Visit Maneaba meeting house

The heart of every Kiribati community is a traditionally-built meeting hall called a Maneaba. The maneaba is not just the biggest building in any village, it is the centre of village life and the basis of island and national governance. A traditional maneaba is an imposing structure, with slabs of coral supporting a huge roof formed from coconut wood, held together with coconut string and thatched with pandanus leaves. The whole community is involved in its construction, and every aspect of the maneaba has a symbolic as well as a practical function.

A Maneaba serves a similar cultural role to a Polynesian marae. In the neighbouring islands of Tuvalu, the meeting house is called the Maneapa. The sharing of the name is the result of Kiribati and Tuvalu being previously the British crown colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. These high-roofed, open-sided buildings are easily recognised, and serve as places for weddings, funerals, birthdays, neighbourhood meetings, and even as improvised resting places for visitors from other islands needing a place to sleep for the night.