Polynesian oral literature

Polynesia is generally described like a Triangle of islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was populated by travellers of Tonga and Samoa, which populated then the groups of islands in the east, such as Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, the New Zealand, and Hawaii. The various Polynesian languages are still close and there are many cultural similarities between the various groups.

Oral examination with the writing

These islands share a certain number of oral traditions considered generally as exotics legends or myths but very often interpreted on the spot like the true history of old times (time of the " po") and of the divinized ancestors (" atua"). This hiatus is explained by the difficulty of interpretation of such accounts. Those use the allegorical form abundantly (metaphor, parabola, hyperbole, reification, personification…). Thus a fish for example will symbolize sometimes an island; to fish a fish, to discover an island etc the narrators also will exploit sonorities, the polysemia of the words… The form and the bottom are closely dependant here.

The vector used originally also has its importance. Orality has a flexibility essentially that the writing does not allow. So from one version to another the screen remains identical, this one will be able to combine itself ad infinitum according to the place, the narrator and the circumstances of stating. Contrary to the Western historical designs where in the absolute the knowledge of last must bring a better comprehension of the present, it is not a question here so much to include/understand to justify and legitimate a situation present. The example of the genealogies whose versions are multiple and often contradictory illustrates it perfectly. It is indeed with the seniority of a cheffery which one recognizes not only his political legitimacy but that is based also its land base and its prestige. In the event of political changes and that often arrived, the new line with the capacity must have in its turn the oldest, free genealogy to add some generations to him or to borrow here or there ancestors from the preceding dynasty. In this last case, the adoption generally formulated a posteriori on the allusive mode so much the subject is " tapu" , becomes a quite practical argument. Thus each island, each tribe or each clan will have his own version or interpretation of such or such narrative cycle. The passage of the oral examination to the writing nevertheless will change gives it. When the missionaries then administrators, anthropologists or ethnolinguists collected then sometimes published these accounts (by seldom giving some the version in language), they modified nature deeply of it even. While fixing forever on paper what hitherto could be reformulated almost ad infinitum, they made certainly work of patrimonial conservation at the same time as they gave very often only the version of a narrator given to a given moment.

Certain Polynesians included/understood nevertheless the interest and the danger of this novel mode of expression. Thus as of the middle of the XIXè century, number of them compiled in writing their genealogy, the history and the origin of their tribe like various accounts. These writings known under the name of " Puta Tumu" (delivers origins), " Puta Tupuna" (delivers ancestors) with Southern, " whakapapa pukapuka" or " Family Books" according to the archipelagoes are sometimes always jealously preserved by the household heads. Others still disappeared or were destroyed. Thus Makea Takau, ariki of the " vaka" (tribe) of Te to O Tonga (Rarotonga), made burn in the years 1890, all the " Family Books" of its tribe except for his, so that this one becomes the official story of the cheffery without possibility of questioning. Extracts were remainder published in its request in the " Newspaper off the Polynesian Society". Another example relates to the writings of Wiremu You Rangikāheke, which consituèrent the primary source of the collection of accounts of George Grey entitled " Polynesian Mythology". This work having become a reference of the oral literature maori, the versions which are presented there little by little became the official accounts of the whole of Maori of New Zealand, while at the same time each tribe has its own accounts, its own history and origin

Typology of the Polynesian account

It is possible to distinguish several types of accounts although the borders between these various categories can be sometimes permeable. A historical epopee could for example be told like a tale for child or sung in the form of counting rhyme and vice versa. The Polynesian oraliture and overall océanienne are also art (some will say the strategy) permanent adaptation not only to the circumstances of stating but also to its audience, according to its age group, its usual or social statute, its origin… from where the importance for their interpretation (linguistic, literary, anthropological or historical), especially in the case of old publications to know with exactitude and when it is possible, the original narrator and the context in which they were collected…

Contes and legends for children

Called " 'a' have 'a' amu" in tahitien or " tua" in maori of the Cook islands, these accounts had a function before very educational, being connected with a " lesson of chose" : to respect elder or how an older brother always needs his junior, to learn the name from the plants, the animals, to know to braid, fish, plant the taro… (ex: " The rat and the poulpe" ; " caption tree with pain" …)

These tales were told with the children by the close relations, generally the mother.

the 'ūtē

" 'ūtē" are songs improvised with the more or less facetious words, carried out during the " bringues" local. (see external bond)

genealogical historical Epopees and accounts

Those were generally the business of specialists, called according to the islands 'orero (Tahiti), tumu korero (islands Cook), Rongorongo (Easter Island), 'Ono' ono (Marquesas Islands). Exclusively male function, they were formed in specialized schools (" 'are korero" " fare vana' a") as of their more young age.

These accounts could take several forms, sung, chants or more simply recited according to such or such ceremony (nomination of new a ariki or mataiapo, mourning, birth, marriage…). They were accompanied by gestural particular decorated sometimes ritual objects. " the speakers or récitateurs maori added some emphase to their speech or their recitations by the play of a finely engraved bludgeon which they held with the hand. The genealogists made use of a stick furnished with stage coaches representing the ancestors (…)The priests of Tahiti and Tuamotu symbolized the liturgical poems by a stick or an object in braided straw which they deposited on the furnace bridge each time they had finished their recitation. (…) The bards (onoono) of the Marchionesses associated their liturgical poems with objects which although aspects extremely different, were of the same order as the others: it was small pockets of fiber of coconut braided from where were detached from the cords with node . "

Some examples of the narrative cycles most known

Rangi and Papa or Ātea (Wākea, Vātea) and Dad
Maui
Tangaroa, Kanaloa, Ta' aroa

…

Current stakes

Nowadays, these accounts could take in certain archipelagoes very an other dimension. In addition to the reconstitutions for tourists or those related to the identity revival, it is on those and more particularly on the genealogies " papara' a" (Tahiti), " papa' anga" (Cook islands), " whakapapa" (New Zealand) that a good part of the current land legislation rests that it is in the Cook islands or to a lesser extent in New Zealand. Indeed, as of the end of XIXè and at the beginning of the XXè century, the New Zealand authorities reflect in place of the land courts. It was then a question of determining the documents of title land and the death taxes of each one starting from the systematic collection of the traditional accounts. Those are the object since perpetual questionings and are regular sources of polemics and lawsuit rivers.

The new statute of 2004 saw the installation for French Polynesia of a land court which has the aim of alleviating the conflicts and to play in practice a part of preparation, even of filtering, audiences in front of the court, this concerning last procedures of the French civil law.

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