The treasured things of Tokelau

Abstract

Drawing upon multiple lines of research in and about Tokelau - ethnography as participant-observation and conversation/discussion, documentary research in all available published sources (few) and unpublished materials in offices and archives, Tokelau narratives and texts, conversations with other scholars of Tokelau, and relevant anthropological literature - the late Antony Hooper and I have aimed to create a narrative of Tokelau over time and in places that speaks to both differences and continuities in Tokelau lifeways - their activities and beliefs, ideas and relationships. This essay is a contribution to and illustration of our endeavours, focusing on those particular things that Tokelau people treasure: their emblematic resources and the valued things they make from them, and their supreme valued treasures - pearl-shells ('tifa'), and the lures ('pa') and pendants ('kahoa') fashioned from them.