The Tiapapata Art Centre, with support under the ACP-EU Programme Enhancing capacity for the sustainability of the cultural and creative industries in the Pacific, begins this week to explore the stone tools of Samoa.

The ACP-EU Programme (Pacific) is funded by the European Union and the Secretariat of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), and is implemented by the Pacific Community (SPC) in partnership with the Queensland University of Technology.

The 10-day program is assisted by Professor Mark Moore, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. Professor Moore is also the Director of the Museum of Stone Tools and will be accompanied by a PhD student and two other UNE students who will assist with stone flaking and 3D modeling, activities that will be demonstrated and practiced in the coming weeks.

This investigation into stone tools has long fascinated heritage artist Galumalemana Steve Percival who designed the ACP-EU project and is himself a stone tool maker albeit using modern machines. Galumalemana recently returned from the United Kingdom and New Zealand where he saw many fine examples of Samoan stone adzes, some of which were hafted to wooden handles.

Museums in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, together hold a vast number of Samoan artifacts. How these handmade objects were made and used reflect a rich intangible cultural heritage that had but one goal: to enhance the quality of life enjoyed by the inhabitants of these far flung islands of the Pacific. Before the arrival of Europeans, artisans invented and used a variety of tools that allowed their creative impulse to flourish.

The stone adze was one such tool, used to fashion a range of highly functional and aesthetic woodcraft, ocean-voyaging canoes, and the iconic architecture of the islands. The famous ethnographer Augustin Kramer, in the early 1900s, observed: “As to the architecture of the Samoan house, it may well be listed among the most beautiful ever found among primitive people.” But, Herr Kramer, the Samoans were not primitive. They were members of a highly sophisticated society that demonstrated a deep affinity with the natural world and developed a range of skills needed to sustainably benefit from nature’s provisions.

While not many generations lie between current Samoans and their adze-wielding ancestors, the knowledge of the making and use of stone tools is at once mysterious and challenging to house builders and woodworkers in modern Samoa. Discarding adzes for sharp and durable steel implements has effectively sliced away the memory of a rich stone tool heritage that served Samoan artisans for millennia. It is that kind of cultural memory that the ACP-EU project titled “Rock-PaperScissors” is hoping to revive.

Rock is a reference to stone tools and clay, or more precisely the ceramics found in Samoa and other Pacific islands known as Lapita pottery. Making paper from plant and tree fibres is already well established at Tiapapata and the project is looking to create new, innovative products from the rustic paper.

The stone used to make to‘i ma‘a or the stone adzes of Samoa, is a fine-grained Oceanic Basalt. Basalt, a type of extrusive igneous rock that gets its dark color from the composition of its minerals, is the most common rock on the earth’s surface. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is Basalt. Making up most of the world’s oceanic crust, it is not surprising to find basalt on the volcanic islands of Samoa and American Samoa.

But like all broadly classified rocks, there are different qualities of basalt as discovered by the Samoans a millennia ago. Many adze quarries have been found throughout the archipelago, but it is the ancient site known as Tataga Matau, located on the ridges behind Leone Village, that is the largest documented basalt quarry site in the entire island group. It is at this site that unusually hard, dense and fine-grained basalt can be found.

There is no doubt that the geochemical composition of the basalt found at Tataga Matau is special. It is in this vicinity that stone tools were made in large numbers and traded with island communities throughout the southwest Pacific. Testifying to the industrial scale of adze manufacturing in the area are the hundreds of foaga, grinding stones, located nearby. International Museum Day 2024, with the theme “Museums for Education and Research,” will be celebrated at the Tiapapata Art Centre on Saturday 18 May 2024.

The theme highlights the importance of cultural institutions and their role in providing a complete educational experience. This is particularly apt in light of the research being carried out to revive cultural knowledge of what was once perhaps the most important tool of the Samoans. A symposium/workshop will also be held at Tiapapata on World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development on 21 May 2024.

With a stone anchor and well over 70 stone adzes, adze fragments and other artifacts in the Tiapapata collection, a special exhibit will be set up at both events. Members of the public who have stone tools in their private collections are welcome to add these to the exhibits. The two events will include presentations and practical demonstrations on 3D modeling and will also introduce stone knapping also known as flaking.

Open to the public, the symposium and workshop will be held at the Tiapapata Art Centre and will both begin at 3:00pm. Activities will end on Saturday 25 May with the screening of an archaeology-themed film at the Tiapapata Art Gallery. Stone soup will be on the menu. Heritage artist Avamua Alatina lashes a stone adze to a wood handle at the Tiapapata Art Centre. A craftsman from the village of Sauano, this is the first time he has lashed a stone adze.