Talofa!
Sunday 27 September – Saturday 3 October 2026 is Te Vaiaso o te ‘Gana Tuvalu, Tuvalu Language Week.
On this page we've gathered stories and information celebrating Tuvalu from around the Museum.
Header image: mea teu fale (wall hanging); 2015.50.5, 56763.5
Join us for onsite celebrations
We’re bringing Tuvalu Language Week to life in the Museum and online here! Come in and see the collections up close, and check out stories from our people and our mahi.
TUE 29 SEP, 9.30AM, 10.30AM, 1PM, 2PM, 3PM, 4PM
BOOKINGS REQUIRED
Our Te Aho Mutunga Kore team warmly invite Tuvalu community members to join us to view a selection of Tuvalu textile and fibre material in our collections here at Auckland Museum. Book a time to pay our Te Aho Mutunga Kore team a visit to view taonga in person, then share a cuppa and a chat afterwards.
Te aluga. Woven pillow. Collection of Auckland War Memorial Museum 1951.204.9
Tausiga o kope tausi totino mo kaaiga
If you would prefer to access this information in another language, click here to see the other options.
Kope tausi o kaaiga ne vaega o tala fakasolopito, ka taumata tatou me ko oi tatou kae ne aumai foki tatou i fea? Kope tausi konei e aofia ei a ata, tusi ata, tusi, mo nisi tusitusiga taua i ei. Tausiga mo te atafaiga o kopekopega a te kaaiga e pokotia foki ei tena nofo leva. A fakamatalaga konei ka fesoasoani ki te tausiga fakalei o au koloa taua mo tupulaga solo mai mua nei.
O se ata o fa‘amaumauga o tala fa‘asolopito mai le Pacific Islands eDucation Resource Center (PIERC) fa‘atasi ai ma le ulua‘i Fa‘atonu o le PIERC, Afioga Le Mamea Taulapapa Sefulu Ioane vaitau o le 1970
Taofi mau ki tau ‘gana, mo tou gaugaleo, me ko tou iloga tena
Uphold your language and dialect, for it is your identity
Here are some Tuvaluan greetings:
Talofa / Greetings, Hello
Talofa koutou / Greetings Everyone
Tofa - Fano La / Goodbye – to those who are leaving
Tofa - Nofo La / Goodbye – to those who are staying
Fakamolemole / Please
Fakafetai / Thank you
Fakafetai lasi! Many thanks!
Fakatoese / Sorry
Tulou / Excuse me
Ko oi tou igoa? / What is your name?
Toku igoa ko ________ / My name is __________
Koe se tino mai fea? / Where are you from?
Au se tino mai _______ / I am a person from
Talofa kou tou,
My name is Reid Fuemana-Elisaia O’Brien and I have the privilege of serving at Tāmaki Paenga Hira in the Pacific Advisory Group. In this role, I am constantly reminded of how powerful our stories, our people, languages, and cultural treasures are in keeping us connected to each other, and to home. For me, it’s a blessing being apart of this team as it’s a way to honour my Pasifika community, especially my Tuvaluan roots that hold such high value in cultural preservation especially as a nation that sits front line of today’s climate crisis.
My Tuvalu roots stem from the beautiful island of Nukufetau. As a proud child of the Manusiki Kaaiga, I carry my grandmothers proudness from the capital of Funafuti. Though I live here in Aotearoa, the heartbeat of Tuvalu still lives within me. As the co-founder of Tuvaluan creative collective, collecting our stories digitally go hand in hand with my placement at the Auckland Museum, our stories will one day be history and I love being a keeper/protector of that.
The Tuvaluan language is more than words. It is our inheritance. It is the bridge between generations and things that cannot be translated in English. I attend Tuvalu language classes to strengthen my ties as I believe each word carries the salt of the ocean, the strength of our ancestors, and the warmth of family. In a world where small nations can easily be forgotten, our language and culture is the light that keeps Tuvalu seen, heard, and alive.
