Re-Weaving Te-Moana-nui-a-Kiwa: Wāhine Māori Bodies in Short Fiction

Abstract

So much critical work about English language fiction by Indigenous writers from Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is Eurocentric. Although Papua New Guinean writer-scholar Steven Winduo argued 2 decades ago for the need to unwrite Eurocentric views of an ‘imagined Oceania’ and Māori writer Keri Hulme wrote disparagingly of Anglocentric ‘gods of Literature’, Samoan fantasy writer Lani Wendt Young has more recently described traditional publishing houses as ‘white castles of literature’. Indigenous peoples across Kiwa's great ocean do not need the empire's eyes. Māori do not need the empire's eyes; we have seen ourselves in our narratives since our primordial parents, Ranginui and Papatūānuku, were separated. Yet too often, Indigenous wāhine bodies in fiction are read as stereotyped features of indigeneity or are simply ignored. As a single connecting node to the wider literary networks of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, this paper recentres oft-overlooked Indigenous rhythms and offers a wahine Māori reading of wāhine Māori lives in stories written by wāhine Māori. Specifically, this essay recentres wāhine Māori lives by weaving together extracts of the poem, ‘this tauiwi house’, with contemplations of wāhine bodies in two short stories written by wāhine Māori: ‘Flower Girls’ by Patricia Grace and ‘Birth Rights’ by J. C. Hart. Ultimately, careful readings of wāhine bodies offer rich insights into the wider tapestry of Indigenous lives and the societies we inhabit across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.