This pōvai or club, is known as Pāletu‘a, shield and weapon or Kali ‘o Hina, Headrest of Hina. It is used in faiva no‘o‘anga, the Tongan performance art of shark-catching. Hina is one of Tonga’s deified ancestors where, amongst her various domains, she is goddess of faiva no‘o‘anga. Made of wood, it is completed carved with the Tongan kupesi or pattern veimau, meaning ‘ordered water flow’ – where the surface is calm and ordered but the water underneath is dynamic and chaotic.

Collection of Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, 1931.245, 16405; L26

Maui-TāVā-He-Akó Professor Tēvita O Kaʻili is the author of the book Marking Indigeneity: The Tongan Art of Sociospatial Relations (2017). He is originally from Nukuʻalofa, Tongatapu, with ancestral ties to Tonga, Sāmoa, Fiji, and Rotuma. He is a descendant of Moana Oceanian deified ancestors Tangaloa, Māui, and Hina. He is the Dean of the Faculty of Culture, Language, and Performing Arts at Brigham Young University Hawaiʻi and Professor of Cultural Anthropology. He teaches courses in Cultural Anthropology and Pacific Islands Studies. Tēvita received his PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington in 2008. He is a leading proponent of the Indigenous Moana-based Tā-Vā Philosophy of Reality. A theory formulated by the noted historical anthropologist Hūfanga-He-Ako-MoeLotu Professor ʻŌkusitino Māhina. Tēvita specializes in the cultural arrangement of tā-vā (time-space), Indigenous anthropology, Oceanian mythologies, Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies, and language revitalization. Tēvita and his wife, Liz (Māori, Ngāti Hine, Ngā Puhi), live on the Ahupuaʻa of Kahuku, Oʻahu, Hawai‘i.

Pā‘utu-‘O-Vava‘u-Lahi, Adriana Lear is a TonganAustralian musician, composer, interdisciplinary artist, and Creative Arts PhD scholar at the University of Wollongong. She is currently undertaking her PhD thesis on Tongan hiva music and tāvāism, under the co-supervision of Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Professor Dr ʻŌkusitino Māhina, Maui-TāVā-He-Akó Professor Dr Tēvita O. Ka‘ili, Dr Terumi Narushima, and Associate Professor Dr Su Ballard.

Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Professor 'Ōkusitino Māhina is Professor of Tongan Philosophy, Anthropology, and Art at Vava‘u Academy, Vava‘u, Kingdom of Tonga & Vā Moana: Space and Relationality in Pacific Thought and Identity, Marsden Research Cluster, Auckland University of Technology, Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa NZ. He has published extensively, including books, co-edited books, co-edited journal special issues, book chapters, journal articles, as well as writing and publishing Tongan poetry. He has taught Moana Oceania political economy and arts for some 25 years at the University of Auckland, Massey University, and ‘Atenisi University, where he was Dean of the University and Director of the Institute in 1997-99.

Gifted by Maui-TāVā-He-Akó Professor Tēvita O Kaʻili, Pā‘utu-‘O-Vava‘u-Lahi, Adriana Lear and Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Professor 'Ōkusitino Māhina