What I hold close the memory is Fatele, Tuvaluan dance. I remember as a child, sitting in the circle, feeling the vibration of the drums and the voices of aunties and uncles as they clapped and sang. The rhythm always pulled us to our feet, whether we were shy or not. Fatele is not just dance it is the celebration of family, language, and joy. When I hear it today, it reminds me that our language is alive, that our culture is not fading, instead is dancing forward. This also shows our resilience and togetherness we value, fatale cannot be done by one, it takes a village.
So, during Tuvalu Language Week 2025, I honour my family, my ancestors and our people. May our words never be silenced, may our proverbs continue to guide us, and may the sound of the Fatele remind us always of who we are.
Fakafetai lasi.
Their eyes are locked directly at me, there is stillness in the air, there is little body movement. They are sitting speechlessly with their mouths half open with awe awaiting for the next part of the story – this is what I do. To touch their very soul “like you just scored a goal.” Inspiring, empowering, connecting with my audience is what I love to do. Seeing the emotions of the stories told, being played on their faces gives me motivation to keep talking. For this to happen I need to fully understand, be very confident and be prepared to adopt and adapt to any situation. Verbal communication is how our people relate or transfer their ideas, their knowledge, and skills from generation to generation. To communicate effectively, you need to have a plan that allows you to know your audiences so that you know what to say, when to say and how to say every single line of your delivery.
My name is Kelesoma Saloa and I am of Tuvalu descent working as a casual Kaiako at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. I was born on the smallest Island in Tuvalu called Niutao and migrated here to New Zealand in 2012 in search of higher and safer grounds for my family. Witnessing the current impact of global warming on small islands is alarming, so imagine the impacts that are yet to be discovered when temp continues to rise? I miss Tuvalu, families and friends but we are navigators ‘o te moana’ so our migration story will never end. Even though I am living here in Aotearoa New Zealand, I always remember the teaching and the knowledge that was passed down to us by our ancestors.
One proverb I remembered from Tuvalu is “A te tama a te manu lele e fagai ki te poa, ka ko te tama a te tagata e fagai ki muna,” In English “A bird’s chick lives on bait fish, but a man’s child lives on words.” means, "birds need baitfish to eat and survive otherwise humans, education is life". Most of our knowledge and skills were transferred or related from the source to the recipient verbally in the past. Historically, our life teachings are mostly hands-on or orally taught with very little writing and reading.
Language, culture is anyone’s identity and it connects us to our birth place and to our people. Not only that, but also connect us to form a network that enable survive sustainably in a poorly resourced base place like Tuvalu.
Education starts at home with my own language, a God given language, as when we grow older every part of the conversation falls into its place while you learn how to speak. Then I went to a formal ECE kindergarten when I was 6 years old where I started to learn English and Ikiribati languages, honestly this is where the confusion began. This was during the time we were colonised by the British as Gilbert and Elise Islands. Later in life I also had the opportunity to study basic Nihongo (Japanese language) when I attended Waseda University in Tokyo. Understanding more than one language is a blessing.
Kupe O Fatele
The new book by Molia Alama-Tulafono celebrating Tuvaluan culture.
My homeland of Tuvalu is made up of nine small atolls and reef islands — Nanumea, Nanumaga, Niutao, Vaitupu, Nui, Nukufetau, Funafuti (Capital Island ), Nukulaelae and Niulakita. It is located 3,500kms north of Aotearoa, New Zealand and has a population of 11,000 people. Surrounded by endless blue ocean, each of these islands has its own unique songs, chants and words used as a way of storytelling through fatele.
It is often said that Tuvalu will become the world’s first digital nation. Climate change threatens our physical land and way of life. I feel an urgency to act and find ways to preserve my rich culture, stories and language for not only my children but for the generations to come. Fatele is my way of keeping my culture alive.
This book shares kupu o fatele from many of the different islands of Tuvalu, taught to me by elders I greatly respect and admire. This collection can be referenced if you are looking for songs, chants or words of inspiration. I have also included a general English translation, that provides my own personal interpretation of each fatele. Enjoy!
Video by the Pacifica Arts Centre
From Online Cenotaph
Stories of service and remembrance.
