THE INTERPLAY OF THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL IN WITI IHIMAERA’S REVISIONS

Abstract

This article considers Witi Ihimaera’s reputation as a pioneer of Maori literature in order to analyse the way he negotiates global and local influences on his writing in the light of the claims of posterity and the obligation to the past. It examines Ihimaera’s changing attitude in his rewriting of his earliest novels, Tangi and Whanau, in The Rope of Man and Whanau II, focusing on the trope of the trauma by which Ihimaera conceptualizes the impact of colonialism on Maori communities and on his writing, and its counterpart, the image of the rope of man, which he develops in order to indicate a path from conflict to reconciliation. Noting that Ihimaera risks a seemingly uncritical celebration of globalization in his rewritings, I propose to read them with reference to a local Maori tradition, emblematized by the meeting house, Rongopai, providing a model of transformative imagination that enables readers to envisage a locally shared world.

Keywords:

• Maori writing
• indigeneity and globalization
• temporal aspects of local/global relationship
• resistance and reconciliation

Notes

1 Quoted from the prefatory note and the blurb of Pounamu Pounamu and Tangi, respectively.

2 See Ihimaera’s Turnbull lecture, “Maori Life and Literature: A Sensory Perception” (1981).

3 The Anniversary Collection includes re‐publications of Ihimaera’s first three books, namely Pounamu Pounamu, Tangi and Whanau, as well as The Whale Rider and a collection, Ihimaera: His Best Stories, all revised for an international audience. Tangi and Whanau are most extensively rewritten, Tangi coupled with a sequel, The Return, in The Rope of Man and Whanau in Whanau II.

4 The original blurb of Pounamu Pounamu states that “Witi felt compelled to write after reading Bill Pearson’s [1968] essay [‘The Maori and Literature’]”, which noted the absence of a Maori novelist and predicted the emergence of an emotionally distinctive Maori literature.

5 The groundbreaking text was The Matriarch, mingling Pakeha historiography, Maori myth narratives and the fictional discourse of magic realism. The Whale Rider (1987) and Dear Miss Mansfield (1989) confirmed the new direction of Ihimaera’s writing. Subsequent novels, featuring increasingly cosmopolitan protagonists, return to the same textualized world of Waituhi, also the stage of Whanau II and The Rope of Man, where the stories of The Matriarch and its sequel, The Dream Swimmer, Bulibasha and The Uncle’s Story are all revisited.

6 Ihimaera’s identification of the principle of the rope of man is best seen in relation to historical research, in particular Judith Binney’s work on the narrative traditions of the Ringatu faith. Referring to an essay by Bernie Kernot (1983), Binney observes: “In traditional Maori thought there is a continuing dialogue between the past and the present. An individual is thought of as facing the past, which lies before him—ngā rā o mua ‘the days in front’—and history is ‘an unfolding series of generational stages’ [ … ], each one a renewal of an earlier time” (346).

7 In the preface and “author’s note” to Whanau II, Ihimaera indicates work undertaken for a submission to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of Te Whanau a Kai in 2002 as one of the sources of the project of rewriting Whanau.

8 In her review of Whanau II, Simone Drichel argues that the element of resistance discernable in the original novel’s refusal to spell out Maori concepts and values is lost in the rewritten version’s more explicit narration, effectively turning her “into a resistant reader” (7).

9 Famous for his role in the New Zealand wars of the 1860 and 1870s, Te Kooti’s lasting significance lies less in his military genius than in his conversion from the cause of war to a commitment to peace after settling in the territory of his former opponent, King Tawhiao, from whom he declared “he had learned the message of peace” (Binney 367). On Te Kooti’s military career, see Belich 216–34, 258–67, 275–88.

10 See Binney 375–76 for the story, as told to her by John Ruru.

11 See Binney 392, n. 76. Margaret Orbell notes that “when the elders entered the house at its opening, they were profoundly shocked to see how far the young men, in decorating it, had departed from the traditional designs” (32), that “they prophesied that because of this desecration Te Kooti would never enter the house” (33), thus declaring Rongopai tapu. Having followed Orbell’s account in Tangi (115–16) and Whanau (123–24), in Whanau II Ihimaera disputes these claims and points out that “[a]ny tapu that was on Rongopai [ … ] was lifted in 1952” (176). Neich, like Orbell, notes that it was lifted in 1963, also observing that despite the tapu, “the house continued to function as a Ringatu church, giving many people the opportunity to see and absorb the lessons of this new art” (192–93).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Otto Heim

Otto Heim teaches in the School of English at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Writing Along Broken Lines: Violence and Ethnicity in Contemporary Maori Fiction (1998) and has published articles on postcolonial and American writers as well as co‐editing a collection of essays entitled Inventing the Past: Memory Work in Culture and History (2005).