Te Maeva Nui

Pherina and James talk about Te Maeva Nui in Australia.

Pherina: Te Maeva Nui to me means celebrating our Cook Island art, songs and dancing, and our culture.

James: Te Maeva Nui in the Cook Island culture, its about celebration. It’s celebrating our Independence Day—that’s when Cook Islands became self-governing. It that happens every fourth of August every year. So, what the government did is, the way the celebration is done will be in our culture aspect. So, each island will bring their own culture and showcase to the world the uniqueness of our culture. That’s what Te Maeva Nui is: celebrating our Independence Day, but using our culture as part of that celebration.

Te Maeva Nui started here in Australia in 2008. Started by myself and Pherina. That was just Melbourne and then later on in the year Sydney tries to copy and Sydney started their own Te Maeva Nui. A couple of years later Queensland picked it up and Western Australia picked it up. So every state is running their own Maeva Nui, but was a dream of mine to bring all states together and run a national event.