Before becoming an independent nation in the 1970s Tuvalu was a British colony, known then as the Ellice Islands. In 1918, twenty five members of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Native Police Force travelled to New Zealand to enlist for war. This is their odyssey.
Online Cenotaph includes Pacific service personnel who served in the New Zealand Armed Forces from the First World War onwards. We have only identified 8 service personnel of Tuvaluan descent who served in the Maori Contingent during the First World War. This includes the well known Sergeant Kaipati who was born in Nanumea, Ellice Island. You can read more about his service at nzhistory. We would love for you to add more details, images and messages to these records. If you know of someone who served in the New Zealand Forces from the Ellice Islands / Tuvalu but is not yet identified please get in touch and we will amend their record.
A sinking nation, a steadfast resilience.
Interview with Fala Haulangi by Loveni S. Enari
Her nation of Tuvalu is expected to be under water in the next 50 to 100 years but even when totally submerged, and she's without a land to speak from, not even the terrible forces of climate crisis will silence the voice and language of Fala Haulangi, a proud Tuvaluan.
Haulangi's Tuvaluan language is categorised as “definitely endangered” on the Unesco List of Endangered Languages, which means children don't learn it as a mother tongue in the home and, according to experts, the world loses an indigenous language every two weeks.
Haulangi, a union organiser and well known champion of minorities in New Zealand society feels that now, in this Tuvaluan language week, more than ever, must their voices be heard.
'We may be a minority among the minorities, but our people are always punching above their weight,' said Haulangi recently.
'We need to value our language, it is dying as fewer and fewer young people are speaking it. That's the reality.'
'The responsibility is back to us and we need to do our part to maintain the language.'
‘Fakatumau kae fakaakoi tau 'gana ke mautu a iloga o 'ta tuā’, means 'preserve and embrace your language to safeguard our heritage identities'.
This is the theme of the 2023 language week and Haulangi, as ever when speaking up for the underdogs of society, is forceful.
'We have a very important role to play here as long as we continue to have a voice,’ she said.
'And that's where the power of the collective comes in.'
'But that's also why we need allies around us to make sure that we speak the same language and sing from the same page.'
Here she cites the importance of Cyclone Gabriel and the resulting flood damage that wreaked New Zealand in February and the newfound, but welcome, empathy from some Kiwis towards other sufferers of the climate crisis such as the Tuvaluans.
'We Kiwis used to be in denial before, but now with all the flooding that's been happening right on our doorsteps, we started to wake up and go, 'Yeah, this is what you people (from Tuvalu) have been talking about all this time.'
‘All this time’ is how long Haulangi feels they have been at the coalface, pickaxe in hand, grinding away for the cleaners, the airport luggage handlers, the service industry workers of the world, for them all to be granted the living wage, for migrant workers not to be exploited by precarious contracts, to encourage Pasifika people to vote, to demand basic rights for age carers and home support workers, for fairer legislation … The list goes on and on, just like Haulangi’s boundless energy. Unlike her islands, there is no danger of sinking Haulangi. Her spirit and fight are too ingrained.
It goes too far back, right back to when she was a child in Nauru and her father was literally using the pickaxe to excavate phosphate for the rich Australian and New Zealand companies that exploited Nauru’s minerals.
Seeing her father paid in boxes of corned beef, sugar and toilet paper, she recalls, stirred something in her.
Image: By INABA Tomoaki via Flickr, cc-by-sa-2.0
Later as a senior student in a school dorm in Suva, it was a case of scabies that led her to standing up to the matron and then the principal of her boarding school to demand better hygiene practices to eradicate the infestation. The students were taken to hospital, creams were provided, and the bed linen was boiled.
Then it was as a strawberry-picker, recently arrived in New Zealand in her early 20s.
‘I saw the way people were getting treated at the strawberry farm. I just stood up and said, No way. They're not going to treat my people like that.’
‘People were always short paid. They worked in the rain, they worked in the sun and all that kind of thing and paid little.’
‘I just said, this is not acceptable. Somehow this social justice was instilled in me,’ she says.
