'Ahu Sistas: Reclaiming History, Telling our Stories

In 1808 a passing sealing ship 'discovered' a settlement on Pitcairn Island, which had been hidden from the world since the infamous ship HMS Bounty had disappeared from Tahiti's shores in 1789. Pitcairn had been settled by the missing nine mutineers along with eighteen Polynesians (twelve women and six men) and a baby girl. From that first visit in 1808, the surviving women, their daughters, and later their granddaughters, offered gifts to visitors to the island, mostly comprising large amounts of tapa. These gifts have become the primary sources of information about these women who, because of an ongoing obsession with the mutineers, are almost completely invisible in the written historical record (Reynolds, 2017). This paper outlines reflections by the 'Ahu Sistas on the tapa made by their foremothers on Pitcairn. The Sistas are Meralda Warren (from Pitcairn Island) and her Norfolk Island cousins Sue Pearson, Jean Clarkson and Pauline Reynolds. These reflections include the ways in which the cloths connect the 'Ahu Sistas to those women and how, both collaboratively and individually, these connections have been incorporated into creative practices and academic pursuits.