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Niue Language Week

Fakalofa lahi atu!

Sunday 16th October – Saturday 22th October 2022 is Faahi Tapu he Vagahau Niue, Niue Language Week.

Header image: Hat made by Molie Eva Huka; AWMM 2019.31.11, 837.

From Sunday 16 October until Saturday 22 October, the Museum will be illuminated every evening in blue, red, and gold in recognition of Faahi Tapu he Vagahau Niue, Niue Language Week.

Fakalofa lahi atu kia mutolu oti. Fakaue fakamua ke he Atua kua feleveia pehe nei ke folafola atu e tau manatu ke he Vagahau mahuiga mo e tokiofa he motu ha tautolu ne fakataoga aki e tau tagata Niue ko e leo vagahau. Ko e Faahi Tapu Vagahau Niue a nei. 

This is Niue Language Week and we proudly celebrate and treasure our language as one core indicator of our heritage. We share with you samples and snapshots of Niue materials in the form of writing, photographs, handicrafts and collection objects from the Museum.

Onsite celebrations

This year for Niue Language Week legendary musician and activist Tigilau Ness performed Under the Tanoa.

Sustaining the Niuean Language with Tigilau Ness

Fakatūleva e Vagahau Niue kia Tigilau Ness

Sustaining the Niuean Language with Tigilau Ness

TUES 18 OCT, 6PM
TE AO MĀRAMA, SOUTH ATRIUM
FREE, NO BOOKINGS REQUIRED

Tigilau performed alongside his grandson, Loxmyn McDonald Ness and nephew Tommy Nee. The trio sang in Niuean and English, with original songs focusing on the importance of family, activism, and celebrating the younger generations embracing their Niuean identity.

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Scroll on to discover how Tigilau Ness embraces Niue and its language in his music and activism.

Tigilau Ness on music, activism, family and the resurgence of Niuean language and culture

Tigilau Ness on music, activism, family and the resurgence of Niuean language and culture

Find out why music is Tigilau Ness’s favourite way to promote Niuean culture and learn about the special concert he performed in Niue with his son, Che Fu.

Tigilau reflects on learning Niuean, his activism, the importance of family, and the awakening of younger generations to embrace their culture and language.

+Learn more about Tigilau

Niuean New Zealander Tigilau Ness is an activist and reggae artist, performing under the name Unity Pacific. Tigilau was involved in the founding of the Polynesian rights group, Polynesian Panthers in 1971. The group, modelled after the Black Panthers in the United States, targeted racial inequalities for Māori and Pacific Islanders in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Tigilau was active opposing apartheid and the 1981 Springbok Tour, leading to him being arrested during a protest and spending nine months in Mount Eden Prison. He also protested for Māori land rights, including the occupation of Bastion Point.

Tigilau is an accomplished musician. He co-founded the reggae group Twelve Tribes of Israel in the 1970s, and started a band called Unity in 1975. He formed the Unity Reggae Band in 1985, releasing an album called From Street to Sky in 2003 about his struggles against injustice and the problems he faced growing up in New Zealand. In 2009, Tigilau won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the fifth Pacific Music Awards. In 2016, he and his band Unity Pacific won the 2016 Vodafone New Zealand Music Award Tui for Best Roots Album.

In his personal life, Tigilau is a Rastafarian. He is the father of hip-hop musician Che Fu (Che Ness), and often performs as a member of Che's band The Krates. He is a fluent speaker of Niuean, and widely renowned in the Auckland Pacific community for his long years of activism, journalism, and cultural work, including organising festivals.

The single object, by The Spinoff

Discover the incredible story behind a pen in our collection, featuring Tigilau Ness. 

 

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At the break of dawn

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The Dawn Raids were a deportation programme that actively discriminated against Pasifika communities in the 1970s.

Learn more about this dark moment in Aotearoa's history, and the role of the Polynesian Panthers and their activism against the Dawn Raids by Dr. Andrea Low (Associate Curator, Contemporary World).

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University of Auckland Bic pen, donated by Dr. David Williams.

Stories of service

Explore stories from Online Cenotaph about Niuean service personnel.

Chaplain Heketaha Uea and Niue’s contribution to WWI
ONLINE CENOTAPH

Chaplain Heketaha Uea and Niue’s contribution to WWI

Chaplain Uea was age 40, the oldest of the 150 Niuean men who, keen to help ‘the Kingdom of King George’, joined the New Zealand Māori Contingent. Uea was a natural leader. He was their Sergeant Major and something of a father figure to the Niuean men. Importantly, he was one of the few who could speak English.

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Niue's service personnel

Niue's service personnel

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the people of Niue offered a contingent to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF), an offer that was taken up in mid-1915. Learn more about these servicemen and those who served in later conflicts at Online Cenotaph.  

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Early-1960s Niue by Harry Coleman

Auckland Museum holds a collection of close to 400 images of Niue in the early 1960s by New Zealander and WW2 veteran, Harry Alexander Coleman (1913-1995). View a selection of these images chosen by Leone Samu (Associate Curator, Documentary Heritage, Pacific Collections) then learn more about him via the link below.

Gallery (click to expand)

Niue in pictures

Niue in pictures

Leone Samu (Associate Curator, Documentary Heritage, Pacific Collections) takes looks at Niue through the lens of Harry Coleman, a public servant, radio operator, and founder for the government-issued bilingual Tohi Tala Niue newsletter.

Image: Coleman, Harry (1960s) Performance in festive costume. Auckland War Memorial Museum neg. M1660.9

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The wild plants of Niue

The Auckland Museum Herbarium holds over 400 plant specimens from Niue, dating back to 1877. The main collectors are: Henry A. Mair, a New Zealand sea-trader, who collected 35 ferns there in 1877; S. Percy Smith, a New Zealand civil servant and amateur ethnologist, who collected 125 mainly flowering plants in 1901; and botanist Rhys Gardner, research associate of Auckland Museum, who collected a similar number in 2005.

Gallery (click to expand)

 

Gardner published two personally-illustrated books on the flora: Trees and Shrubs of Niue (2011) and Ferns and herbs of Niue (2013); and two papers in 2021 on the flora: The naturalised flora of Niue and The native vascular plants of Niue, SW Pacific. There are no known plants endemic to Niue.

Gallery (click to expand)

 

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FAAHI TAPU HE VAGAHAU NIUE ARCHIVE

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Visit our archive of Niue Language Week content from previous years.

Image: Coleman, Harry (1960s) Harvesting taro. Auckland War Memorial Museum neg. M1658.1.

Visit the archive