‘I think it comes to me naturally that I have to stand up and do the right thing, you know, when I see that (injustice).’
A sinking nation, an endangered language, climate crisis and workers’ rights, all in one big breath - and you need a big one to keep up with Haulangi. I doubt there is a better example of how all these issues can operate hand in hand than Tuvalu, and Haulangi.
When the last wave washes over what was left of Tuvalu, and there is no physical record of what was once three reef islands and six atolls, what will remain?
Principally, Its people - some 14,000, concentrated mainly in New Zealand, Fiji and Australia.
Secondly, the digitisation project of the nation, consisting of photographs, videos, documentaries, Tik Toks, (you name it). This is well under way, and whatever it finally looks like, it will serve as a digital record of what was once the fourth-smallest nation in the world.
Finally, and there is a Tuvaluan proverb ‘Ko tou malosi, ko tou maumea’ - this translates as ‘your strength, your wealth’ - which leads us to possibly that which should be most relevant to Tuvaluans, and Pasifika in general - the language, the language, the language.
The Future of the Tuvaluan Language
Ena Manuireva sits down with Fala Haulangi to discuss the dangers faced by Tuvalu language.
The art of kolose
Kolose is the Tuvaluan word for a unique form of crochet. A modern and innovative technique, kolose is used in creating Tuvaluan attire and ornamentations such as gatu kolose (crocheted tops) and petticoats used in dance and on special occasions, and wall hangings used in homes.
The combination of patterns and colour schemes are highly distinctive of the kolose artform. This standout body of art works was acquired into the Museum’s collection in 2014.
The makers are members of Fafine Niutao I Aotearoa, an Auckland-based arts collective of women from Niutao, Tuvalu, established in 2012. The collective is committed to creating and sharing Tuvaluan art, and particularly to teach kolose to the young generation. This inspirational work led to their exhibition Kolose: The Art of Tuvalu Crochet at Mangere Arts Centre Ngā Tohu o Uenuku (2014), curated by Marama T-Pole and Kolokesa Mahina-Tuai. The exhibition also went on tour to Lake House Arts Centre (2014) and Pātaka Art Museum (2017).
Explore the art of kolose in the gallery below. Click on each image to learn the unique story behind each piece.
How ili (fans) are made
Auckland Museum holds an extensive collection of ili from Tuvalu. Here, Kelesoma Saloa describes how these intricate pieces are created.
I Tuvalu, a ili (tio) e faite mai te kaumoe o niu. Te kaumoe e fole koa saka ai ki vai, oti koa soe ai te kaikaiga i luga i te launiu keatea. Mai kona koa pelupelu ai fakafoliki koa tauaki ai ki te laa. Kafai koa malolo koa lanu kena a taa. Ko taa uli mo taa kula e fakalanu ki sua o kaupaipu o togo mo aka o nonu.
A te foitini o te ili e fakamakeke ki kautuaniu, kae fakagaligali ki fulu o manu eva io me ni lausulu fakalanulanu. I aso nei koa fakaaoga ne tino a raffia mo fakagaligali io me fakalanulanu valevale o ata i luga i luga i ili.
Ne tusigina ne Kelesoma Saloa
In Tuvalu, ili (fine plaited fans) are primarily made from young inner coconut leaves which are still white and a little green in colour. These leaves are boiled in water then the surface layer on one side of the leaf is removed, leaving white strands. Finally the strands are sun dried, making them ready for plaiting. To dye the strands black or red the fibre is soaked in liquid extracted from mangrove seeds and noni plant (Morinda citrifolia) roots.
Coconut midribs are used for the structure and to strengthen the fan. Feathers, wool or dyed pandanus leaves are added for decorative purposes. Nowadays people use colourful synthetic raffia to make different more colourful patterns on the fans.
Written by Kelesoma Saloa
Listen to Kelesoma Saloa read this story in the Tuvalu language
Tuvalu through the collection
Here are a few objects from the Museum's collection, selected by staff for their particular significance to Tuvaluan culture.
Visit our archive of Tuvalu Language Week content from previous years.
Image: Te puukao inu. 1954.11.42, 33713.