Planting a tree when a child is born is a Māori custom and the tree is tapu (sacred). Felling ancient trees or woods is an offence to the Māori god of forests, Tāne, and when this occurs local indigenous communities engage in battles with public administrations or private developers to defend not only an environmental principle, but a cultural treasure and an ancestor. In the green volcanic islands of the Pacific, woods are regarded as the site of gods and endowed with sacrality and mystery, but the forests covering their landmass are increasingly being cleared to make the land available for urbanization or commercial agricultural projects. The effects of this process on the territory are the spread of profitable monocultural crops (the so-called cash crops), soil erosion, the destruction of biodiversity and the depletion of the land. Literature has denounced this deviant notion of progress for a long time. In the first half of the 20th century, when indigenous writing had not yet appeared on the literary scene, Pākehā (New Zealanders of European origin) writers Roderick Finlayson and Noel Hilliard illustrated the ritual respect of trees in Māori culture in some short stories. Frank Sargeson, the so-called father of New Zealand literature, also focused on the relationship of early European settlers with the bush and on how it changed throughout time. Their will “to clear the land” was prompted not only by economic interest but also by an irrational fright of the natural world which had to be dominated and domesticated and. When indigenous literature rose in the late 20th century trees stood as powerful cultural symbols in many works. My paper is a journey through the literary representations of trees in the indigenous cultures of the Pacific region and of Aotearoa New Zealand, starting from Sargeson, Finlayson and Hilliard to include Māori novelist Patricia Grace.

Between Ecology and Ritual: Images of New Zealand Trees in Grace, Finlayson, Hilliard, and Sargeson

Paola Della Valle
2021-01-01

Abstract

Planting a tree when a child is born is a Māori custom and the tree is tapu (sacred). Felling ancient trees or woods is an offence to the Māori god of forests, Tāne, and when this occurs local indigenous communities engage in battles with public administrations or private developers to defend not only an environmental principle, but a cultural treasure and an ancestor. In the green volcanic islands of the Pacific, woods are regarded as the site of gods and endowed with sacrality and mystery, but the forests covering their landmass are increasingly being cleared to make the land available for urbanization or commercial agricultural projects. The effects of this process on the territory are the spread of profitable monocultural crops (the so-called cash crops), soil erosion, the destruction of biodiversity and the depletion of the land. Literature has denounced this deviant notion of progress for a long time. In the first half of the 20th century, when indigenous writing had not yet appeared on the literary scene, Pākehā (New Zealanders of European origin) writers Roderick Finlayson and Noel Hilliard illustrated the ritual respect of trees in Māori culture in some short stories. Frank Sargeson, the so-called father of New Zealand literature, also focused on the relationship of early European settlers with the bush and on how it changed throughout time. Their will “to clear the land” was prompted not only by economic interest but also by an irrational fright of the natural world which had to be dominated and domesticated and. When indigenous literature rose in the late 20th century trees stood as powerful cultural symbols in many works. My paper is a journey through the literary representations of trees in the indigenous cultures of the Pacific region and of Aotearoa New Zealand, starting from Sargeson, Finlayson and Hilliard to include Māori novelist Patricia Grace.
2021
Trees in Literatures and the Arts: HumanArboreal Perspectives in the Anthropocene
Lexington Books
123
134
9781793622792
Trees, New Zealand Literature, Maori traditions, Ecocriticism
Paola Della Valle
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1789521
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