Capital Letters - Keynote 4 - Dr Karlo Mila

Karlo Mila's presentation was a fabulous 'bookend' to Glenn Colquhoun's opening keynote. To open and end with such personal and richly constructed presentations, that focussed on the spoken word and cultural identity, was fantastic. Unfortunately I deleted my original draft of this post while awaiting for a delayed flight in Welly, so this will be a poor comparison to what I had written during Karlo's performance!

Mana Moana - the journey of her post doctoral research formed the basis of her presentation. She began with by explaining a few key ideas - that the ocean does not separate Polynesia, but rather act as as the pathways between the places - it is the space between and as such should be exlpored; that 'urbansesia' is a more relevant term than Polynesia and that polycultural is the cultural capital that we all need to be able to access and tap into. The disaffection of 'urbasnesian' youth is a great concern to her and she spoke at length of the inability of many youth to access the 'cutltural capital' of the dominant culture.

Karlo's description of the mapping of the langauges, images, proverbs and 'stories' of Oceania was a fascinating tale.

Using a model by Friere focusing on finding generative words that are intrinsic to a culture and a people, I  started to search for our shared Pacific words that exist in the source languages of Protopolynesian, Austronesian and  Oceanic languages. Here certain concepts, metaphors and words might be considered archetypal and integral to who  we are, and how we have viewed the world around us for centuries. Seventy words, found in at least 15 current Pacific languages, were selected.

The next step involved collecting proverbs and stories associated with these constructs. More than 250 proverbs in Tongan, Niue, Cook Islands, Samoan, Maori and Hawaiian provided more information about how these concepts were breathed into life by our ancestors and used to construct the world around them. Many of these concepts have recently been turned into visual images by designer Dr Johnson Witehira (of Maori and Samoan descent).  Karlo Mila

These then became the basis for an intervention that was trialled at Wesley College with a group of urbanesian youth. The Journey (metaphorical) to Motutapu, wellbeing and healiong based in a developing understanding of -

To a large degree it involved teaching and learning about Pacific cultural knowledge, ideas, worldviews and understandings of health and healing, but very much targeted at an English-speaking, highly urbanised population. The focus on va, or relationships, was explicit and the positive relationships with others, in a multidimensional, ecological and spiritual sense was considered integral to wellbeing.

Karlo's passion for both the programme itself and those it was designed for was contagious. Understanding that young urbanesians are doubly fortunate to have poly-cultural capital and this must be viewed as an asset.

She finished with a refined version of the poem below - taking a moment to warn us that we might not have the cultural capital to understand the references - but to imagine how others might feel when confronted with the cultural capital of a Western European canon of literature.

Composed for the Prime Minister’s Youth Awards December 10^th 2013, Parliament

Once I wrote

That I was the seed of the migrant dream

The daughter supposed to fill the promise

hope heavy on our shoulders

we stand on the broken back of physical labour

knowing the new dawn, has been raided.

We are the seeds of a much greater dream

Ruia from Rangiatea

A dream still buried in the hands of humble men

buried in humble villages

who chant clear our paths with every lost breath.

Our story reaches back, across oceans of memory.

Do not be satisfied with other people’s stories of us,

That have us beginning sometime in the seventies

with the economic boom and need for migrant labour,

those reserve armies, the oil crisis, the neoliberal reforms

that cut the feet out of the industries we were clustered in,

do not be satiated by those stories of dawn raids,

and the demise of the primary industries, and the unemployed,

do not be seduced by their acronyms of NEETS, not in education, employment or training, 

remember that when we came, 

“Pacific Islanders” were more likely than the general population to be employed. 

Remember that when the industry changed,

in 1986 only half of our people had qualifications

to help them navigate new terrain,

fifteen years later, two-thirds of us had upskilled

with a qualification to navigate a shifting landscape,

last on, first off, 

don’t let them tell you any other story of underachievement,underclass 

or brown tails slowing the upright country down,

let them eat that down-and-brown poly-pancake

that distasteful beast of their own making.

We are the seeds of a much greater dream

Ruia from Rangiatea

That like the niu, the coconut,

has travelled across many oceans

and found its roots,

over and over again.

Replanted, reterritorialised

Growing in new soil

to the sway of a slightly different horizon.

This seed began in Pulotu,

With its life-giving waters and the talking tree, Akau-lea,

Where Tangaloa, Maui and Hikule’o formed the first pantheon,

Here it was started.

