The Realm of Tapa
Chantal Spitz’s L’Ile Des Reves Ecrases was the first novel published by an Indigenous writer from Polynesie Francais (French Polynesia), and sixteen years later, in 2007, the Māori publishing company Huia launched Jean Anderson’s translation of the novel as Island of Shattered Dreams.1 Of the several characters in the novel, Tetiare is the most creative and least easily shaped by the colonial institutions of schooling, militarism, and patriotism. She drifts for some time before going overseas, and the narrative of her return to Tahiti is worth quoting at length:
Tetiare has finally come home, after years of wandering round the Pacific, in a vain attempt to heal the wound in her soul. She has met the cousins who came with them long ago in their big canoes, born of the same dream of freedom, but who stopped where the wind had blown them on tiny hopeful islands, over the centuries forgetting the ones who journeyed further. She has found them again, so similar in body and soul, yet made different by the various foreign governments that have been squatting on their land. She has discovered them, peoples of the first people, attempting through little disorganised movements to shake off the Foreigner and immerse themselves again in their origins, to be themselves, the lost children of this huge family in search of one another.2
Tetiare “wander[s] round the Pacific” to grapple with violence and loss; individually, she is “attempt[ing] to heal the wound in her soul,” and yet her travels fit into broader contexts of movement in the region, including the historical migrations (“long ago in their big canoes,” stopping on “tiny hopeful islands”) as well as more recent attempts to reconnect.
Indeed, Tetiare meets many “cousins” who are themselves engaged in reciprocal projects of reconnection. Given the “forgetting” that has occurred “over the centuries” in the various specific locations of the Pacific, however, how does one remember someone whom one has already forgotten? For Tetiare, recognition is multilayered: there are shared physical and cultural characteristics (“so similar in body and soul”), shared political positions (“peoples of the first people”), shared political predicaments (“attempting . . . to shake off the Foreigner”), and shared kaupapa3 and aspirations (“to be themselves,” “in search of one another”). Importantly, while the “cousins” may all be “members of this huge family,” they are deeply inflected by their various and specific experiences of colonialism: “made different by the various foreign governments that have been squatting on their land.” Perhaps one of the more difficult dimensions of articulating a regional consciousness is that privileging a genealogical or migratory basis for regionalism can risk either demanding refusal of real difference or paying attention to difference to the extent that it obstructs meaningful (or indeed any) engagement.
If we once were Pacific, then as well as seeing Tongans in Tonga and Niueans in Niue, one might look at Aotearoa New Zealand and see Māori, look at Guam and see Chamorros, and look at Hawai‘i and see Hawaiians, reversing the Western gaze that sees these places in terms of their occupying nation-states. Certainly Māori need not be included in every single Pacific thing; Pacific places other than Aotearoa and Hawai‘i (and perhaps Guam) have similarities and shared issues that pertain only to them and their social, political, cultural, ecological, and environmental conditions. Conversely, Niue, Tonga, Sāmoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Tokelau have things in common that they don’t share with Aotearoa. Many Pacific people go to New Zealand (or Hawai‘i, or perhaps Guam) because it is a first world metropole, and from this perspective, Auckland is more similar to Los Angeles than it is to Nuku’alofa. Aside from Aotearoa’s physical location farther south than any other Pacific people, Māori have been “made different by the . . . foreign government[ ] that ha[s] been squatting on their land.” And yet how do we account for the idea that when people move to Auckland (or Aukilani or Okalani4), they also move to Tamaki-makau-rau?5 The remedy is to be vigilant: to explicitly clarify whether and how particular groups are included in each configuration of the Pacific.
Perhaps the main way in which Māori currently practice Pacific regionalism is by connecting with Hawai‘i. We need to note, for example, that in this part of Once Were Pacific, Māori identifications and networks with Hawaiians predominate; consider that Te Rangihiroa, the Polynesian Cultural Centre, Wineera, Sullivan, and Hinewirangi all write from or about Hawai‘i. Writing reciprocally from a Hawaiian perspective, Ty Kāwika Tengan confirms a history of Māori and Hawaiians gravitating toward each other:
[Hawaiian and Māori] histories are similar to each other but different from the colonial projects carried out in other parts of Oceania, where cultural imperialism seems to have been far less complete and oppressive. Since the 1980s, Hawaiian and Māori groups have actively engaged one another and other peoples involved in the transnational indigenous movement. Common experiences of marginalization in English-speaking settler societies have helped them reconnect through their shared Polynesian genealogies to exchange strategies of cultural revitalization and self-determination in ways they have not pursued with other Pacific Islanders.6
Tengan’s explanation is, of course, a logical and productive account of the present situation. Certainly it would be un-productive to expect Māori and Hawaiians to ignore their “similar” realities, and the relationships between Tangata Māori and Kanaka Maoli have been, and continue to be, dynamic and effective. Yet it can feel almost ironic that when Māori and Hawaiians, who are at the farthest points of the Polynesian triangle—as far apart as it is possible to be in the Pacific—articulate the basis of our mutual connection, we mobilize genealogical and cultural connections that, presumably, are shared just as much, if not more so, with the “other Pacific Islanders” over whose heads we fly when traveling between Auckland and Honolulu to connect with our relatives.
