#Maori literature

[gennsoup]

you made me feel the sun wheeled in me the moon on my tongue

Hinemoana Baker, Matariki, e

[in-sufficientdata]

A bilingual book about the Māori creation story has won the highest accolade in children's literature.

Te Wehenga: The Separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku by Motueka writer Mat Tait (Ngāti Apa ki te rātō) won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults held at Wellington's Pipitea Marae.

Te Wehenga simultaneously tells the Māori creation pūrākau, which explains the beginning of the world, in te reo Māori and English.

[von-octave]

reading potiki by patricia grace for an indigenous literature class and it is absolutely amazing. definitely impacting how i understand time! I think it seems abstract but isn’t very much different from western understandings of determinism, for example.

[ruchirarambles7]

Stunning.

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you’re expected to understand the rest of the text, it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say…]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)

[justwatchmyeyes]

Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.

Maori proverb

[makingqueerhistory]

The Bone People

Keri Hulme

The powerful, visionary, Booker Award-winning novel about the complicated relationships between three outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage"This book is just amazingly, wondrously great." --Alice Walker In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes: part Maori, part European, asexual and aromantic, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor--a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where indigenous and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.

Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity.

(Affiliate link above)

[the-monkey-ruler]

So immortals can be stronger than some gods and vice versa, but what about demons? Besides Sun Wukong, are there demons that gods or immortals could not defeat or represented a real threat?

There are a good amount of demons that are threats to gods or immortals. But because that is such a wide question I would have to say that it depends on what novel or what mythos you are talking about.

In most cases, demons are never as strong as immortals or gods because of their lack of formal training. It is very hard to cultivate without training and thus most demons just eat humans to gain cultivation, and while still powerful, far sloppier skills than compared to a trained immortal. You would see in a lot more modern literature that demons have communities or clans while in ancient literature that is rarely the case as because demons are all abnormalities and cultivated individually it is hard for them to form clans and create communities.

I asked around and I was nicely told that the Four Perils are considered like progenitors to yaoguai. While they are not quite the same as yaoguai as they are considered either natural disasters or just malicious creatures depending on the context. They are considered the antithesis of the four benevolent creatures that are the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise. But in either case they are to be considered the embodiment of chaos and thus directly oppose heaven which is to symbolize the embodiment of order.

There are other creatures that toe the line between god and yaoguai just depending on different regions, similar to that is Shuimu niang niang who is a water deity but in Suzhou, Anhui she may be a yaoguai, while in Taiyuan, Shanxi it is believed that she was a woman who was gifted a magical whip by an old man. I was also informed that even the Four Perils, the taotie in particular, can be connected with ding due to the idea that taotie collected the offerings in ding for the ancestors and shen, and offered protection to the people. 

Wukong in the demon world is very much an outlier when it comes to power scaling, he is like the Sailor Moon to anime of the demon world. There are plenty of strong demons in Xiyouji but there is always a catch, so to speak. Scorpion Demon has a poison strong enough to hurt even the Buddha, but she was taken down by Maori Xingguan who turned into a rooster her natural enemy. That is more like a glass cannon where she can do a lot of damage but not take a lot in return. Demon Bull King was pretty strong, Nezha had to cut his head off like 50 times or something for him to falter and eventually be cornered but he fell as well. Single Horned Rhino King was also super strong in that he was able to take on so many celestial warriors but that was because he had the help of his magic item. Also when they found out his origins he was able to be captured fairly quickly by his owner.

In other works like FSYY we have Daji who is more known for her cunning and manipulation than power itself but she is still considered one of the most dangerous demons to have ever lived just by how much damage she caused an entire dynasty. It is noted that in Xiyouji the more powerful demons are from heaven as they were able to get some kind of information or training while up there, but they also have the great weakness that they are still submissive to their owners when they are found out. This is the usual chip in the stronger demons armor as while more earth-demons like Red Boy or Demon Bull King must be overtaken with force.

