By the Southern Waves: Report on the exhibition Moana. Culturas de las Islas del Pacífico (Moana Cultures of the Pacific Islands)

Abstract

The exhibition Moana. Cultures of the Pacific Islands at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City offers an innovative discourse about the material culture of the Pacific islands. The extensive collection of ethnographic objects shows the importance of moana, ‘the sea' and fanúa, ‘the land', as a platform of cultural, economic and spiritual exchange among the inhabitants of the Pacific. The exposition and its catalogue present to the Mexican public a vast and far away region of astounding cultural richness and diversity that up until now has remained little known in Latin America.