Spitz plainly states that the “cousins” have been “made different by the various foreign governments that have been squatting on their land,” and when we refuse to recognize this difference or discuss how we ourselves might be shaped by it, we risk undermining our own attempts to articulate a Pacific region. Although Spitz does not romanticize the connections between the “cousins” by ignoring the deep impacts of colonialism, she also does not allow that the “cousins” have been “made different” beyond recognition and does not allow that some have been “made different” (or made more different), while others have not. Simply acknowledging the source of these differences is not the end point, though, and once Tetiare returns to Tahiti, she starts to write about specific and regional histories as a way of imagining alternative possible narratives for her people. Ultimately, the “cousins” are framed by another, deeper discourse: despite, and yet not apart from, these differences, they remain members of “this huge family in search of one another.” This combination of genealogical and experiential connections is central to the realm of tapa and will echo also throughout the realm of koura.
Manu Aute: Māori diasporas
One of the major interventions staged by this focus on the realm of tapa is the treatment of writing from Māori outside Aotearoa. These writers and texts are included in the present discussion because they articulate connection with the Pacific, but there is scope for much wider and thorough treatment of Māori diasporas beyond this project.7 None of the writers of Mahanga, Opening Doors, or The Whale Rider—foundational texts for imagining an Aotearoa-inclusive Pacific—was resident in New Zealand at the time of writing. Neither Vernice Wineera nor Evelyn Patuawa-Nathan has been included in dominant discussions of Māori writing in English, and both have also been left out of almost all discussions and collections of Pacific writing; their impressive offerings, Mahanga and Opening Doors, are themselves a pair of books behind closed doors.8 The Whale Rider, though published in New Zealand, was written while Ihimaera lived in New York as a diplomat. (This is why this book is not treated in the chapter on Pacific-based Māori writers.) Immediately under the closing words “Hui e, haumi e, taiki e” of the New Zealand edition of The Whale Rider, the authorial endnote reads, “New York, 14 August, 1986.” Indeed, in the introduction to their 1988 Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories, Davis and Haley cite Ihimaera as occupying an important border zone of New Zealand literature because although his commitment and literary focus were, and are, very firmly New Zealand, he was living in the United States at the time of the anthology’s publication.9
In The Whale Rider, Rawiri’s first stop on his trip overseas is Sydney, Australia, where he is—like, perhaps, some readers of the novella—surprised to find so many Māori away from Aotearoa:10
Wherever you went, the pubs, the shows, the clubs, the restaurants, the movies, the theatres, you could always count on bumping into a cousin. In some hotels, above the noise and buzz of the patrons, you were bound to hear somebody shouting to somebody else, “Kia Ora, cous!”11
For Rawiri, Sydney is peopled by relatives.12 I have already suggested that Rawiri’s trip to Australia to (re)establish ties with the non-Aotearoa-based Māori is an essential step before moving on to Papua New Guinea and recognizing the links between Māori and other Pacific people through whakapapa and historical relationships. The politically crucial focus on fixed Indigeneity in the treaty-defined context of Aotearoa New Zealand can obscure the mobility that Rawiri observes and, indeed, that Ihimaera manifests in the final endnote to the New Zealand edition of the novella. Once our focus on the Pacific enables us to notice the place of Māori writers based outside Aotearoa, we can take another step and extend our view to all Māori writing from outside New Zealand, such as Jean Riki’s story “Te Wa Kainga: Home,” included in the Australian collection Waiting in Space, and U.S.–U.K.-based Paula Morris’s writing, some of which is published in New Zealand and some elsewhere.13
Significantly, taking for granted that Māori writing in English includes a diasporic dimension enables us to notice different texts and to read the same texts differently, but it also points to the nonsense of the idea that Māori literature is merely a subset of New Zealand literature. Craig Womack has famously argued that the relationship between American Indian literatures and American literature is wrongly inverted by those who believe American literature to be the trunk of the tree and American Indian literature but one of its branches;14 similarly, I would argue that though Māori writing has a relationship with New Zealand, this is only part of its scope. In the realm of tapa, then, Māori—including Wineera and Patuawa-Nathan, but also Te Rangihiroa, Barney Christie, Sullivan, Ihimaera, and Hinewirangi—literally, imaginatively, politically, and critically exceed the borders of occupying nation-states.
