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The
following article was written be Gerard Hindmarsh for
distribution to newsletters of the International Council of
Museums (ICOM), Pacific Island's Museum Ass (PIMA) and the
American Museum Association in Washington.
WHERE
IS TEIMANAIA’S SKULL?
Known for
their great feats of sorcery, the te Aka clan regarded their
island home of Banaba (known in modern times as Ocean Island,
now part of Kiribati) as the centre of the world. Their oral
history is pervaded with the legendary feats of Teimanaia, the
great warrior who successfully defended his clan from successive
invasions sometime around the 1500AD mark.
In
accordance with their kauiti (magic rituals), skulls of their notables were preserved and
used to enhance rites and rituals. None more powerful than the
skull of Teimanaia, said to be larger than all others and
exceptionally long-jawed, kept in a bangota (ancestral shrine) in the hamlet of Teinangina.
History
turned forever here in 1900 when the British Phosphate Company,
later the British Phosphate Commission (BPC), began stripping
the island of it’s massive guano deposits in 1900. Over the
next 80 years, they excavated and shipped off almost the entire
595 hectare Island to fertilise the paddocks of New Zealand,
Australia and Britain. Dr Gould, BPC’s medical superintendent
between 1918 and 1933, became fascinated with the story of
Teimanaia’s oversized skull and used a Banaban who worked as a
dresser to sneak it away from it’s repository in Teinangina
and deliver it to him.
According
to te Aka clan spokesperson Ken Sigrah, co-author (with Stacey
King) of Te Rii ni Banaba (The Backbone of Banaba) – pub. 2001
by University of the South Pacific), no permissions were ever
obtained to take the skull from it’s bangota.
He also claims that on his farewell night, Dr Gould allegedly
used trickery to get Tekiera drunk enough to take the skull off
the island.
It is now
believed Teimanaia’s skull resides in an American Museum,
probably in several pieces as it was on Banaba due to it’s
regular and reverential anointing with oil. The son of the
landowner where the skull was kept had a well publicised dream
in 1961 where Teimanaia visited him in spirit form, telling him
about the removal of his skull to the United States and
describing how tears fell from the eye sockets when he heard
people say his skull looked like that of an animal.
The lot of
Banabans has not been a happy one in modern times: Japanese
invaders, continued mining, inadequate compensation and
relocation of most to Rabi Island in Fiji. It is easy to see why
many Banabans believe that only when Teimanaia’s skull is
returned to it’s rightful place will their prosperity return.
Teimanaia’s
skull may well be sitting in the basement of some museum in the
United States. It may likely be labelled as coming from Ocean
Island or ‘Paanopa’, formerly part of the Gilbert and Ellis
Island Group, and that it was collected by Dr Gould.
If anyone
has any information whatsoever, please contact Ken Sigrah at
ken@banaban.com |