There have been PLENTY of powerful demons that have given the gods trouble, but in most if not all mythos, they were able to be defeated by the end through some kind of chip in their armor or loophole in their magic. While there are legendary demons of great feats and fight other legendary heroes like Nezha, Jiang Ziya, Erlang Shen, there aren't any demons that like... defeated them. At least not enough that cannot come back with stronger forces and eventually overrun the demon in question. Demons can be very powerful but they always have some kind of weakness whether in their cultivation, or in their origins as depending on the demon's original species helps in determining how to stop them a lot.

Wukong doesn't have that.

Wukong is the strongest, smartest, most powerful, most skilled, most clever, most cunning demon to have ever lived and is the only one I can think of that has gone to the heavens, defeated everyone, almost defeated the Jade Emporer and just before about to kill him needed Buddha ALL THE WAY from Eastern Heaven, a completely DIFFERENT heaven, needed to step in to stop him. He is to be considered an outlier of demon kind really. And I think that is because of his creation as the Monkey Mind. He isn't a being of havoc and destruction and that is what makes him separate from more demons at the start, rather he is intelligent, can learn, can adapt, and thus we see that he can bring order to the world. The whole point of the journey is how Wukong is able to overcome his own base desires and learn how to discipline himself to be more in control of his actions. Wukong is able to be seen as a person that provides and protects, very different from most yaoguai that reek chaos, and it could be that because of this Wukong was able to match to the gods just because it is so similar to them from the start.

[musingsofmonica]

February 2024 Diverse Read

February 2024 Diverse Reads:

•”My Beloved Life” by Amitava Kumar, February 27, Knopf Publishing Group, Historical/Literary/World Literature/India

•”Whiskey Tender: A Memoir” by Deborah Taffa, February 27, Harper, Personal Memoirs/Women/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Native American & Aboriginal

•”I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both” by Mariah Stovall, February 13, Soft Skull, Contemporary/Coming of Age/Friendship/African American/Women

•”Private Equity: A Memoir” by Carrie Sun, February 13, Penguin Press, Personal Memoirs/Women in Business/Business/Finance/Wealth Management/Investments & Securities

•”Village in the Dark” by Iris Yamashita, February 13, Berkley Books, Mystery & Detective/Police Procedural/Thriller/Suspense/Women

•”Redwood Court” by Délana R. a. Dameron, February 06, Dial Press, Literary/Coming of Age/Women/African American/Southern

•”Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange, February 27, Knopf Publishing Group, Literary/Cultural Heritage/Native American & Aboriginal

•Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Hwang Bo-Reum & Shanna Tan (Translator), February 20, Bloomsbury Publishing, Contemporary/City Life/World Literature/Korea

•”Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays

Aisha Sabatini Sloan, February 20, Graywolf, Essays/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/African American & Black/LGBT/Anthropology/Cultural & Social

•”The Things We Didn't Know” by Elba Iris Pérez, February 06, Gallery Books, Literary/Coming of Age/World Literature/Puerto Rico/20th Century

•“The Fox Maidens” by Robin Ha, February 13, Harperalley, Comics & Graphic Novels/Historical/Fairy Tales/Folklore/Legends & Mythology Fantasy/Romance/LGBT/World Literature/Korea

•”Hope Ablaze” by Sarah Mughal Rana, February 27, Wednesday Books, Magical Realism, Poetry/Religious/Muslim/Social Themes - Activism & Social Justice

•“ASAP” by Axie Oh, February 06, Harperteen, YA/Romance/Contemporary/Coming of Age/Asian American

•”Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories” by Amitav Ghosh, February 13, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Nonfiction/Historical/Travelogue/Memoir/Family History/Essay in History/Globalism/Capitalism

•”Fathomfolk” by Eliza Chan, February 27, Orbit, Fantasy/Action & Adventure/Dragons & Mythical Creatures/East Asian Mythology 

•”Ours” by Phillip B. Williams, February 20, Viking, Literary/Historical/African American/Magical Realism

•”Neighbors and Other Stories” by Diane Oliver, February 13, Grove Press, Short Stories/Literary/Historical/African American & Black

•”Greta & Valdin” by Rebecca K. Reilly, February 06, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, Literary/Romcom/Family Life/LGBT/Cultural Heritage/World Literature/New Zealand/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Russian-Maori-Catalonian/Indigenous/Polynesian 

•”The American Daughters” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, February 27, One World, Historical/Civil War Era/Saga/African American/Women

•”My Side of the River: A Memoir” by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez, January 13, St. Martin's Press, Personal Memoirs/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Hispanic & Latino/Public Policy - Immigration

[study-with-em]

hi!

