There's no written record of how or when the sewing of tivaevae was introduced to the Islands. Some say the wives of the London Missionary Society missionaries, who arrived in 1821, might have taught it. Others hold that it was learned from the Tahitian missionaries who helped introduce Christianity
Source: The Art of Tivaevae by Lynnsay Rongokea, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, published by Random House New Zealand, 2001