Paper short abstract:

Colonisation in the Cook Islands in the late 1800s effectively rematerialised - literally and figuratively - the system of value. Quilts known as tivaivai became the textile of ceremony, and were wholly made from Western techniques and technologies. The complexities of this change have significant resonance in the contemporary environment.

Paper long abstract:

When the Cook Islands were colonised in the late 1800s, so too was the textile system which was based on woven mats and tapa cloth as the elite textiles of ceremony and the gift. This change is seemingly indicative of the 'extent' of colonisation that took place in the Cooks. After the arrival of the Europeans, this hierarchy of textiles was replaced with one relying solely on Western techniques and technologies to produce the fabric unquilted quilts known as tivaivai. Effectively, colonisation in the Cooks re-materialised - literally and figuratively - the system of value. The challenge is how to analytically frame this, because how this change is viewed/analysed is critical to understanding what is happening in the contemporary environment. The inherent 'Cook Islandness' of the tivaivai made and used by women in South Auckland currently belies the Western derived progeniture of the would-be quilts and has a great deal more to do with dynamic innovation rather than colonial subjugation. This paper looks at the framing of social change via the power of the materiality focus and the agency of tivaivai. It addresses the literature on social change and references the extent of the ceremonial economy that tivaivai operates in between South Auckland, the Cooks and other nexus of Cook Islander populations around the Pacific, and the particular version of Cook Islander prosperity that this economy affords for the participants.