I contributed this chapter to Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands: National Experiences and Practice, by John Stubbs, William Chapman, Julia Gatley, and Ross King (Routledge: 2023).
The Cook Islands are a group of fifteen islands and atolls spread over a wide area, between American Samoa and French Polynesia. The group consists of a small northern cluster of six atolls and a larger and more populous southern grouping which includes the islands of Rarotonga, Aitutaki, and Mangaia. First settled around 900AD by voyagers thought to have been from Tahiti, each island has distinctive traditions, dialects, and cultural characteristics due to their geographic separation.
The Cook Islands were proclaimed a British protectorate in 1888, and were absorbed as part of the colony of New Zealand in 1901. They became self-governing in 1965, but have elected to remain part of the Realm of New Zealand, and Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens. Rarotonga is the seat of government and is by far the most populated of the islands, with more than 13,000 of the overall 17,500 population residing there. However, over 100,000 Cook Islanders live elsewhere, largely in Aotearoa New Zealand. The country’s predominant religious affiliation is protestant Christian, following widespread tribal conversion in the early nineteenth century.
In 1994, the Cook Islands established a statutory framework for the protection of historic places under the Cultural and Historic Places Act, going on to ratify the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 2009. However, no site has been formally classified and protected as enabled by the Act, and a places list for possible world heritage inscription remains tentative. The Cultural and Historic Places Trust, created by the Act to conserve historic places, has focused on advocacy rather than exercising its formal powers of classification and protection.
This lack of engagement with formal mechanisms of protection reflects a perception of their foreign origin and irrelevance in the Cook Islands. The central role of heritage professionals in such legislative frameworks is inconsistent with the realities of historic place management in this context, where such a role rarely exists. Rather, place management occurs primarily at the local level within traditional social structures of land tenure and communal decision-making.
Religious heritage
Religious heritage plays a key role in the nation’s cultural identity. The high visibility of historic church buildings on the islands makes them an important part of people’s place experience. They also demonstrate the complexities of local decision-making processes.
The Cook Islands were evangelized in the second phase of the London Missionary Society’s (LMS) Pacific mission, as it expanded westward from Tahiti in 1821. There, two decades of struggle had refined its approach. Rather than directly seeking individual conversion, the Society recognized the importance of chiefly leadership, working within existing tribal structures and using Polynesian converts as missionary pioneers to enhance its mission endeavors.
The Cook Islands mission effort was therefore spearheaded by a Tahitian convert, Papehia, who arrived in Rarotonga in 1823 and was able to affect rapid change. The island was recovering from a period of inter-tribal warfare, and defeated tribes were quick to see benefits in changing allegiance to a new European god that appeared more powerful and prosperous. Mass conversions resulted in wholesale destruction of marae, sacred stone grounds of religious ceremony that had embodied the mana (authority, power) of tribal leaders. Simultaneously, ariki (chiefs) gifted land and facilitated the construction of large wooden churches. Similar processes occurred throughout the island group as the new Christian order both usurped and was enwoven in former marae-based worlds.
Built from timber frames plastered with coral lime mortar, these buildings fused Tahitian church precedents with local construction methods and meaning. However, their swift erection and susceptibility to fire and hurricanes meant these first churches were progressively replaced through the mid-nineteenth century as Christianity was engraved on the land in stone.
Stone had long been linked with mana through the construction of marae. As explained by Rarotongan artist Eruera Te Whiti Nia, “Linked to the land, stone is made sacred by purpose, naming and arrangement. … It is with stone that the Māori confirms his title, and genealogies attachment to a place, a marae and the land.”
The stone churches dedicated to the new god re-embedded the mana of tribes and their leaders on the land, mirroring the role of marae before them. They effectively became the ‘new marae’. Their permanence and durability both reflected and helped fabricate the position of ariki as ‘high chiefs’, titles that were no longer open to contestation through warfare, but deeply bound with the new religion of enduring peace.
As with the timber structures before them, stone churches and other associated buildings such as Sunday schools, halls, ‘orometua (pastor) houses, and chiefly residences were imbued with symbolic meaning. Processes of construction, as much as final outcome, were highly significant. Ceremonial rituals and feasting at key construction stages were reciprocal demonstrations of tribal and chiefly mana, acting to uphold intensely competitive social structures previously maintained by war. In these ways, stone architecture physically confirmed the indigenization of the Church and its precedence in a reconfigured political order.
