Potiki

"Only Hemi could secure me, he being as rooted to the earth as a tree is."

This comparison of Hemi to a tree serves to highlight Hemi's dependability as well as his connection to the land and belief in it as a means of making a living and providing for his people. It also highlights the difference between him and Roimata, the latter of whom, having spent twelve years away from home, feels lost and unrooted, with the desire to return to her origins.

"It was a discarding, or a renewal, like the washing of hands that takes leave of death and turns one toward the living."

After having returned from her long period away from home, Roimata spends a night on the shore. In the morning, before venturing to greet her people, she bathes in the sea, which symbolizes a shedding of her old life and the beginning of a new and happier one with Hemi, whom she has always loved.

"Everything we need is here."

This is Hemi's mantra, which is repeated again and again as the novel progresses. It encapsulates his ideal of a self-sufficient lifestyle, based on the land, the sea, the stories, and the people, through which he hopes to provide his family and people with the sustenance, knowledge and love they need to lead happy and fulfilled lives.

"And although the stories all had different voices, and came from different times and places  and understandings, though some were shown, enacted or written rather than told, each one was like a puzzle piece which tongued or grooved neatly to another. And this train of story defined our lives, curving out from points on the spiral in ever-widening circles from which neither beginnings nor ends could be defined."

Roimata and Hemi choose to educate Manu and Toko at home using stories. The stories begin with mythology and their ancestors, but as each member of the family brings his or her own experiences home to share, stories as an educational tool begin to have a much wider definition and scope. Moreover, through their stories, which interconnect to form a whole, the family discover not only the connection between human beings but that of past, present and future.

"Toko is a gift that we have been given, and he has gifts."

As a child who was born severely physically disabled, and in unlikely and precarious circumstances, Toko is regarded as a special addition to the family. Furthermore, he has an extraordinary capacity for knowledge and understanding, as well as the gift of foresight.

“End is always a beginning. Death is life.”

When Toko notices that the spot where the head of his big fish has been buried is now a growing vine, he recalls what Roimata has always told him about death engendering new life. This is a key idea of the novel and, despite the tragic events of the story, it conveys a sense of optimism and hope.

"Everything was meant, that's what he'd always believed. But if you missed the signs, or let yourself be side-tracked, you could lose out. Everything was meant but you had to do your bit too."

Aside from his belief in the land and people, Hemi's other guiding principle is that everything in life is predestined. It is to this theory that he attributes Roimata's return to the whanau, as well as his being laid off, which will allow him to return to the land, as he had always hoped. However, he also believes that human actions play an equal part in events and that if opportunities are ignored, their possibilities will be lost. Hemi is careful to make the most of all the opportunities that life offers him.

"His own daughter Tangi was like that too, never let her or anyone put her people down. Had such a clear view of what she stood for and nothing got past her. If she’d been round in Reuben’s day she’d have been up there beside him spitting. Yes Tangimoana was the one."

Hemi believes that his daughter embodies the same kind of strength possessed by Reuben, who fought almost single-handedly for his people's claim to the land that was rightfully theirs. Like Reuben, Tangi has strong convictions, which she firmly believes in. Although Hemi makes this comment long before his people's struggles with the property developers begin, it seems as though he is already aware that his daughter will be instrumental in securing his people's freedom and happiness.

"There was in the meeting house a warmth. It was the warmth that wood has, but it was also the warmth of people gathered. It was the warmth of past gatherings, and of people that had come and gone, and who gathered now in memory. It was the warmth of embrace because the house is a parent."

This description of the meeting conjures its significance for the Maori people. As a building where people meet, talk, celebrate, lament and reconnect with the dead, it signifies a space where people come together. In its capacity as focal point that brings people together, it emanates a comfort and security, and almost becomes a person in its own right.

"Nothing wrong with money, as long as we remember it's food not God. You eat it, not worship it..."

Stan's words to the Dollarman are a counterargument to his attempt to persuade the Maori people of the benefit the money generated by the sale of the land would bring them. Stan's comment is a critique of the excessive importance capitalist society attaches to money, which stands in stark contrast to the Maori attitude towards it.

"We give it to you and we fall through. We're slaves again, when we've only just begun to be free."

By giving up their land, the Maori people would once again be bending to the will of western culture, which has throughout history imposed its culture on them and forced them to contribute to its own goals. Now that the Maori people have found a way in the land and their community to return to their traditions and be free from oppression, the idea of returning to the enslavement of working for someone else's benefit is abhorrent.

“My father Hemi said that the land and sea was our whole life, the means by which we survived and stayed together. ‘Our whanau is the land and sea. Destroy the land and sea, we destroy ourselves.’”

Hemi's words reveal the centrality of the land and sea to the Maori community: not only do they provide his people with the sustenance to survive, but they provide them with a way of life, in which everyone contributes to the common good and without which the community would be unable to function. Therefore, if the property developers succeed in building on their land and polluting the sea, it would bring an end to the Maori way of life and, ultimately, the gradual extinction of their culture and values.

