Niuean Art Forms

Niuean Art forms

Sourced from Niue Language week presentation, Exploring ‘the Rock’, Air NZ Culture and Otago Uni

There are many different types of art created in Niue. These include weaving, sculpture, craft, wearable art, hiapo and many more. Today for you reading you are going to learn about some of these different art forms. 

Weaving:

Weaving is a popular activity for women in Niue, some men weave too. Lalaga and tia are two popular techniques. 

Lalaga - wrap and weft closed weave this is a technique used by many other cultures. Different cultures use different materials. 

Tia - this is an open style weave which is shared with other Pacific cultures. It is a process of fashioning “eyes” that are somewhat similar to crocheting and knitting however it is not done precisely the same way. It is sometimes also called stitched weaving. 

Weavers in Niue mainly use laufā (pandanus leaves), kā niu (coconut leaf mid-ribs), laniu (coconut leaves) and kala fou (fou fibers). Niue weavers in New Zealand obtain these traditional materials from Niue but they also use harakeke in place of laufā. Weavers also today use modern materials such as plastic strips, plastic bread bags, raffia, wool and string. 

Carving: 

Carvers make nafa (wooden slit drums from the wood of several different kinds of trees in Niue including the kieto and the telie. They also use New Zealand woods, such as tōtara. If you wander down the sea tracks you will pass small canoes or vaka which the local men use for fishing. Decades ago the arrival of dinghies almost saw the end of traditional vaka building but a handful of master carers still create new ones to order. Young boys in Niue learn to carve while at school and will often create a vaka as a project. 

Hiapo:

“Hiapo” is the word for barkcloth or tapa in the language of Niue. Most known pieces of hiapo were produced in the mid to late nineteenth century and are now housed in various museum collections all over the world. Niueans made hiapo by felting and layering pieces of tapa cloth together. By the late 1800’s they had created their own indigenous style of decoration using free hand drawing and applying dye. The dyes were extracted from trees or plants. Hiapo makers incorporated motifs and designs representing shapes of plants and humans into their compositions which show human interaction with the natural environment.