Australia, Oceania, Pacyfic

Stone Lifting (Tahiti)

  • Name of sport (game): stone lifting
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Tahiti, French Polynesia

  • Description:

    The women start the test, with a stone of 60 kg (the smallest weight) while the men start, with a stone of 80kg. Then the weight goes up gradually: 90, 104, 120, and 152 kg.
    Each competitor receives two tests, one of which is a warm-up and the other is rated by the jury.

  • Current status:

    Everyone can freely assist to the “tu'aro ma'ohi” championship (traditional Polynesian sports) in the gardens of the museum of Tahiti in Punaauia (every July 14). Among all the disciplines, there is the stone-lifting. Men and women compete to win the title of the wearer of the year.

  • Sources of information :

    Source of photos used in this article and gallery:

    http://www.ianandwendy.com/slideshow/tahiti/Tahiti-Heiva-Sports/picture13.htm
    https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/74731675037619393/
    https://etahititravel.com/tahiti-and-her-islands/austral-islands/rurutu/
    https://www.thestar.com/life/travel/2011/01/28/tahitis_carnival_atmosphere.html
    https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/lever-de-pierre-de-tahiti-i-heiva-2012-stone-lifting-competition-is-one-of-/

  • Gallery:

Stretcher race (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands)

  • Name of sport (game): Stretcher race
  • Name in native language: Ågaliya
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Chamorro people - Guam and Northern Mariana Islands)

Tagati'a (Samoa)

  • Name of sport (game): Tagati'a
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Samoa

  • Description:

    A spear-throwing contest called tagati'a, brings together people from several neighboring villages to compete in the event, which can last up to a week. Teams earn points by how many spears they throw beyond the farthest spear of the opposing team. The first to reach 100 points wins.
    Traditionally, only men compete on teams formed by extended family relations in their home village and relatives from other villages connected through marriage. Women and children also attend the competitions to participate in the cheering portion of events, singing, and dancing to encourage their team to victory.

    One of the many ways the Samoan people celebrate life includes frequent gameplay for all ages. One such game, a spear-throwing contest called tagati'a, brings together people from several neighboring villages to compete in the event, which can last up to a week. Teams earn points by how many spears they throw beyond the farthest spear of the opposing team. The first to reach 100 points wins.
    Traditionally, only men compete on teams formed by extended family relations in their home village and relatives from other villages connected through marriage. Women and children also attend the competitions to participate in the cheering portion of events, singing, and dancing to encourage their team to victory. These events can last up to a week and resemble large festivals with feasting, music, and dancing during and after the competitive events of the day conclude.

  • Importance (for practitioners, communities etc.):

    These events can last up to a week and resemble large festivals with feasting, music, and dancing during and after the competitive events of the day conclude.

  • Sources of information :

    The information contained in the article comes from the following sources:
    https://study.com/academy/lesson/traditional-games-in-samoa.html

Taulafoga (Samoa)

  • Name of sport (game): Taulafoga
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Samoa

  • Description:

    A popular pastime, especially among chiefs and village elders, is the ancient sport of taulafoga in which players pitch small coconut shells along a woven mat.

    taulafoga

    Played as a competition between two individuals or two teams of up to four players, each player uses up to five shells over the course of the game. The goal is to land a shell as close to the end of the mat, which measures approximately 50 feet in length with an 18-inch width.

    taulafoga1

    Like shuffleboard, other players can knock their opponents' shells off the mat while they attempt to land their coconut closer to the end of the mat. Once all players pitch their last coconut, the team with the farthest pitched shell on the mat wins the round and gains one point for each shell past their opponents' farthest coconut. Often, games include several rounds, depending on the number of points needed to win, a value agreed upon before gameplay.

    taulafoga2

Tepukei (Solomon Islands)

  • Name of sport (game): Tepukei
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Solomon Islands

  • History:

