Note: Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002 , Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-222) and index , 1 - History/Kastom -- - 2 - Kastom in the National Arena -- - 3 - Women without Kastom -- - 4 - Ples -- - 5 - Ambae: On Being a Person of the Place -- - 6 - Plaiting: "The Reason That Women Came into the World" -- - 7 - Dyeing: Designs, Power, Status -- - 8 - Making Textiles into Kastom -- - Conclusion: Women with Kastom , "Unfolding the Moon is a lucid and engaging account of a quiet but crucial transformation in the status of women in Vanuatu. In the first decades after independence in 1980, kastom - ingenous knowledge and practice - became a key marker of ni-Vanuatu identity. Long used as a unifying force against the Anglo-French expatriates by leaders of the independence movement, kastom was almost entirely concerned with men: women were effectively excluded from participating in arts festivals, cultural programs, and other new national events. Then in 1991 the Vanuatu Cultural Centre initiated a project that focused on women's knowledge and skill in producing plaited pandanus textiles (mats) on the island of Ambae in north Vanuatu , This acknowledgment that "women have kastom too," widely welcomed by rural ni-Vanuatu, was an important step in establishing women's kastom."--Jacket

Note: Frontmatter , Contents , List of Figures , Editorial Preface , Introduction Indigeneity and Museum Practice in the Southwest Pacific , Part I Island Melanesia , 1 Resourcing Change: Fieldworkers, the Women’s Culture Project and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre , 2 The Future of Indigenous Museums: The Solomon Islands Case , 3 Dangerous Heritage: Southern New Ireland, the Museum and the Display of the Past , 4 Memory, Violence and Representation in the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia , 5 Tourism and Indigenous Curation of Culture in Lifou, New Caledonia , Part II Northern Australia , 6 The Journey of the Stars: Gab Titui, a Cultural Centre for the Torres Strait , 7 ‘Quite Another World of Aboriginal Life’: Indigenous People in an Evolving Museumscape , Part III New Guinea , 8 The Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery as a Modern Haus Tumbuna , 9 Moving the Centre: Christianity, the Longhouse and the Gogodala Cultural Centre , 10 Indigenous Responses to Political and Economic Challenges: the Babek Bema Yoma at Teptep, Papua New Guinea , 11 Can Museums become Indigenous? The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress and Contemporary Papua , Part IV Reflections on the Future of Indigenous Museums , 12 The Transformation of Cultural Centres in Papua New Guinea , 13 The Theoretical Future of Indigenous Museums: Concept and Practice , Notes on Contributors , Bibliography , Index , In English