Cross-Cultural Influence in the Work of Witi Ihimaera
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Université de Bourgogne Ecole Doctorale « Langage, Idées, Sociétés, Institutions, Terroires » Centre Interlanges « Texte, Image, Langage » (EA 4182) In international cotutelle with University of Canterbury School of Culture, Literature and Society “STRIDING BOTH WORLDS”: CROSS-CULTURAL INFLUENCE IN THE WORK OF WITI IHIMAERA Melissa Kennedy 2007 Thèse de doctorat en études Anglophones présentée sous la direction de M. le Professeur Jean-Pierre Durix A thesis submitted to the University of Canterbury in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature supervised by Professor Mark Williams Jury: Mme le Professeur Sylvie Crinquand (Université de Bourgogne) M. le Professeur Jean-Pierre Durix (Université de Bourgogne) Professor Kon Kuiper (University of Canterbury) Professor Paul Sharrad (University of Wollongong) Professor Mark Williams (University of Canterbury) Professor Janet Wilson (University of Northampton) ii ABSTRACT This thesis engages with aspects of Witi Ihimaera’s oeuvre that demonstrate influences from cultures other than Maori. These may be overt in the fiction, such as plot settings in Venice, Vietnam and Canada, or implicit in his writing mode and style, influenced by English romanticism, Pakeha cultural nationalism, Katherine Mansfield’s modernist epiphanies, and Italian verismo opera. In revealing Ihimaera’s indebtedness to cultural and aesthetic influences commonly seen as irrelevant to contemporary Maori literature, this thesis reveals a depth and richness in Ihimaera’s imaginary that is frequently overlooked and undervalued in New Zealand literary interpretation. Illuminating cross-cultural influence in Ihimaera’s works calls into question the applicability of biculturalism as a comprehensive manner of accounting for both Maori cultural ambitions of self-determination and the Maori relationship with Pakeha on the national level. Far from an “us-versus- them” dialectic based on a separatist notion of two individually self-sufficient and complete cultures, Ihimaera’s fiction shows Maori culture to have been shaped by a long history of interaction and influence with the colonial British and the Pakeha. This is manifest in the way that the Maori sovereignty and renaissance movements, which gathered force in the 1970s, have been inspired by European concepts of modernity, the structures of nation building and, more recently, by Western globalization described in the theories of transculturation and diaspora. Similarly, in New Zealand literature, Maori writing is commonly considered a parallel genre which describes a distinctive Maori worldview and literary style. Contrary to the familiar interpretation of Ihimaera’s fiction from this standpoint, this thesis argues that an emphasis on difference tends to lose sight of fiction’s capacity to bring into play issues of differentiation, originality and hybridity through its very form and function. In effect, Maori negotiation of its sovereign space in its literature takes place in its forms rather than in its storyline, for example in multiple linguistic significations, in the text’s unstable relationship with reality, and the way that imagery escapes concrete, definitive iii explanation. In this optic, this thesis analyses little-discussed aspects of Ihimaera’s fiction, including his love of opera, the extravagance of his baroque lyricism, his exploration of the science-fiction genre, and his increasing interest in taking Maori into the international arena. While reading against the grain of current New Zealand literary practice, this thesis does not intend to contest such reading. Rather, it endeavours to present an additional, complementary analytical framework, based on a conviction that contemporary Maori-Pakeha cultural and literary negotiation and contestation is far from unique, but a local manifestation of other international and historical efforts for recognition and respect. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With immense thanks to the following people whose support made this thesis a pleasure to research and write: Mark Williams and Jean-Pierre Durix for advice, encouragement and many hours of stimulating conversation to “refaire le monde.” The English Department staff at the University of Canterbury, for many years of support, and particularly for the PhD scholarship. L’Ambassade de France en Nouvelle-Zélande, for much-appreciated funding and recognition of this project under the rubric of bilateral cultural cooperation. Diana Brydon, Patrick Evans, Gillian Kootstra, James Meffan, Stuart Murray, Chris Prentice, Florence d’Souza, Michaela Moura-Koçoğlu and Anthony Carrigan for valuable discussion of my work and theirs, including permission to use unpublished work. Emily White for endless