Cook Islanders love to travel in groups. Group travel is undertaken primarily to visit friends and family residing abroad and is considered to be the most enjoyable and economical way to travel. The movements of solitary Western tourists are often used as a point of comparison, as a tour operator suggested:

Aside from the fact that most Cook Islanders do not have incomes that allow them to partake in tourist-style holidays, travel is primarily viewed as a directed, purposeful activity. Western tourists are sometimes referred to, somewhat derogatorily, as utu panu, a phrase used to describe a type of aimless wandering: ‘someone with no family, a drifter, like the seeds from the utu tree [Barringtonia asiatica] floating out to sea’ a young woman explained to me. She went on to tell me that she once called her irresponsible father an utu panu during a heated argument: ‘it is the worst thing you can say to a Cook Islander; it means they don’t care for their family’.

Tere pati is the most formalised type of group travel. Tere pati usually consist of between 20 and 100 participants and are undertaken for a range of purposes. Family groups organise tere pati for family reunions many of which occur every four years. They are alternately ‘hosted’ by families in different countries. Church groups travel abroad to participate in celebrations for religious anniversaries or to raise money for church projects such as the construction of a new hall. Similarly, sports, dance and community organisations (such as the Boy’s Brigade and Girl Guides) travel to fundraise, to participate in regional and international competitions and for educational purposes.

Cook Islanders today view tere pati as the reinstatement of a practice that was banned during the missionary and colonial periods. Pre-missionary contact between the islands that now make up the Cooks group is evident both in oral histories and archaeological records (Bellwood 1979). Trade links with the Society Islands and Samoa were also maintained. These economic affiliations were accompanied by a history of artistic exchange (Moulin 1996). Under missionary rule, one of the first laws to be instituted by the London Missionary Society (LMS) was the prohibition of inter-island travel in attempts to control island populations. Throughout the colonial archive there are records of correspondence between colonial administrators and islanders requesting passports and permits to travel. For these administrators, the fact that islanders wanted to travel in large groups was disconcerting and potentially disruptive to their governance.

Many tere pati travel in matching uniforms; island-print dresses and shirts or t-shirts with specially designed logos declaring the purpose of the trip (see figure 5–1). For instance, a family will have a T-shirt made up displaying their family name, date and location of a family reunion. These T-shirts are sold to members of the tere pati as part of their fundraising.

Groups leaving from the Cook Islands, be they church, village, or family groups, will often prepare ‘items’ to perform for their hosts. Gifts are presented to hosts along with live music and dance. If the groups are from the Cook Islands they will present tivaevae (appliquéd quilts and cushion covers) and pandanus mats. These groups may also travel with large amounts of island food such as taro, which is distributed to hosts. In turn, individuals in the group receive presents (usually money and manchester items) from relatives and close friends who reside in the places the tere pati visit.^[4]