Home away from home: How Tokelauans keep their culture alive in Aotearoa
- Admin
- 5 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Ron Rocky Coloma
At a recent Tokelau Language Week seminar in Aotearoa, Higano “Gano” Perez held up a hand-drawn fishing circle and invited the audience to imagine rowing an outrigger canoe into the open lagoon.
“We’re going to pretend our little outrigger’s flying here,” he said, demonstrating how Tokelau’s ancestors once caught large predatory fish by hand. The lesson, like the island nation itself, was rooted in balance between tradition and survival.
Tokelau, a dependent territory of Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) with three atolls—Tafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo—is among the smallest and most isolated nations in the Pacific. Without an airport, residents rely on a 24-hour ferry ride from Samoa. Its 1,500 residents depend heavily on the ocean for food and connection. Yet, as Perez and others emphasized, the challenges facing Tokelau today go far beyond distance.
The 13th annual Tokelau Language Week, celebrated from Oct. 26 to Nov. 1, was themed “Tokelau, puaki mai kō tau aganuku mo fanau i te lumanaki – Tokelau, unleash your culture for future generations.”
The celebration is part of a New Zealand government initiative that began in 2012 to promote Pacific languages. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization classifies Te Gagana Tokelau as endangered, adding urgency to efforts to preserve it.
Perez’s presentation traced Tokelau’s history from volcanic origins to its people’s resilience over the centuries. He spoke about “blackbirding,” the 19th-century slave trade that devastated Pacific communities when Peruvian ships kidnapped 90 percent of Tokelau’s male population in 1863.
“Most of the slaves died from smallpox on the way back to Peru,” he said. The trauma, he explained, left a generational fe
ar of foreign ships and outsiders that lingered long after the practice ended.
A century later, the islands experienced another exodus.
“There was a cyclone in Tokelau in the mid-1960s,” Perez said. “It wasn’t the first we’d survived, but it made people more open to moving.”
Around the same time, New Zealand faced a worker shortage, prompting a migration wave that reshaped Tokelauan life. Families settled mainly in Wellington’s Hutt Valley, Porirua and Auckland, where new generations blended island traditions with urban life.
Among those carrying those traditions forward are members of Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the country’s unified urban and rural firefighting organization, who proudly share their Tokelauan roots.
“I was born and raised in Nukunonu,” said Ana Ioane, a volunteer firefighter. “Staying connected to my Tokelau culture gives me confidence and keeps me humble. Speaking Tokelauan every day, learning a new fatele (song and dance), or cooking in the Tokelauan way are ways I can ensure my culture is never lost. Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost.”
Shemya Patelesio, a volunteer data coordinator, said being New Zealand-born makes the theme personal. “It’s a reminder to continue learning my culture so I can pass on knowledge to the generation after me,” she said.
Henry Atoni, a recruit firefighter, cited a Tokelauan proverb: “Alofa ki te tamāmanu," which means, "caring for the vulnerable.”
He said service to family and community is key. “Our language and culture kept alive today will shape the pride of Tokelau’s next generations.”
Despite their small population, Tokelauans have built vibrant communities abroad. About 9,800 live in New Zealand and thousands more in Australia, Hawaii and the United States. Cultural events such as the Tokelau Tournament, held every two years, unite these communities through sports and dance.
Perez ended his talk with a reflection on climate change, showing photos of his family home by the ocean.
“When I went in 2010, it took 15 steps to walk from the house to the reef,” he said. “When I went in 2018, it took three.”
Rising seas threaten to erase the islands themselves, making the preservation of culture and language even more vital.
For Perez and the Tokelauan community, keeping Te Gagana Tokelau alive means more than teaching words. It means that ensuring identity and belonging endure wherever their people go.
Subscribe to
our monthly
digital edition
