UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Theorizing Pō: Embodied Cosmogony and Polynesian National Narratives Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7mr0d19j Author Warren, Joyce Lindsay Pualani Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Theorizing Pō: Embodied Cosmogony and Polynesian National Narratives A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in English by Joyce Lindsay Pualani Warren 2017 © Copyright by Joyce Lindsay Pualani Warren 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Theorizing Pō: Embodied Cosmogony and Polynesian National Narratives by Joyce Lindsay Pualani Warren Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Chair Polynesian epistemology and cosmogony dictate that all life and existence come from Pō, the generative, liminal darkness. Pō can be temporally expansive, producing a view of time that is spiral rather than linear. Within Pō, time and space are not necessarily discrete categories. In this dissertation, I argue that literary depictions of Pō can represent and articulate notions of political and cultural sovereignty throughout contemporary Polynesia. These forms of sovereignty are rooted in cosmogonic connections to darkness and land, which are manifested in the Indigenous body’s mediation of the intertwined spiral of time and space. I contend that the boundless potential of Pō is reflected in the varied ways embodied cosmogony appears in contemporary Pacific literature, and the methods by which Native Pacific authors such as Albert ii Wendt, Patricia Grace, and Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl rework Anglophone literary traditions of the novel and the short story to advance Indigenous notions of the nation. These authors invoke Pō through parallel yet distinct uses of “form”: first, in the exploration of how variously raced and gendered forms of the Indigenous body can affirm or contest the body politic; second, in the diverse articulations of space and time through the texts’ formal construction and narratology. In these texts, Indigenous storytelling techniques—such as kākau (tattoo), fāgogo, whaikōrero, and oli—suggest how literary forms and representations of Pō can variously (re)turn to the post/settler/colonial nation and (re)tell Indigenous narratives. My analysis relies on orature but also centers the ways the Indigenous body has always functioned as a legible text and a tool for mediating epistemology. My theorization of Pō draws on bodily- and sensory-based Indigenous concepts and discourses, including makawalu, Mana Wahine, and vā. Overall, I investigate the literary intersections of cosmogony, body, and nation, to reveal how the Indigenous body’s cosmogonic connections can overcome the traumatic construction of the post/settler/colonial nation as the primary marker of community. In its place, I offer a theory of embodied cosmogony that requires an Indigenous reading praxis, resulting in a new iteration of the Polynesian body as text and a necessary intervention in postcolonialism and broader literary criticisms. iii The dissertation of Joyce Lindsay Pualani Warren is approved. Richard A. Yarborough Keith Lujan Camacho Yogita Goyal Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family. Hoʻi hou i ka iwi kuamoʻo. Thank you for being the backbone to which I could always return—no matter how many times the writing of this dissertation took me away from you. Juana Rosa Kaleiakalehuamakanoe Alá and Brandon Keoni G.Casso Taoipu: Thank you for showing me the ways that endings become beginnings along the spiral. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures xviii Note on Terms and Usage ix Glossary xi Acknowledgements xiii Vita xviii INTRODUCTION: Theorizing Pō 1 Local Articulations of Darkness and Global Articulations of Blackness 12 “A Tradition of Evaluating Our Literature”: Native Pacific Literary Theories and Criticisms 17 Embodied Cosmogony: Mediating Wā and (En)Gendering Pō—nō 29 Time 31 Space 34 Wāhine 37 (En)Gendering “Po—no” 38 Polynesian National Narratives 40 Chapter Overviews 53 CHAPTER 1: Kākau as Script and Skin as Text 59 Darkness on the Body: Peripatetic Foundations of Kākau as Script and Skin as Text 64 Darkness within the Body: Kākau as Refutation of Blood Logic 70 (Re)turns and (Re)tellings: Kākau as Textual Intersection 73 CHAPTER 2: Pō as Relational Space between Bodies: Vā and the Individual’s Quest in Albert Wendt’ Pouliuli 81 (Dis)Connections as National Metaphor: Vā and Body as the Sacred Center 90 Sisyphus and Māui: Weaving Existentialism into a Literary Ancestry 97 vi (Re)turns, (Re)tellings, and Narrative Interruptions as Movements through Vā 101 CHAPTER 3: Gendering