Matangi Tonga, Vol. 18, No. 3

Dr Adrienne L. Kaeppler, an anthropologist who writes on the arts and material culture, received the Pacific Arts Association's prestigious Frigate Bird Award this year for her lifetime contribution to and excellence in the study of Pacific Arts.

The bronze medal depicting two frigate birds was presented to Adrienne by Soroe Eoe, the Director of the Museum of Papua New Guinea, at the association...’s international conference in Christchurch, New Zealand in June.

Adrienne is the curator of Oceanic Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History/National Museum of Man, in Washington DC, and has published many books and articles on Oceanic art and performance, particularly dance. More recently, she is the author of Oceanic Art, and the co-editor of Australia and the Pacific Islands Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. One of her early trail blazing contributions to the understanding of Pacific art was the publication of Artificial Curiosities, a world catalogue of the objects collected on the 18th century voyages of Captain James Cook in the Pacific.

Tongan studies

Her Tongan titles include Poetry in Motion, Studies of Tongan Dance, (Vava'u Press) and From the Stone Age to the Space Age in 200 Years: Tongan Art and Society on the Eve of the Millennium (Tonga National Museum).

Since the 1960s Adrienne has returned repeatedly to Tonga adding to her research.

She developed a special fascination for the kie hingoa, the "named fine mats" which are family heirlooms passed from generation to generation and worn on ceremonial occasions by the aristocracy. Adrienne described the kie hingoa as, "“the most important and powerful objects in Tonga,"” and has recorded many of the stories that surround them.

She was in Tonga in July with her camera and notebook to attend a wedding in the royal family, and to work on her next book.