Pacific Arts Festival, Part V

I am obviously partial to the dancing, but there was a lot more to the Festival of the Pacific Arts than just the performing arts. Aside from the stages, there was an area called the Festival Village where each country had its own fale (Samoan style hut). In the fales delegates from the various islands held demonstrations and sold handicrafts. I spent many hours wandering around there.As seen in some of our pictures of dancers, many Polynesian people are heavily tattooed. The demonstrations of traditional tattooing were almost too painful to even watch. The tools consist of a piece of wood covered with needles made from bone (it looks like a comb) and a second piece of wood which acts as a hammer. The person has to endure hours and hours of being "tapped" on. The Maori people (native to New Zealand) practice the art of face tattooing. There was a lot of weaving going on and I would still love to learn. I had visions of weaving becoming my next knitting while I lived in the South Pacific, but I have yet to go beyond weaving some palm fronds. The women weaving in the picture are from New Caledonia and the baskets below are from Papua New Guinea.Another art of the Pacific is tapa making. It is an intensive process to make the tapa cloth from the bark of the paper Mulberry tree. Then a design is carved into wood, the cloth is laid over the wood, and the design is printed onto the cloth. The traditional dyes are often a beautiful rusty brown color. The tapas below from Tonga are the biggest I have ever seen. We wanted to buy this turtle tapa, but decided that Paul can find one during his upcoming trip to Tonga.