Melbourne Museum
Curating stories and knowledge from Pasifika communities in Victoria, Melbourne Museum brought four Kiribati representatives to contribute to the Kiribati respresentation in the Pacific Exhibit.
The Maneaba: Stories of the meeting house that is the heart of the I-Kiribati community, shared by Marita Davies, Cassandra Walton, Lucy Fonua and Teaote Davies.
‘The thing that I really like about the construction of the maneaba, or te va, the canoe, is that even though it’s the men's role to build the structure, I really love the fact that it can’t be built without the women making the rope with the coconut husk. I use that as my own identity, thinking well, they can’t get anything done without the women … (laughter) literally holding together the community, that’s how I interpret it.
Because they have built the rope that holds this huge structure, it's all dependent on how strong the rope is and how well made it is and so that’s dependent on the women's skill. So nothing, none of these structures can be built without rope and the coconut husk.’
‘It represents community and ancestral ties and elder respect, but it’s also where villages govern from. And so it’s where decisions are made for the community and democracy happens because everyone is at their posts and that’s where decisions are made in the maneaba.’