The root of a kava plant from Wallis and Futuna. More than 70 feet of tapa cloth from Tonga. Shell necklaces from the Solomon Islands.
These are among several cultural gifts from 26 Pacific nations given to Gov. Josh Green during the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture.
Green told HPR that the gifts will be on display for public view this year, as the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts is currently caring for them.
"People should expect formal exhibits to be set up at Bishop Museum, our state museum, in the coming months," he said. "We may actually put some of these gifts on display over at Washington Place — that remains to be seen. But these are gifts that are owned by the state of Hawai'i and are going to be available to all the people of Hawaiʻi"
The SFCA is tasked with photographing, processing and cataloging all items gifted by Pacific countries to the state, according to the foundation's executive director Karen Ewald. The SFCA is also conducting condition reports, including provenance documentation for each gift.
"We are working with the governor's office on determining appropriate state sites for display of these items in a timely manner," Ewald said in an email.
"When the cataloging is complete, we will have the final number of gifts — as many of the gifts are multiple items," she continued.
Hawaiʻi hosted FestPAC for the first time last week. Indigenous Pacific Islanders from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia gathered to showcase their culture through dance, language and other exchanges.
Gift-giving in Pacific Islander culture is a common practice that holds a lot of weight.
Other gifts given to Hawai'i included carved canoe paddles, masks, bowls and more.
Green said some Pacific artifacts weigh several hundred pounds and must be displayed appropriately.
According to state archivist Adam Jansen, each gift holds cultural significance and symbolizes the friendship between different nations. This is the first time the state has received this many gifts from Pacific Island countries.
"This is an unprecedented event to have this many visitors of prominence come bearing gifts," he said." This is new waters for us."
Jansen emphasized the importance of documenting where the gifts came from.
"If these individuals are going to travel across the seas and bring these incredible gifts to us and put all that care into their creation and the transports, the least we can do is make sure that they are maintained in the condition in which they were gifted," he said.
He added that former Gov. David Ige's administration had once given the Hawaiʻi State Archives 19 boxes of protocol gifts dating back at least 40 years.
Jansen said while the state archives could document some protocol gifts, others could not.
"The difficulty is as we look back now 30 to 40 years, we don't know who gifted who some of these objects," he said. "So we have lost that connection to that event."
Last year, a bill introduced in the Legislature would have created procedures for the inventory and care of protocol gifts received by state employees or lawmakers.
When a gift is given to a state individual, it's a gift to the state of Hawai'i, according to the law.
"In general, a gift that's given to commemorate a special occasion, a cultural exchange of a relationship between two people, we typically consider that a protocol gift," said Robert Harris, the executive director of the Hawai'i State Ethics Commission. "It's owned by the state, and someone cannot personally benefit from it."
A disclosure statement from the legislators is not required since the gifts are given to the state and not the individual. There's also no law to require a state lawmaker to have a protocol gift documented.
The ethics commission wants to clarify what protocol gifts are considered in its administrative rules, but Harris said all the gifts received during FestPAC qualify under existing measures.