"Everybody had laughed then, because the man had not understood that the house was central already and could not be more central. The man had a surprised look when the people laughed and looked down at his clothing as though he could suddenly be dressed strangely. It was then that we all realized [sic] that the man had not, had never, understood anything we had ever said, and never would."

The Dollarman's suggestion that the people's meeting house be moved to an area closer to town causes amusement among them. This is because he fails to understand that to the Maori community, having the amenities of the town center close by is utterly meaningless; what matters to them more than anything is the sacred ground on which their meeting house is built, as well as its proximity to the burial ground where their dead lie. The last sentence of this passage sums up the incongruence between the values of the Dollarman and, by extension, capitalism, and those of the Maori people.

"Ours was a chosen poverty, though ‘poverty’ was not a good word for it."

By western standards, Roimata and her people live in what would be considered poor conditions: they lead a labor-intensive life, living off the land and making barely making enough to purchase essentials. Yet, they do not consider themselves poor because this lifestyle gives them freedom from the oppression of capitalism and provides them with what matters most to them: a connection with nature and the security and wellbeing of living as a community.

"We found our own universe to be as large and as extensive as any other universe that there is."

The Maori people do not need to look outside of their culture for survival, education or enlightenment; their own history, science and literature can teach them and their children everything they need to know about life and human nature in order to achieve happiness and self-sufficiency.

“Hands took the bow as the dinghy rode in, hands steadied it as we stepped out. Hands lifted the net baskets out, lifted and carried the dinghy up to the high ground.”

Here, Grace uses descriptive language to convey the community spirit that pervades the whanau. Instead of saying that the children helped Roimata and Hemi to bring the dinghy in, she simply uses hands as the subject the actions describe. By focusing on this body part, which is so central to physical tasks and productivity, she effectively portrays the team effort involved in this process and conveys the sense of dependability and security felt by the community in knowing that all the work they carry out is a collective endeavor.

"It was good to feel hunger and to know there was food. It was good to know that there was food for the next day. It was good to be cold and to know it would be warm in the wharekai."

Roimata's words convey the safety and contentment felt by the community in the knowledge that their basic needs are met. Roimata takes enjoyment in the simple pleasures her way of life provides.

"We stood there quietly for some moments, then Granny began to chant a waiata, one that was known only to her. It spiraled thinly upwards, linking the earth that we are, to the sky that we are, joining the past that we are to the now and beyond now that we are."

The description of the song sung by Granny Tamihana as part of the service at the flooded burial ground successfully conveys the close connection between the Maori people and the natural world as a result of the way the natural world was created according to Maori mythology: by the earth mother and the sky father. It also shows the centrality of the present time, to which all things past and future are joined in an infinite spiral.

"Money and power, at different times and in many different ways, had broken our tribes and our backs, and made us slaves, filled our mouths with stones, hollowed the insides of us, set us at the edge and beyond the edge, and watched our children die."

This passage encapsulates the enslavement that many indigenous populations around the world, like the Maori people, have suffered at the hands of colonization. The imagery used brings to mind the harsh physical labor these people were forced to carry out, which often brought them to death, or near-death.

"We could only stand silent in the night's silence and in the night's darkness. It was as if we were the new tekoteko figured about the edges of the gutted house, unhoused, standing in place of those that had gone to ash."

After the colors and commotion caused by the fire in the meeting house, once the fire has been put out, the dark and silence of the night descends upon the Maori people. However, this dark and silence also symbolizes the emptiness the people feel at having lost their most prized possession, and the description of them as "unhoused" wooden figures conveys their sense of loss, loneliness and sudden lack of belonging.

"She had known for eighty years that kicking the casket does not jolt the dead brother back to life."

This is a reference to Granny Tamihana's childhood grief and anger following the death of her brother, which at his funeral caused her to kick the casket where his dead body lay. However, now, as an old woman who has suffered the years of sorrow and loss of her people, she has learned that anger and grief are pointless emotions and that the only valuable course of action, when faced with adversity, is to put on a brave face and carry on.

"But I'll die, no sweat, if I can do it saying I'm me, and knowing that someone believes it. I'll die without a kick if I can have a feather in my hair."

Tangi's words show that, in her view, the most important aspect of life is fighting for what she believes in and, therefore, remaining true to herself. Additionally, her reference to dying wearing a feather in her hair (a feather is a traditional Maori head adornment) shows how important her Maori identity is to her, and how proud she is of it.

"You had to reach out for the branch you knew would hold you when you were drowning."

This metaphor conveys the support that people give to the Maori people following the loss of their meeting house. Moreover, it depicts Hemi's strong belief in the goodness and strength of people, who can always be depended upon when others are in need.