photocopying and Véronique Rouanet for checking my translations. Nicola Frean, Special Materials Librarian, for many hours of help at the Beaglehole Archives. And especial thanks to Witi Ihimaera for providing audio material, prompt answers to many queries, and great doses of enthusiasm. v To my family and friends who stride along with me vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: 1-14 CHAPTER ONE: MAORI NATIONALISM 15 I. “New” Maori Literature 15-31 III. National Heroes: The Romantic Peasant and Realist Man Alone 32-43 IV. Myth and History: Defining National Origins 44-53 V. Tangata Whenua and Landscape 54-64 VI. Nationalist Maori Literature 65-79 CHAPTER TWO: BICULTURAL AND POSTCOLONIAL POLITENESS 80 I. Limitations of Nationalism: Waituhi: the Life of the Village 80-87 II. Postcolonial Politeness 88-98 III. Private Life, Public Writing: Inside or Outside the Whale? 99-109 IV. “Purposive” Literature: Writing of Race Relations 110-119 V. The Private Side of Maori Writing 120-130 CHAPTER THREE: INTERNATIONAL AESTHETICS 131 I. Underreading and Overreading 131-138 II. Fiction as a Site of Textual Plurality 139-147 III. Fiction as an International Artform 148-156 IV. Inter-reference: A Verdian Matriarch 157-174 V. Testing the Limits of Inter-reference: Rewriting Mansfield 175-197 CHAPTER FOUR: THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL 198 I. Maori Modernity 198-205 II. Crossing Genres, Crossing Technology: Whale Rider Hybridity 206-220 III. Being Maori in the World: Chosen Communities 221-238 IV. Cultural Specificity and Global “Scapes” 239-263 vii CHAPTER FIVE: AMBIVALENT INDIGENEITY 264 I. Indigenous Postcolonialism 264-283 II. Indigenous Diaspora 284-300 III. Eidolon Ambivalence in Maori Identity 301-314 CONCLUSION: COMPOSITE IDENTITY AND LITERATURE 315 GLOSSARY OF MAORI TERMS 327 WORKS CITED 329 INDEX 357 Introduction: Striding both Worlds 1 INTRODUCTION: STRIDING BOTH WORLDS I took a firm step forward into the Pakeha world. Firmly, I retained it. Somehow, I managed to stride both worlds. (Tangi 78) In Tangi (1973), the first novel by a Maori to be published, Witi Ihimaera creates the fictional world of Waituhi, a rural Maori village based on the real place where the writer is from. In the tangi, funeral wake, Ihimaera describes a Maori life world hitherto largely unknown to mainstream white (Pakeha) New Zealand. The fictional Waituhi is a Maori enclave, a rural safe- haven peopled by Maori characters—introduced in Ihimaera’s earlier short story collection, Pounamu Pounamu (1971)—who are secure in their Maoritanga, Maori culture. In the above quotation, Tama, the protagonist, steps out of this cultural idyll at home into the Pakeha world of formal schooling and work, a move which threatens, and may even be incompatible with that of the Maori: “the world I was growing up in was a Pakeha one [and] it was difficult to retain my Maoritanga” (78). Ihimaera’s image of “striding both worlds” implies a dualistic perspective of Maori and Pakeha cultures as culturally, socially and economically divided, a viewpoint represented in the novel by the opposing poles of Waituhi and Wellington. The birthright of whakapapa, genealogy, anchors Tama to the Maori heritage embodied in Waituhi and its characters. The Pakeha world, on the other hand, is described as exterior and learned at school rather than naturally acquired. Stepping over from one pole to the other requires knowledge of and skills in both Maori and Pakeha domains. While Pakeha do not have the key to access Maori culture—the Pakeha couple shuffle nervously at the gates to the marae for the tangi—Tama serves as emissary, making the move to come over and welcome them in. Ihimaera’s fiction of the 1970s also fulfils that representative and educative function, Introduction: Striding both Worlds 2 describing Maoritanga for the first time to a Pakeha and international readership. The Maori-Pakeha dynamics in the novel Tangi exemplify those taking place contemporaneously in New Zealand society generally. The 1970s marked the beginning of a reconsideration of race relations between the majority Pakeha and the indigenous Maori, sparked by increasing pressure from Maori for recognition, manifested in a demand for political sovereignty and the revalorization of Maori culture, termed a Renaissance. In the 1980s, a political and cultural sea change occurred, with the establishment of official biculturalism engaging with the special place of Maori in New Zealand. Negotiating the terms of this monumental shift in Maori-Pakeha relations, on all levels of society, has been a long process that continues to the present day. As a yardstick for Maori concerns, Maori literature has been instrumental in expressing both the Maori Renaissance cultural flourishing and the political demands of sovereignty. Ihimaera’s depiction of the cultural autonomy