    A tepukei (from Te Puke, meaning an ocean-going canoe) is a very old Melanesian and Polynesian boat type, produced primarily by the Polynesian-speaking inhabitants of Taumako (Duff Islands). It was first reported in print by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña in 1595, on his visit to the Santa Cruz Islands.
    W. C. O'Ferrall, an Anglican missionary to Melanesia between 1897 and 1904, described the tepukei as a "sailing canoe". He described it as consisting of a dugout log equipped with a deck upon which a small hut was built, powered by a "lofty and strikingly shaped sail", and steered with a long paddle. He reported that men from Santa Cruz used the boat to travel as far away as the Solomon Islands.
    What may be the only surviving original tepukei is in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. It was brought by Dr. Gerd Koch from the Santa Cruz Islands in 1967.

    santacruz tepukei1

  • Description:

    A tepukei looks like an outrigger canoe with a crab claw sail, and is in fact a very sophisticated ocean-going sailing ship, belonging to the proa (two hulls of different size) type. Its main differences from other proas are:

    The main hull (vaka) has an almost circular section whose submerged profile remains constant despite heeling, and has a minimum of wet surface when heavily loaded.
    The vaka's top is very close to the flotation line, so it is closed with planks and the accommodations for the crew are on an elevated platform over the akas (the beams connecting the main hull and the smaller, windward hull).
    In common with a typical proa, it uses a crab claw sail, one of the most efficient sail types known.

    mid 00568243 001

  • Current status:

    In recent years, tepukeis have been experiencing a renaissance. The Vaka Taumako Project has revived the traditional construction of these boats, and some are even being built in San Francisco.

  • Sources of information :

    Articles:
    https://www.vaka.org/mission-crew
    https://hanahou.com/20.3/lakas-children
    https://shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14523

    Video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXt4PL2R1aU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtoNIDqJb4

     

    The information contained in the article comes from the following sources:
    https://alchetron.com/Tepukei

    Source of photos used in this article and gallery:
    https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/feather-money-coil/
    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Motors-used-by-the-IHO-to-engage-practitioners-and-orchestrate-CI-ecosystems_tbl2_263350926
    https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/339740365638229230/
    https://hanahou.com/20.3/lakas-children
    https://twitter.com/marinersmuseum/status/1263816886661373955?lang=es
    https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/339740365638158952/
    https://media.britishmuseum.org/media/Repository/Documents/2014_10/10_14/84354cdd_d504_47f8_9ca3_a3c000f6f9bc/mid_00568243_001.jpg

  • Gallery:

  • Documents:

    pdfMarianne_George_TE_LAA_O_LATA_OF_TAUMAKO_GAUGING_THE_PERFORMANCE_OF_AN_ANCIENT_POLYNESIAN_SAIL.pdf

Ti-uru (New Zealand)

Tiqa (Fiji)

  • Name of sport (game): Tiqa, Tinga [i-tiqa]
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Fiji

  • Description:

     

    tiqa

    „The annual game played at the sprouting of the yams. The reeds used have hard wood heads, called ulutoa,* a relic of ancient phallic worship."

    [*a name deriving from ulu, meaning head, and toa, an archaic word for Casuarina, today nokonoko, a very hard wood] For further discussion of this game of veitiqa, see Ewins, Rod. 2010. "The perils of ethnographic provenance; the documentation of the Johnson Fiji collection in the South Australian Museum (Chapter 3)". In Hunting the collectors; Pacific collections in Australian museums, art galleries and archives (Revised and reprinted), ed. Cochrane, Susan and Max Quanchi. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 31-65
    Source of photo: Ethnographic photos from „The Hill Tribes of Fiji” by A.B.Brewster, 1922, London, Seeley, Service & Co., Ltd.

  • Sources of information :

    The information contained in the article comes from the following sources:
    http://www.justpacific.com/fiji/fijiphotos/books/hilltribes/index.html

    Source of photos used in this article and gallery:
    http://www.justpacific.com/fiji/fijiphotos/books/hilltribes/index.html

  • Gallery:

Tug of war (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands)

  • Name of sport (game): tug of war
  • Name in native language: Mahållan tali
  • Place of practice (continent, state, nation):

    Chamorro people - Guam and Northern Mariana Islands

Ulutoa (Fiji)

Vaka - outrigger paddling (Fiji)

Contact

logo bez tla fundacja

Fundacja IRSiE

30/63, Świętokrzyska street
Warsaw, 00-116

traditionalsports@sportinstytut.pl

logoTW

logoYT