It is these churches, along with associated graveyards, stone walls, trees, Sunday schools, halls, ‘orometua houses, and ariki residences, that still exist as remnants of nineteenth-century history in the Cook Islands today. All have been variously modified over time, some heavily, with spatial and material replacements and alterations, buildings substantially changed or built anew, graves covered, and trees removed. Responses to hurricane damage, environmental decay, or maintenance difficulties have generally been to replace rather than repair, and while this means that architectural fabric is generally in good condition, much of it is modern.
It is notable that building components most expressive of pre-European design and detailing have been most subject to material loss. The monumental coral walls of the church buildings remain, but lashed, wrapped, and patterned roof structures and internal supports, floor and ceiling linings, window and door joinery, gallery and pulpit structures, fixtures and fittings, etc., have been progressively lost to conspicuously modern alternatives.
Modernizing realities
Custodial responsibility for the historic churches falls to each ekalesia, the people who form the church congregation and organization under the Cook Islands Christian Church (CICC), which assumed management of all LMS operations in the country following self-governance in 1965.
However, full reliance on congregational stewardship of church places can be controversial, as was the case at Oneroa church, Mangaia, when an ornately carved and sennit-lashed timber roof structure was replaced with a modern white alternative in the 1980s, and the Sunday school hall’s tamanu (island mahogany) posts and roof timbers were replaced with prefabricated trusses and flat ceiling panels in 2003.
Such processes of change are affected by perceived needs for ‘new’ and ‘modern’ in the Cook Islands, within ongoing structures of colonial influence and global export of Western culture. However, loss of original fabric to modern renewals are more complex than architectural expediency and acculturation. Rather, alteration and reconstruction projects, enabled largely by expatriate remittances, continue long-held traditions of reciprocity and kinship. This indicates a selective appropriation of foreign materials and methods to advance Indigenous purposes, with old fabric being superseded by Western imports as tribal mana is asserted in new ways.
Nonetheless, the cumulative decline in traditional, highly-skilled building techniques and local material craftsmanship, and a rift in knowledge transfer to subsequent generations, is cause for concern for some Cook Islanders. As described by a younger Rarotongan:
I don’t know of anyone who knows, who has the skill to build something like that, with the same methods like we did back in the day. … Even the wall, the wall is falling apart, and nobody knows how to repair it properly the way it should be. They’re going, “Oh, yeah, Uncle so-and-so can do it,” but he’s so old, when you think about what are the skills that have been passed along to, like, my generation; I know for a fact that nobody in my generation knows how to restore some of these old buildings.
Demolition, modification, and restoration projects highlight the complex entanglement of foreign and Indigenous agency in these historic church places. Opposition to church alterations initiated by ‘orometua and ekalesia has often been led by aronga mana (traditional leaders) – the ariki and mata’iapo (chiefly leaders). This was apparent at the Matavera church in Rarotonga in ca 1944, when, following hurricane damage, the ‘orometua and ekalesia elected to lower the wall height by 2 meters (over 6 feet), despite opposition from the ariki and mata’iapo. Similarly, at Avarua Church in 2003, the ekalesia demolished graves in a ‘beautification’ project that local ariki opposed. The dispute ended up in court, and the court upheld the Church’s position as legal owners of the land.
A different outcome occurred in the restoration of the Arutanga church in Aitutaki in 1980. There, Church leaders and various tribal groups considered that wholesale demolition of the church building was necessary due to structural issues. But demolition was successfully contested by a traditional leader, who emphasized his tribe’s connections to the land.
The nature of heritage, how it should be responded to, and who should have a say, remain contentious. Recent examples include objections from tribal leaders and locals to the felling of long-standing toa (ironwood) trees from the roadside in Matavera and along the churchyard boundary in Avarua in 2021.
The above examples may imply a clear distinction between Church leaders and traditional title-holders. In reality, their reciprocal responsibilities are entangled and overlapping. These co-dependencies play out in church conservation. Traditional leaders may oppose place modifications, or actively direct them, as they seek to uphold the work and mana of ancestors and the tribal rights to land that this represents. Complicating the situation further is the increasing complexity of land tenure and associated tribal leadership, with consequential debates on who has the right to speak for a particular tribal group or land area.