Te Pō: Māori Women’s Voices and Embodied Storytelling in Patricia Grace’s Potiki 125 Māori Bodies, Sovereignty, and a National Literature: Towards a Reading of Mana Wahine Māori and Female Bodily Agency as Whakapapa 135 Mana Wahine Māori as Bodily Mediation of Te Pō: The Liminality of Time and Space 158 A Non-Human, Embodied Storytelling: Wharenui as Ancestress and Whaikōrero 171 (Re)turns and (Re)tellings: Expanding the Spiral with the Ka Huri and Filling in Archival Gaps with Mana Wahine Māori 182 CHAPTER 4: Imagining the Pōstcolonial Lāhui: Genealogy, Women’s Bodies, and the Racial Production of the State in Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl’s “Hoʻoulu Lāhui” 190 Genealogizing “Hoʻoulu Lāhui”: Kumulipo as (Con)Text 201 Genealogizing Blood Quantum: “One Unbroken Line Without Any Stems” 206 Gendered Genealogies: Women’s Voices as Many Stems of the Lāhui 213 Ontological Affirmations of the Lāhui: (Re)turns and (Re)tellings 222 CONCLUSION: (Re)turns and (Re)tellings: Liminality as Belonging 232 “Here” and “There” in “A Letter from Afar” 237 Indigenous Articulations of Space: Writing Against the Settler Colonial Conventions of the American Travel Narrative 240 BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: “Te Po,” Robyn Kahukiwa. 152 Figure 2: “Te Po and Papatuanuku,” Robyn Kahukiwa. 153 Figure 3: “Muriranga-whenua,” Robyn Kahukiwa. 154 Figure 4: “Mahuika,” Robyn Kahukiwa. 155 viii A Note on Terms and Usage Aotearoa/ New Zealand: Aotearoa/ New Zealand has gained popularity in recent years and affirms the historical presence of Māori. As a marker of indigeneity, I often use Aotearoa. When referring to the settler colonial government, which has not officially adopted the term, I may use only New Zealand. Diacritical marks: The texts in this study are historically and culturally diverse. As a result, diacritical marks such as the macron and the glottal stop, known as the kahakō and ʻokina in Hawaiian, may appear in some sources and not others. When quoting I maintain the usage in the source material, although my analysis may contain different usage. Early print sources did not always contain these marks. In other instances, these marks were intentionally omitted in order to engage multiple interpretations of a single word or phrase. Finally, additional marks were sometimes incorporated in written texts to serve as cues for the speaker. For instance, the nineteenth-century Hawaiian- language text of the Kumulipo contains the word “po—no.” This can be interpreted as “pono,” meaning “balance”; “pō nō,” meaning “indeed, it is night”; or both simultaneously. Indigenous: I capitalize Indigenous to emphasize it as a marker of personhood and subjectivity. This term is used interchangeably with Native. I use the lowercase to describe an action or refer to an object, as in when I discuss how Indigenous Pacific authors have indigenized the Anglophone forms of the novel and short story. Kanaka Maoli and Kānaka Maoli: Kanaka Maoli denotes a single Native Hawaiian. It can also be used as an adjective, as in lāhui Kanaka Maoli. Kānaka Maoli is the plural form. However, when the number of Native Hawaiians is unquantifiable, as in a poetic or metaphoric allusion to all Native Hawaiians, the macron may be omitted and Kanaka Maoli utilized. Kanaka Maoli, which can be translated as “true person” or “real person,” is used alongside Kanaka ‘Ōiwi, which can be translated as “bone person,” to emphasize genealogical connections among Native Hawaiians, as well as their kinship connections to the ʻāina, or land. This study uses Kanaka Maoli most frequently, but it should be understood as interchangeable with terms such as Kanaka ʻŌiwi and Native Hawaiian. ix Mana Wahine: Mana Wahine is a theory that centers the mana (genealogical, intellectual, emotional, political, and physical strength and prestige) of Native women (wāhine). This term is used in the Hawaiian and Māori languages, and these theorists often speak to and build on the work of their Pacific cousins. However, genealogies of place are also crucial to the Pacific and intellectual genealogies can be invoked in these traditions, as in the qualifier, Mana Wahine Māori. I often draw on Mana Wahine theorists in both contexts, but chapters 3 and 4 discuss Mana Wahine Māori and Mana Wahine Kanaka Maoli in specific contexts. Mana Wahine is often glossed as a type of Native feminism, but this is incomplete and inaccurate. Some Mana Wahine theorists accept this categorization, while others reject the histories and connotations “feminism” brings. Mana Wahine invokes the gender parity inherent in Native Pacific communities before Euro-American colonization, which also