The Republic of Kiribati is not on many travel itineraries but it has a fascinating culture, including the wearing of intricate and somewhat alarming armour!
The body armour of Kiribati (pronounced “Kiribas”) is held in museum collections around the world. The outfits consist of a full-body suit of woven coconut fibre accompanied by a neck protector, waistcoat and head covering. To complete the ensemble, weapons made from wood with shark teeth along their edges were carried. Sometimes the head covering was the whole body of a porcupine fish making the wearer even more fearsome.
These costumes were worn for ritualistic fighting with any damage scarring the fighters, a mark of pride. The tradition was apparently not very old; the first examples date back to the early 19th Century. Once missionaries arrived in the islands the jousts ended with the last historic costumes known dating to around 1890.
Part of one of these outfits has just been added to the textile collection. It is either the upper body covering or the lower body skirt and it is beautifully plaited and woven. The main part is twisted strips of thin wood, presumably coconut, while the straps are triangles of woven sennit that would have been tied together with sennit string. One of those strings exists in this example. It is an astonishingly accomplished work of craft, and shows the mastery of techniques of its artistic maker. Sadly there is no information to go with this piece.
Read more:
A free-to-read and download book about these costumes in British museums.
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Images from Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
A contemporary artist’s Eco-warrior helmet – Kiribati is drowning because of rising ocean levels.