How can we imagine a form of Indigenous diaspora that neither limits the claims Māori can make about connection to specific place nor limits the capacity of Māori to be understood as mobile? One potential metaphor to help us think through the complexity of Māori diasporas is the manu aute, the distinctive kite that echoes the design of kites made all around Polynesia and that uses tapa in its covering, bearing testimony to the circulation of physical and agricultural knowledges around the Pacific. The “aute” in “manu aute”—literally, “birds made of aute”—is decorative and mnemonic, sure, but it is used because of its durability, physical lightness, and strength. The aute itself is a rich metaphor for diaspora because, like the aute, culture and social structures need to be flexible to be taken over vast distances, and when replanted in the new soil, they provide the ability to adapt to a new landscape and also to remember previous homes. Furthermore, the difference between a kite and any object that just flies away with the wind is the string that is held at the ground, a string that works best when it is taut. Diasporas are communities that retain a link—even if only an emotional link—with home but do not imagine returning there permanently. When thinking about Māori diasporas as manu aute, we have the opportunity to ask, of what material is the string made? Who holds the string? What winds take kites away in the first place? What perspective or resources does a kite contribute to the at-home community? What happens if the holder of the kite lets go?
A Realm of Tapa
For Tetiare in Spitz’s Island of Shattered Dreams, the experience of “wandering round the Pacific” ultimately fuels a regional–political consciousness and a creative sensibility. On her return, she finally settles into her position as a writer. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the highly mobile Tetiare—the one who left Tahiti and who didn’t gravitate toward the usual outside destination of metropolitan France—becomes the writer. Perhaps writers ultimately bear the pleasure and responsibility of “healing the wound” not only in their own “soul” but in all of ours, and perhaps writers seek “healing” beyond the usual spheres of connection and identification on behalf of all of us. The “wound” Tetiare seeks to “heal” is intimately tied to memory. The “cousins [of the] big canoes” have been separated over time and space, and this separation is tied closely to forgetting and recollection. Just like the two layers of migration, there are two layers of forgetting: historical amnesias about “the ones who journeyed further” but also more contemporary disconnection from cultural memory that is implied by the resistance to the “Foreigner” that involves “immers[ing] themselves in their origins.” Because the historical migrations and contemporary movements across the Pacific region are paired in this way, we might explore the relationship between the original reason for migration—“the same dream of freedom”—and the motivation behind the mobility in Tetiare’s time. Despite the “cousins” being deeply inflected by the colonial process, they are ultimately compelled by the same desires. The “forgetting” that took place earlier—the “forgetting” of a regional perspective—was incomplete because otherwise, the deep familial pull (“this huge family in search of one another”) would surely be less strong. Indeed, the ability of the “peoples of the first people” to “shake off the Foreigner” in any one context is linked to a deeper compulsion to “be themselves” by reconnecting to their immediately previous configurations and to “their origins” in terms of “long ago” regional migrations and genealogical networks. Re-remembering “the same dream of freedom” is crucial to the contemporary project of decolonization but also, more specifically, to the project of writing in which Tetiare and so many other writers from Te Moananui a Kiwa—the realm of tapa—are passionately engaged.
This is the realm of tapa. Like the aute plant in Aotearoa, this realm is marked by impressive historical continuations and significant recent amnesias. The reasons for the aute plant becoming extinct are remembered differently by different people. Although Te Rangihiroa, citing Colenso, blames European farming for the demise of the remnant aute plants, some commentators prefer a narrative in which Māori deliberately discarded the aute once European fabrics of cotton and linen started to arrive, speculating that there was no longer a need for the difficult work of maintaining a tropical plant in Aotearoa’s climate.15 It feels logical to argue that Māori simply let the aute die out once they could make clothing from European fabrics, until we recall that this was not what aute was used for in the first place. The aute plant never grew big or plentifully enough in Aotearoa to make sheets of cloth; it was used for decorative, small, and—in the case of manu aute—specific items for which cotton and linen would not have been a useful substitute anyway. The narrative feels comfortable for those who take European superiority for granted, but it fails to notice the complexity of Māori material culture on the ground and to imagine that there might be aspects of Māori culture for which Europeans have no equivalent. Most likely, it was a combination of factors that led to the demise of the aute. Neither strictly cattle nor solely cotton but a combination of these, and more besides. Ultimately, what matters is that tapa was produced in Aotearoa to remind us of who we were and the wider Pacific context from which we came, and it still has the capacity to do that for us today.