And we think of Manu’a, where Maui travelled

and betrayed Tonga, fisherman of islands,

Who has betrayed me in Manuka? – why Maui of course, trickster,

fisherman of islands, the atolls, where the Tuli, first coloniser, the plover,

stands with its feet wet on new reefs, the messenger of Tangaloa i Lagi,

Maui fished up Tonga with that tiny insignificant hook, tipped off,

And it was there… on the shores of Tonga that we stopped being immortal, 

Moala’s daughter finding fatality, 

far from vaiola, waiora, the eternal springs of lifegiving water, 

there was no turning back, bingo,

Far from the kulokula source-land of redtraded feathers, that disappeared,

sunk into the sea, or makes itself invisible at will, or is Viti, Vanua, it depends who is telling the story… gone are those cannibal dogs, and giant lizards,

fossils now in somebody else’s version of the story…

From Tongamamao, to Tokelau in the North, Tahiti in the East, Pulotu – signalling death on return, 

from Samoa, the sacred centre, to every corner of the four winds, all the way to Taputapuatea, 

nga hau e aha, in search of Vatea, space, and new beginnings, 

Tangaloa reborn again, Tu’i Tonga, Tu’i Tokelau,

same old story, slightly different spin, 

enter Rongo, Tu, Vatea, many new atua emerging, 

men and women following stars, 

escaping kaitangata, escaping the misfortune of the rainbow, 

Uenuku, fleeing, multiple migrations, and of course, the flood, the flood, 

remembered as the eyes of Mata’aho…

all of these stories buried deep with our dead,

and part of our thread, that connects us today,

in all of that dark and light days,

Tapukitea, shining like an omen, Oea ra, Oea ra, 

and here is Aitutaki, here is Lalotonga, here is Aotearoa,

and so the seeds of the niu spread,

we retell the same stories, some forgotten,

Some relocated, some spoken in new tongues,

some shifting along, like Tangaloa here,

losing primacy,

in a landmass full of forest,

enter Tane Mahuta, he breathes still amongus,

we havebuilt a fence around him to protect him.

Tane  Mahuta  reminds us all,

To return to the roots of us,

To dig deeper for the taproot, the puutake,

To source the essence of who we are.

Your job is to navigate

and expand the pathways you find at your feet.

We are told clearly,  le gase ‘o ala lalavao.

The paths in the bush are never obliterated.

the shade of high trees won’t allow

overgrowth to come up,

(inferring ancestors).

Tane Mahuta knows this,

Even as he is fenced.

It is your job to find this pathway,

To remember who you are,

Walk what you were born to be,

Ancestors at your shoulders,

Clearing your pathways

with every lost breath.

The vines, and scrub at your feet,

barriers that are insignificant in the minds

of those who have been before.

They set out in the largest ocean in the world,

Navigated those waves,

And if there is a mala,

let it fall to shore.

and if we make mistakes,

let us rectify this in the deep ocean.

Holo or stand, you are ultimate end music

Hold on,because a wave will break.

be ready for it when it comes...

Tei a koe rai te rapa I to oe

You have the blade of your paddle,

I have the blade of mine.

They will choose on the high seas

who ought to pilot the boat

who can keep us dry in wet weather

who will navigate us through the storms

He ho’okele wa’a no ka la ino.

Let us be more

Let us be the canoe steersman for the hurricanes ahead.

And, La lafo’ia’ i le fogava’a tele.

Let us weigh anchor and set sail,

Should burdens be too great to bear,

Don’t stop,

Let us cast them on the big deck,

able to carry heavy loads,

Let us be those big decks to you,

you bright young things!

Shining like the morning and evening star

offering hope for a new generation.

Dare to shine,

Dare to be all you can be,

Illuminate the darkness around you

and have no fear, and no shame, about burning too brightly

cloaking yourself in clouds serves none of us,

It does not serve your family

It does not serve our communities

It does not serve our suburbs

It does not serve our nation.

It does not serve Oceania.

It does not serve the world.

heed the words of our ancestors, let them help you find your feet,

For the matau, the hooks in your hands,

that you use to cast your dreams

are made from the jawbone of your ancestors,

and as you cast your intent,

think of what they want you to catch in this lifetime

and as you cast your matau,

think of what you want your mokopuna to catch in theirs.

You are the thin thread between what has been before

and what will come, as long as you have breath.

Not nice to know that the sea surrounded ,

Engari anoo a uta.  Do not bait your hook in the deep,

bait your hook on the shore. Be prepared,

for you stand on the shores of your lives now,

and we honour you,

you stand on the shoulders of giants,

Go forth, the pathways have been cleared,

bushwack them wider,

clear them consciously

so that we can move as a collective,

so that no one is left behind.

Remember who you are,

Remember where you came from,

Locate your stars,

There is no freedom in blowing with the wind

as seductive as it seems,

true freedom is,

knowing where you are going.

And getting there.

Le fogava’a e tasi

There is only one deck.

Reminding us again, that the waterways of the largest ocean on Earth do not separate us, they  are the pathways that connect us - and I love that 'view' of our world.