Rere (knife or short sword)

Rere (knife or short sword)

This rere (light, curved knife or short sword) has rows of sharks teeth and barbs from sea creatures lining either side of its blade. They have been carefully perforated and set into a groove along the blade edge tied by a fine plaited cord. A wide range of long and short hand weapons featuring shark-tooth and barbed blades were made in Kiribati. They were part of an indigenous armoury that included full suits of thick coconut fibre 'armour' and puffer-fish helmets.

These types of weapons are fairly common in museum collections and have been made as tourist items in Kiribati for close to one hundred years. The wood used in the manufacture is coconut palm, and the fine strong binding cord is usually a combination of coconut fibres and hair. Other variations of the sword combine stingray tail barbs among the rows of shark teeth.

A Nurse in the Pacific

This rere was collected by Wendy Smith a nurse who worked for the Red Cross movement both in New Zealand and overseas for about 21 years. She began working in the Pacific region in 1979, and was in Tonga when Tropical Cyclone Isaac devastated the Ha'apai group of islands in 1982. The cyclone, killed six people, and left 45,000 homeless. Wendy along with colleagues offered several hundred family packages to those devastated by the cyclone.

Acquisition history

This item is part of a small collection, many of them gifts, that are associated with Wendy's career and highlight stories about New Zealanders and their work in the Pacific. They are also examples of the types of objects Pacific people chose to make and give to overseas visitors in the 1970s and 80s.