More Top Stories
‘Nothing to worry about’: Prime Minister Brown on China agreement
16 February 2025
‘Serious questions’: Opposition challenges China partnership
15 February 2025
No-confidence motion against PM and his Cabinet faces delays
15 February 2025
Ruta Mave: People’s Republic of China red flag
10 February 2025
No debt in China deal
8 February 2025
Thomas Wynne: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
8 February 2025
‘Paedophile’ gets 13 years in prison
22 January 2025
Thomas Wynne: Where were our leaders while children suffered?
25 January 2025
$541.7m tourism earnings
25 January 2025
Cook Islands passport proposal
6 January 2025
Top cop position advertised
7 December 2024
Police need numbers and bigger budget
9 December 2024
Niki Rattle: A call for stronger human rights protections
10 December 2024
Solid and Hazardous Waste Bill referred to Parliament committee
10 December 2024
DPM defends CIIC finance and travel policies
6 December 2024
Cook Islands has its first mosque
14 November 2024
CI Muslim opens up about her faith and journey
16 November 2024
RAC to address mosque legality
19 November 2024
I don’t expect much change: PM Brown on US Elections
6 November 2024
Fifth weekly Sydney flight to Rarotonga announced
23 October 2024
CIIC directors seek $350,000 in damages over defamatory claims
21 October 2024
Man found guilty of rape, burglary
24 September 2024
Tenants face water bill burden
8 October 2024
Concerns over Minister’s role in inmate work releases: PAC
5 October 2024
Tourism contribution set to surpass half-billion dollar mark
25 September 2024
Anxiety on the rise: Cook Islands faces mental health challenge
7 September 2024
MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
Articles by Rod Dixon
Marjorie Tua’inekore Crocombe – An exceptional life
Saturday 30 July 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
Marjorie and Ron Crocombe lived up to exacting standards in their personal and professional lives and their combined efforts impacted and inspired uncountable others. We were privileged to know them, writes former USP director Rod Dixon.
Spain and Russia in Cook Islands
Saturday 23 July 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
Four hundred years after it was settled by Polynesians, Rakahanga was visited by a Spanish Expedition searching for Terra Australis, then two centuries later by Russia’s First Antarctic Expedition.
Mangaian chic – pare tō fashion hats from the 1950s
Saturday 4 June 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
The discovery in Washington DC of a cache of 27 Mangaian reed hats or pare tō, dating from 1958, has reignited local interest in how these extraordinary fashion items were produced, writes Rod Dixon.
The Cook Islands Māori calendar
Tuesday 26 April 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
Traditionally, Cook Islanders observed Matariki as the commencement of the annual calendar, a calendar that reflected cycles of life in the agricultural economy of the south and the fishing economy of the north.
Tāote – Cook Islands’ medical pioneers
Monday 28 March 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
With very few resources and little official encouragement, the Cook Islands first local doctors tackled epidemics and eliminated diseases, laying the foundations for the modern Cook Islands medical service.
Manuae, Penthouse magazine and a sunken Aussie grader
Saturday 19 February 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
Over a period of two months in 1981, a group from Rarotonga cleared and constructed a 4000-foot airstrip on Manuae island.
Karlo Andersen ‘King’ of Manuae
Saturday 5 February 2022 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
In the 1950s, Karlo Andersen ran Manuae like a military barracks. “For a man with a notion to play god, the set-up was ideal.”
New book recalls lost era of heroic boatmen
Saturday 18 December 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in
A new book recalls the lost era of surf boat lighterage on Mangaia, bringing it to life through the memories of one of the boatmen and visually through 150 historic photos.
'Akatara from Cook Islands on exhibit in Venice
Saturday 11 December 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Art, Features
An exhibition in Venice exploring the sculptural beauty of command clubs from Oceania, including the Cook Islands, has inspired a Rarotongan experiment to discover how ancient weapons obtain their beautifully finished surfaces.
Earthquakes and tsunamis – the Cook Islands experience
Saturday 30 October 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
What does history tell us about the frequency of earthquakes and tsunami in the Cook Islands?
Mangaia’s great vaccine experiment of 1866
Saturday 16 October 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
The story of how Davida Numangatini’s abduction into slavery in Peru led to Mangaia’s great vaccine experiment of 1866.
Salt in their blood - The story of early Cook Islanders at sea
Saturday 18 September 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
Cook Islands sailors were highly respected for their seafaring skills. As competitors in Australian surf boat carnivals, they were unbeatable.
The ‘Ponder houses’ of Harley Street
Saturday 7 August 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
Several houses and schools in Rarotonga share a link with Scott Base in Antarctica and Auckland International Airport in Mangere, having been designed by the same man, architect Frank Ponder. Gradually disappearing, Ponder’s Rarotonga buildings retain important heritage value.
Reliving memories of Mangaia’s boatmen shooting the reef
Friday 11 June 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
Taking cargo over the reef in the outer islands involved extraordinary seamanship. Boats and canoes crossed the edge of the reef on the crest of a chosen wave. But when the sea was rolling from the wrong direction, a crossing could be fraught with danger. By Rod Dixon on Mangaia.
Fit for a Queen: Cook Islands art in the Royal Collection
Saturday 15 May 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Art, Features
With the recent passing of Prince Philip, we wondered what official gifts had been presented to Queen Elizabeth II, her consort, and other royals during their Cook Islands visits. This is what we found. By Jean Tekura Mason and Rod Dixon.
Wings and ‘whirlybirds’ over Mangaia
Saturday 24 April 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
In 1945 the ariki of Mangaia offered New Zealand land for an airstrip. In the same year, the ending of the Second World war released thousands of ex-pilots and surplus aircraft to service remote air-routes around the world. While other countries took advantage, another 30 years would pass before commercial aircraft landed on Mangaia. By Rod Dixon
Mutiny on the Vaka? The story of unescorted Mangaian sea voyage
Saturday 3 April 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
Almost 30 years ago, a Mangaian vaka set sail for Rarotonga with no electronic or navigational aids, no captain and no escort vessel. The vaka was ‘missing’ for two days and a night and mounting concerns for the crew’s safety sparked an air and sea search. Here the vaka’s navigator, the late Ma’ara Peraua, and crew member Maire Kareroa record their memories of the voyage, while extracts from Rod Dixon’s 1992 diary describe reactions on the ground in Mangaia.
Rarotonga in vogue
Saturday 6 March 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
Cook Islands men returning from overseas have been a source of fashion innovation for almost 200 years. Long before Bluff white boots and gangster wear, Rarotongan sailors helped revolutionise the formless, shapeless world of missionary clothing.
‘Sons for the return home’
Saturday 13 February 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Weekend
New Zealand Maori plans to resettle Rarotonga. As a land-war brewed in the Waikato in 1863, a New Zealand ngāti, befriended by Kainuku ariki, looked to Rarotonga as a possible site for refugee resettlement.
From hunters to watchers – whaling in Raro waters
Saturday 6 February 2021 | Written by Rod Dixon | Published in Features, Memory Lane
Commercial shore-based whaling began on Rarotonga in 1865 with the help of Rarotongan whaler Jimmy Pi’i and members of a Ngāpuhi family from New Zealand. With whale numbers already in decline, it soon became clear a commercial industry was not viable. Yet a local taste for whale-meat meant opportunistic whale-hunting continued off Rarotonga and Aitutaki for almost another century.
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