Conservation in a changing world
Controversies like those explored above underscore the dynamic nature of the Church’s cultural and functional meaning in contemporary Cook Islands society. As the new marae, church places are perceived as cultural landscapes, gifted by ancestors as a physical and inviolable inheritance. Simultaneously, churches are living places of purpose and action, with pragmatic approaches to ongoing use prioritized over arguably ‘deeper’ concerns of traditional hierarchies and heritage significance.
Ongoing processes of cultural practice are critical to conservation in this context. Historical Christian spaces are a key repository of traditions such as the singing of imene tuki, an ever-evolving and distinctive hymn style, and Gospel Day, a national holiday of pageants and celebration. Church ekalesia also take a lead role in fostering and facilitating other customs like communal tivaevae sewing (traditional applique quilts made by groups of women), and Te Maeva Nui costumery and performance. These activities are considered central to Cook Islanders’ national and cultural identity, and CICC churches – people and place – are seen as playing an important part in sustaining them.
Intangible heritage takes on additional significance when considering the deterritorialization of Cook Islands tradition in a changing world. Ekalesia membership of CICC churches has been decreasing since the 1970s due to shifting denominational affiliations, declining religious participation generally, and off-shore migration. While church upkeep has been continued thus far through expatriate remittances, younger generations of Cook Islanders, largely living entirely outside of the islands, may question these customary ties. Simultaneously, cultural traditions enwoven with Christian practice continue to flourish in expatriate communities. Sustaining physical forms may become less of a financial priority than performative enactment of Cook Islands identity in the diaspora.
Perspectives and priorities regarding historic place conservation may also be reconsidered in light of climate change impacts in the Cook Islands. As with the Pacific generally, the Cook Islands are already being affected by coastal inundation, storm surges, and tropical cyclones, all of which have the capacity to severely impact historical built forms. Local responses to these challenges may differ from broader international proposals for heritage conservation in a climate crisis. Contemporary publications from organizations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS largely center on safeguarding built heritage through resilience strategies and capacity-building, on the grounds that conservation of the physical remnants of history is intrinsically worthwhile.
This premise may be questionable in a Cook Islands context. It should be remembered that historic CICC churches inhabit a worldview that sees deterioration and demise as part of new creation, and there are many examples of disused buildings on the islands that are left to slowly crumble while a new generation constructs another alongside. While CICC churches have continued to be well-maintained, there are already examples in the South Pacific more broadly of Christian architecture being allowed to ruinate following environmental adversity. Loss of full physical enclosure does not diminish the ability of church buildings to enwrap and enclose life-giving forces in Polynesian ontology, to embody the mana of a present-past. As with marae, their inscription on the land holds their significance long beyond the passing of physical integrity.
Cook Islands culture remains innovative in response to social and environmental unsettlement. Historical physical forms may become increasingly secondary to intangible heritage practice as cultural and religious traditions continue to express Cook Islands identity both in the islands themselves and further afield. This contemporary reality is not easy to reconcile with Western-derived approaches to conservation and their tendency for expert-facilitated focus on material authenticity. Church places remain firmly grounded in local systems of land tenure and place management, with Church ekalesia being the key directors and inheritors of all physical change.
This discussion indicates that congregational stewardship can be contentious when the wider community perceives alterations as disregarding ancestral legacies. Their broader societal significance highlights the deeper cultural role that church buildings have for Cook Islanders – not as a foreign religious construct imposed in this setting, but as a transformed manifestation of an Indigenous worldview. The prominent role that traditional leaders take in opposing place modifications is indicative of the cultural entanglements of Church, aronga mana, and state, and the importance of historic churches to Cook Islanders’ cultural heritage as a nation and people.
This plays out in church places not only in physical conservation but in intangible cultural practices. These often Church-led traditions are becoming increasingly important to uphold cultural identity across an internationally-spread Cook Islands diaspora. The ways in which these populations continue to financially support CICC building projects will be critical to their ongoing viability, as will the impacts of climate change on the islands. Regardless of whether historic church places incrementally ruinate or are maintained as living centers of action, it appears likely that they will continue to inhabit an important place in Cook Islanders’ conservation of cultural identity.
Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands is available online and can also be purchased in hardcopy from select bookstores.
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