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Once Were Pacific

Māori Connections to Oceania

2012
•
Author:

Alice Te Punga Somerville

Once Were Pacific

Explores the relationship between indigeneity and migration among Māori and Pacific peoples

Once Were Pacific considers how Māori and other Pacific peoples frame their connection to the ocean, to New Zealand, and to each other through various creative works. In this sustained treatment of the Māori diaspora, Māori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville provides the first critical analysis of relationships between Indigenous and migrant communities in New Zealand.

Alice Te Punga Somerville’s Once Were Pacific is the first major study of how Māori and Pacific people talk to each other in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Oceania. It is a splendid book, remarkably lucid, insightful, comprehensive, and accessible.

—

Albert Wendt, author of Leaves of the Banyan Tree

Native identity is usually associated with a particular place. But what if that place is the ocean? Once Were Pacific explores this question as it considers how Māori and other Pacific peoples frame their connection to the ocean, to New Zealand, and to each other through various creative works. Māori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville shows how and when Māori and other Pacific peoples articulate their ancestral history as migratory seafarers, drawing their identity not only from land but also from water.

Although Māori are ethnically Polynesian, and Aotearoa New Zealand is clearly a part of the Pacific region, in New Zealand the terms “Māori” and “Pacific” are colloquially applied to two distinct communities: Māori are Indigenous, and “Pacific” refers to migrant communities from elsewhere in the region. Asking how this distinction might blur historical and contemporary connections, Te Punga Somerville interrogates the relationship between indigeneity, migration, and diaspora, focusing on texts: poetry, fiction, theater, film, and music, viewed alongside historical instances of performance, journalism, and scholarship.

In this sustained treatment of the Māori diaspora, Te Punga Somerville provides the first critical analysis of relationships between Indigenous and migrant communities in New Zealand.

Once Were Pacific

Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Ātiawa) is senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, where she teaches Māori, Pacific, and Indigenous writing in English.

Once Were Pacific

Alice Te Punga Somerville’s Once Were Pacific is the first major study of how Māori and Pacific people talk to each other in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Oceania. It is a splendid book, remarkably lucid, insightful, comprehensive, and accessible.

—

Albert Wendt, author of Leaves of the Banyan Tree

Once Were Pacific will help us to push beyond orthodox understandings of complex and contemporary Indigenous identities and representational practices through rigorous scholarship that is Māori focused.

—

Chadwick Allen, Ohio State University

Once Were Pacific

Contents

Ngā Mihi: Acknowledgments
Introduction: Māori and the Pacific

Part I. Tapa: Aotearoa in the Pacific Region
1. Māori People in Pacific Spaces
2. Pacific-Based Māori Writers
3. Aotearoa-Based Māori Writers
The Realm of Tapa

Part II. Koura: The Pacific in Aotearoa
4. Māori–Pasifika Collaborations
5. “It’s like that with us Maoris”: Māori Write Connections
6. Manuhiri, Fānau: Pasifika Write Connections
7. When Romeo Met Tusi: Disconnections
The Realm of Koura

Conclusion: E Kore Au e Ngaro
Epilogue: A Time and a Place

Notes
Publication History
Index