What were some of the challenges during the making of Te Otanga?
The first challenge was that we actually didn't know how to make it. It was a pretty cool project because myself, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson ended up traveling around the world researching te otanga in various museums and spent a lot of time in Auckland Museum too, picking through the collection there. The ones that were not in good shape were especially useful. The ones that were falling apart were probably some of the best things to look at because then we could see how things were constructed.
Basically there was no one – not even back in Kiribati – who knew how to make te otanga, not that we could find. But through going about research and talking to people, we started to work things out. One big contributor, Mwemwetaake Ataniberu, an elder and part of our project, he worked out this particular needle (te tu) that was used to make them. That was a big breakthrough, and a lot of work came out from that, finding out about these needles and how they were used to construct the armour.
So the needle was like a missing link?
Yes, that's a good way of describing it. It was a big part of creating Te Otanga, which was a good learning curve all-around. We produced two te otanga: the first one was more contemporary, and that is in the Cambridge Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. That first one was made from nylon fishing line, and it was good practice to work out a technique. The second one, which we still have in our possession, was more traditional, and that's using the coconut fibre string, te kora.
What sort of equipment or tools or materials do you use - was there ever the temptation to use an alternative material?
It did occur to us because we made the first te otanga out of contemporary materials, precisely because it was easier to source. But when we're talking about trying to make an authentic thing, the challenge was really quite major. Ours was the first one to be made with the traditional materials in the traditional way in quite a long time – I think the last one was made in the '60s.