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Island Links
The links provided below will take you to the websites for each participating country.
The pictures associated with each website are taken from sites and we thank the owners of the sites for making them available. Each country represented here is invited and encouraged to contact the webmaster to provide feedback.
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Australia
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts are the creative heritage of an extraordinary people, the original inhabitants of the Australian continent. For 40,000 years they have shaped and handed down - through song, dance, painting, sculpture and craft - their inner landscape, their spirituality.
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CNMI
Home to two indigenous people, the Chamorro and Carolinian, these Islands have found a way to preserve as well as celebrate their heritage. Visitors to the Mariana Islands will find many delightful opportunities to immerse themselves in this rich cultural experience. |
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Cook Islands
The Cook Islands comprises 15 widely-dispersed islands in the South Pacific Ocean between French Polynesia and Fiji. The total land area of the country is 240 square kilometres, while the Cook Islands' exclusive economic zone covers a maritime area of nearly 2 million square kilometres. |
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Federated States of Micronesia
If travel is the elixir of life, then a visit to the Federated States of Micronesia is truly a feast of exotic experiences and underwater adventures.
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Guam
The mission of the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency (CAHA) as mandated by Public Law 16-122 is to foster opportunity for participation in arts and humanities programs to benefit citizens of all ages and from every community on the island.
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Hawaii
We invite you to deepen your understanding of hula by exploring special topics within the discipline from a physical, spiritual, and creative perspective.
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Kiribati
Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) is an independent Republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, located in the central Pacific Ocean, about 4,000 km (about 2,500 mi) southwest of Hawaii. It is part of the division of the Pacific islands that is known as Micronesia. Kiribati consists of 33 coral islands divided among three island groups: the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Line Islands.
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Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands covers nearly a million square miles of coral atolls, islands and deep blue ocean and is one of the most unique places in the world to visit.
Over the last 2,000 or so years, Marshallese have developed,refined and perfected a number of unique skills and technologies, all of which illustrated their keen adaptation to the atoll and oceanic environment.
Click here to see more
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Nauru
The exact origins of the Nauruans are unclear, since their language does not resemble any other in the Pacific. The island was annexed by Germany in 1888 and its phosphate deposits began to be mined early in the 20th century by a German-British consortium. Nauru was occupied by Australian forces in World War I and subsequently became a League of Nations mandate. After the Second World War - and a brutal occupation by Japan - Nauru became a UN trust territory. It achieved its independence in 1968 and joined the UN in 1999 as the world's smallest independent republic. |
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New Caledonia
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New Zealand
New Zealand has participated in every Festival of Pacific Arts since its inception in 1972. Creative New Zealand has supported an Aotearoa New Zealand delegation at the Festival of Pacific Arts, held every four years, since 1994. The 10th Festival of Pacific Arts will be held in Pago Pago in 2008.
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Niue
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Norfolk Island
Almost half of our community are descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their descendants of Pitcairn Island who arrived on Norfolk Island on 8 June 1856. Norfolk Island celebrates that arrival every year with "Bounty Day" or "Anniversary Day" on the 8th of June. It is a full day's activity.
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Palau
Palau is a country rich in tradition and culture. Today, many sites of cultural or historical importance remain intact, reminding modern Palauans of a past long ago, while reinforcing the culture and tradition for future generations.
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Papua New Guinea
In a country of 5.5 million people with more than 800 different languages, Papua New Guinea cannot be compared with any other country for its rich cultural diversity. There is no such thing as a typical Papua New Guinean. More than 1000 cultures, each with different traditions, have been identified.
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Rapa Nui
An isolated tiny island, presents us with unsolved puzzles, aesthetic marvels, and tragic stories from a jumbled past.
Click for slideshow and photo gallery
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Samoa
Samoa is a traditional society with a distinctive Polynesian cultural heritage. There are over 362 villages in Samoa with a total of 18,000 matai (chiefs). Villages are made up of customary land owned by the extended family units called aiga, whose head is a matai (chief). Traditional authority is vested in the matai of the village. The central structure in each village is the church as well as the Fale Fono, where the matais meet to discuss village matters.
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Solomon Islands
Migration from all directions over thousands of years has combined with a scattered, comparatively isolated population to produce a country rich in cultural diversity. Melanesians, Polynesians, Asians, Micronesians and the odd Westerner all call the Solomons home, imbuing the islands with a variety of islander traditions unrivaled in the Pacific.
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Tonga
The Kingdom of Tonga is the last surviving Polynesian Monarchy, located at the heart of the South Pacific. Tonga is one of the most scenic and unspoiled of the Pacific island nations. There are 170+ islands (only 40 of which are inhabited) scattered over 700,000 sq km of ocean. Located just to the west of the International Date Line, south-east of Fiji and south of Samoa, Tonga is the first Pacific nation to greet the new day.
Tonga has a variety of scenery seldom matched elsewhere in the world, with dramatic volcanic landscapes, low-lying coral atolls, pristine coral reefs and magnificent sandy beaches. Tonga is divided into four main island groups. In the south is Tongatapu, where the capital Nuku'alofa can be found and where the royal family take resident. A hundred kilometres north is the small coral islands and peaked volcanic islands of Ha'apai, and 100 kilometres further north is the Vava'u archipelago. In the far north, 300 kilometres from Vava'u, lies the remotes Niuatoputapu and Niuafo'ou, a fascinating part of Togna where traditional life still thrives.
Click here for more information and Photo slideshow
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Tuvalu
In Tuvalu you will discover a distinctive Polynesian culture of atoll island people who vigourously maintain their unique social organization, art, crafts, architecture, music, dance and legends.
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Vanuatu
Sand drawings are elegant geometric patterns produced directly on the ground which serve to transmit a wealth of traditional knowledge about local history, indigenous rituals and cosmologies, kinship systems, natural phenomena or farming techniques.
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Wallis & Futuna
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