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HISTORY OF TIVAEVAE
TIVAEVAE. The word is as Polynesian in flavour as the exotic names of the pacific places it belongs to: the Cook Islands of Rarotonga, Aitutaki Mangaia, Atiu. A visit to them is a visit to paradise.
To translate the word tivaevae is to risk losing its meaning and poetry. The ‘loose’ translation – Polynesian bedcover – is inadequate, while the literal alternative – to patch repeatedly- is too narrow. To simplify matters, tivaevae is a term that is now used to refer to all appliqué and piecework fabrics from the islands of Polynesia.
It is not certain how and when Western quilts and quilting techniques were introduced to the Cook Islands. The piecework style may have been introduced some time after 1827, when the first European missionaries of the London Missionary Society arrived.
Throughout eastern Polynesia, tivaevae (or Tifaifai as they are known as in Hawai’i) appear in weddings more often than in any other ritual context.
This occurs especially in the Cook Islands. Relatives and friends often strive to place several tivaevae in the grave to indicate their regard for the dead person.