Cook Islands

The Cook Islands are fifteen Polynesian islands spread across a vast stretch of the South Pacific, between Tahiti and Samoa. They are not quite an independent country: they are a state in free association with New Zealand, running their own affairs while their people hold New Zealand citizenship. About 15,000 people live in the islands, mostly on Rarotonga, the main island, around the capital, Avarua; a much larger diaspora lives in New Zealand. The Cook Islands Māori are Polynesian, close to the Māori of New Zealand and to the Tahitians. Dance and song play a large part in island life.

The Cook Islands fall into two very different groups, scattered over a huge area of ocean. In the south are high volcanic islands, including Rarotonga, with green, jagged peaks and a ring of lagoon, and Aitutaki, known for its triangular turquoise lagoon, often called one of the most beautiful in the world. In the north are low, remote coral atolls, thin rings of sand and coconut palms around lagoons, barely above the ocean. The climate is tropical, hot and humid, with a cyclone season.

These islands were settled about a thousand years ago by Polynesian navigators, and tradition makes them one of the departure points of the great canoe voyages to New Zealand, whose Māori share ancestors and legends with those of the Cooks. Sighted by Spanish navigators and then explored in the 18th century by James Cook, who gave them his name, the islands were converted to Christianity in the 19th century. A British protectorate from 1888, they were attached to New Zealand in 1901. In 1965 they became self-governing in free association with New Zealand, at the end of a negotiated decolonisation.

People speak Cook Islands Māori (te reo Māori Kūki 'Āirani), a Polynesian language with its own dialect on each island, as well as English. Islanders have been devout Christians since the missionaries came, mostly Protestant (the Cook Islands Christian Church, which grew out of the missions), and religion is at the centre of social life. Every village has its white church, and Sunday, a day of rest and worship, is strictly observed and filled with singing in several parts. This faith sits comfortably with respect for tradition, for the chiefs (the ariki) and for the ancestors.

The culture of the Cook Islands is Polynesian and very much alive, known throughout the Pacific for its dance and song. The 'ura, with its rapid hip movements and driving drums, is reckoned one of the liveliest dances in Polynesia; it takes centre stage at the great annual festival, Te Maeva Nui. There are also flower crowns and garlands ('ei), woven mats and hats, tivaevae (embroidered patchwork quilts) and choral singing ('imene). Food is cooked in an earth oven (umukai): raw fish in coconut milk (ika mata), taro and pork.