Abstract
ꞌEnua is a Cook Islands Māori term used for land, homeland, earth, and placenta and this thesis explores ꞌenua in Cook Islands Māori literature through close analysis of existing literary texts and my own creative practice. By closely analysing literary engagements with ꞌenua and exploring the concept through a series of my own short stories, I demonstrate how Cook Islands Māori people understand ꞌenua through the genealogical practice of ꞌakapapaꞌanga. I employ ꞌakapapaꞌanga as a Cook Islands Māori practice of evoking, naming, being, knowing and remembering genealogies and relational networks. Through ꞌakapapaꞌanga I engage literary texts and compose short stories that map how Cook Islands Māori people connect to each other and ꞌenua.
This thesis analyses themes and expressions of ꞌenua in three different texts written by Cook Islands Māori authors: the manuscripts of Te Ariki Tara ꞌAre, a cultural expert who lived in Rarotonga in the nineteenth century; the novel Makutu (1960) by Tom and Lydia Davis; Beats of the Paꞌu (2022), a short story collection by Maria Samuela. I demonstrate how these works draw on ancestral knowledge, cultural practices of re-remembering, embodied knowing and an understanding of the world. In all three works, growth is derived from genealogical centres, and this understanding can be extended to ꞌenua, as Samuela’s work demonstrates, to replant communities away from ancestral homelands. My own short story collection, the creative component of this thesis, builds on the understanding of ꞌenua that emerges from my reading of these three texts.
Through critical reading and creative writing, I develop an understanding of ꞌenua that extends across time and space and is centred in the practice of ꞌakapapaꞌanga. I argue that Cook Islands literatures reveal strategies for adaptation, connection and survival that can help our communities navigate contemporary challenges, ensuring our people, places and culture continue to be re-remembered, engaged and connected.