🩷✨️🌸

my name's emily and i'm a third year english literature student! i'm originally from scotland but i'm currently doing a year abroad in new zealand which is very exciting!

classes start in a couple of days and i'm looking forward to it, but also a little nervous. i'm taking two english classes; one on digital storytelling and one on psychology in literature, as well as a class on maori society and one on pacific societies.

i've always struggled with time and deadline management and self discipline, so i'm mostly starting this page to try and hold myself accountable and keep myself motivated. i'm planning on posting study updates and assignment progress at least once a week to try and keep myself productive, and reblogging general study inspo and tips!

🌸✨️🩷

[dropout-if]

Aaa! It's so rare to see Pacific Islander ROs I'm so happy you created Kai✨

What inspired you to make their heritage that way? And will it be explored?

AAA Thank!

Last year I did my thesis on Postcolonial Ecofeminist Literature in the South Pacific and I feel like that has really moved and changed me^^

There are so little references to Oceania in media I knew I wanted to use some of my knowledge to create a character from the Pacific😭 Kai was originally going to be either Maori, Samoan or Hawaiian (the three areas I investigated).

I feel like Samoan societal ideals (such as Faʻa Sāmoa, the Samoan way) are really interesting when analysing Kai^^

For anyone interested I plan on doing my Master's thesis on the Representation of Female Neurosis in Media🏃‍♀️

[gennsoup]

I am the sleeping moon, as ashen cloud conceals my beams.

Reihana Robinson, How it all began

[gulfportofficial]

Moby Dick again.

Guys, one of my students is reading an abridged, age-appropriate, ESL learner-appropriate copy of Moby Dick and it is so interesting. A lot of things they simply spell out because that makes sense for the English level as a reader (some of which are weird choices, like for example explicitly stating Queequeg is from New Zealand, like specifically New Zealand the British colonial nation, not Aotearoa the indigenous name, but he isn't from there anyway, maori is just another word for indigenous, in Te Reo it's Māori and from description IMO Queequeg's Tahitian Mā'ohi. Other changes are more straightforward.) Like for example, this version starts, "Call me Ishmael. That is not my real name." Obviously OG you pick that up even though it's never said but it's interesting because it means we can talk about it together. Especially because I had such a great time explaining the concept of an unreliable narrator, and how some are lying to you on purpose, some are not in their right minds, some don't even have an inkling they're not seeing clearly, some have a view that is simply limited by being one human, and most are combinations.

Anyway, it was such a lovely chat to have and I am absolutely beyond touched that she literally started reading this because I like it so much. Also she has OPINIONS about Ahab and it's dope and also it's very fun to be in a super homophobic situation like my school and just casually say about a work of great literature, "Oh yes, they'll be sharing a bed for the rest of the book."

[resourcesofcolor]

the link on the "books by pacific islanders" post you reblogged is broken :(

nooo that's such a bummer, it had such a great list that didn't just include polynesian authors, but also from all of pasifika/oceana! :(

i'll add some book reccs myself based on the original post! :)

Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner  

As a poet and performer, Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner uses art and activism as a means to enlighten her readers and followers about her home, the Marshall Islands. In 2012, she co-founded Jo-Jikum, a nonprofit organization committed to helping the next generation of Marshallese to preserve their islands in the face of rising sea levels. Her book, Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter, pulls from personal and familial stories to create an illuminating collection of poetry about Marshallese politics, heritage, and climate change.

THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulmes is part Maori, part European, asexual and aromantic and she's outcasted from her family. This Booker Award-winning novel digs into tragic romance, mystery and heritage.

ISLAND OF SHATTERED DREAMS by Chantal Spitz; critiques the French government leading to the time French Polynesia had to undergo its first nuclear tests, making it a controversial piece during its publication. Also included in the storyline is a family saga and a doomed love story.

