture of a region as they are to focus on a single people. So the festivals are lively and colorful events with sports, dance and crafts competitions vying for time with native foods and literary arts.
Kauai, Hawaii
In Hawaii, the annual fall Kauai Mokihana Festival celebrates the culture and history of the Hawaiian people in a week filled with exhibitions and competitions. Children and adults compete in categories of native music and mastery of traditional instruments. There are lessons in the Hawaiian language, a three-day hula competition with age categories from preschoolers to seniors, food and native crafts to try, and performances---some free and some requiring paid admission. In the spring, during Memorial Day weekend, Kauai hosts the Kauai Polynesian Festival, a celebration of the whole Polynesian archipelago. The festival presents a grand luau, traditional arts-and-crafts markets and native foods from across Polynesia. There are demonstrations and lessons in coconut husking and fiber weaving, pareau tying, making ti-leaf leis, and spear throwing. Tahitian dance and drumming workshops share the schedule with a Maori and hula dance-off, a Tahitian dance competition, Samoan fire knife dance competitions, and performances by Hawaiian musical groups.
Tahiti, French Polynesia
Tiare Tahiti Day in December celebrates the national flower of Tahiti. A daylong festival in Papeete features government offices and businesses competing to see who can showcase the most beautiful floral decorations using the native gardenia, the Tiare flower. Individual flowers are given to everyone on the streets of downtown Papeete, and the day ends with a festive dinner-dance in a ballroom covered in flowers. In July, Papeete is the site of the Heiva I Tahiti festival, three weeks of traditional dance and singing competitions, local sports and culture demonstrations, native foods and crafts. Some of the sports activities during Papeete's July celebrations include the Heiva Tu'aro Ma'ohi exhibitions of javelin throwing, coconut tree climbing, stone lifting and canoe racing and Heiva Va'a I Tahiti outrigger races between Tahiti and Moorea, featuring paddlers in traditional dress.
Auckland, New Zealand
The annual Pasifika Festival takes place in Auckland, New Zealand in March and is a South Pacific-wide cultural celebration. The festival features an opening-night concert with native stories, songs and dance focused on annual themes like frangipani flowers and molokau---centipedes. Events include tribal pop opera, Samoan choral music, and writers' and playwrights' workshops, Pacific street dancing and free lessons, New Zealand Kilikiti exhibition games, native artists' gallery shows, pandanus mat weaving demonstrations and national dishes like crackling pig, raw fish, and pineapple pies. Most activities throughout the six-day festival are free, and an annual highlight is Fakakaukau, a series of three-evening debates that examine Maori and Pacific islander identities, indigenous education and cultural developments that affect life in the South Pacific. Debate teams are drawn from artists, academics, activists and political figures, and the arguments are a lively draw for many of the 200,000 festival-goers.
Tags: native foods, Auckland Zealand, Heiva Tahiti, Tahitian dance, with native