Chapter Six - The Fātele Region in the Central Pacific

Summary

The fātele, or a dance similar to it in several respects, occurs today over a wide area in the Central Pacific. Tuvalu is acknowledged as the centre of this region and the place where the dance originated. (The dance is called faatele in Tuvalu though the Tokelauan form fātele will be used here). Kiribati (where the dance is called batere) and Tokelau are the neighbors respectively west and east of Tuvalu. These three island groups were associated as a British Protectorate or colony for several decades.

From 1877 a British Order in Council established “jurisdiction” over a vast area of the Pacific including unannexed islands. This was intended to control the activities of British subjects in the islands, especially in the labor trade for Queensland and Fiji plantations. The territory induded the Solomon Islands, and parts of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa and the Gilbert Islands, the Union (Tokelau Islands), Ellice, Marshall, Caroline, Phoenix Islands and Rotuma.

The northern section of the area was viewed as the site for a proposed Pacific cable which was suggested in the Colonial Conference of 1887. Unclaimed islands on the cable's possible route were the Phoenix Islands, Washington and Palmyra, and the Union Group (Tokelau).

The European Powers’ areas of jurisdiction and the history of colonisation established new lines of communication for administration, missions, and trade and for the dissemination of the new music and dance.

The new opportunities for travel would have allowed individuals to take home an exciting new dance. Material possessions were few and dances were of absorbing interest. The ability of a dance to be “souvenired“ continues today and many of the smaller islands have experienced quantities of different dances from other islands.

The Tuvaluan fātele was copied and adopted in islands of the British Protectorate. Kiribati, Tuvalu and Tokelau have a dance which is closely related. Further afield Rotuma, and (in the French sphere) Wallis and Futuna have dances which share some features although in these islands the dance is not called fātele perhaps signifying that the fātele of Tuvalu was only one of the elements from which the new dance originated.