YEAR OF THE REAPER by Makiia Lucier (Micronesia, Guam). Makiia Lucier grew up on the Pacific island of Guam and has degrees in journalism and library science from the University of Oregon and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The Properties of Perpetual Light is an homage to the work of the activist-writer, which author Julian Aguon describes as ''the work of bearing witness, wrestling with the questions of one's day, telling children the truth.'' With prose and poetry both bracing and quiet, Aguon weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary.

My Urohs: the first collection of poetry by a Pohnpeian poet, Emelihter Kihleng's My Urohs is described by distinguished Samoan writer and artist Albert Wendt as "refreshingly innovative and compelling, a new way of seeing ourselves in our islands, an important and influential addition to our [Pacific] literature."

[maledictionwolf-commsopen]

And of course there's Project Gutenberg for classic literature and pretty much anything with an expired copyright. Most everything is available to read as not only ebooks (in multiple formats, including older/disconinued ones), but also as web pages and downloadable HTML files (basically a web page you can open without an internet connection).

Here's all the languages available, sorted by how much stuff there is:

Languages with more than 50 books: Chinese  Danish  Dutch  English  Esperanto  Finnish  French  German  Greek  Hungarian  Italian  Latin  Portuguese  Spanish  Swedish  Tagalog 

Languages with up to 50 books: Afrikaans  Aleut  Arabic  Arapaho  Bodo  Breton  Bulgarian  Caló  Catalan  Cebuano  Czech  Estonian  Farsi  Frisian  Friulian  Gaelic, Scottish  Galician  Gamilaraay  Greek, Ancient  Haida  Hebrew  Icelandic  Iloko  Interlingua  Inuktitut  Irish  Japanese  Kashubian  Khasi  Korean  Lithuanian  Maori  Mayan Languages  Middle English  Nahuatl  Napoletano-Calabrese  Navajo  North American Indian  Norwegian  Occitan  Ojibwa  Old English  Polish  Romanian  Russian  Sanskrit  Scots  Serbian  Slovenian  Tagabawa  Telugu  Tibetan  Welsh  Yiddish 

FWIW, "more than 50" can range from less than 100 (Tagalog) to tens of thousands (English).

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

[justwatchmyeyes]

Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.

Maori proverb

[chengranx]

Blog 3: Research Objectives and Problem Statement

Title: setting research objectives and defining research questions

Content:

The aim of this project is to investigate the multiple roles of Lake Hamilton in terms of ecological conservation, community activities and cultural symbolism. Through fieldwork, literature analysis and data collection, we hope to reveal that Lake Hamilton is not only a natural landscape, but also an important part of community life and cultural heritage. The research will focus on answering the following key questions and exploring the importance of the lake in the modern city.

Research Objectives Ecological Conservation: To study how Lake Hamilton protects biodiversity, maintains wetlands, and helps regulate climate and maintain ecological balance in an urban environment.

Community Activism: To explore the impact of the lake as a public space on the community, including the promotion of health, recreation, and social interaction.

Cultural Symbols: To analyse the place of Lake Hamilton in Māori culture and local history, and its role as a cultural legacy in modern society.

Research Issues Ecological Issues:

How does Lake Hamilton maintain its ecological balance during urbanisation? What effect do wetland restoration projects have on the wildlife around the lake? Community and Social Issues:

How does the lake affect residents' quality of life and social interactions? How do community events enhance the cohesiveness of residents? Cultural Issues:

What is the symbolic significance of Lake Hamilton in Maori culture and New Zealand history? How can the historical and cultural value of the lake be passed on through modern cultural activities? Academic and social significance This project will not only inform urban ecological conservation, but will also demonstrate the positive impact of public space on social wellbeing. The cultural aspects of the research will also help to understand the symbolism of natural landscapes in history and culture, providing strong support for urban planning and cultural heritage.

Conclusion By exploring these key issues, this study will reveal the multiple functions of Lake Hamilton in urban life and raise awareness of the ecological, social and cultural aspects of the lake.