Woven by Water: Writing Biculturally in NZ

"Woven by Water: Writing Biculturally in Aotearoa/New Zealand,"
by David Young, 2008 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer with the UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies

David Young works from the perspective that people and landscape - history and the environment - are one.

The Aotearoa-New Zealander is a writer, environmentalist, and historian, whose work covers the nature-culture relationship, including perspectives from indigenous nature and indigenous culture. A former journalist and editor, for the past 20 years he has lived as a freelancer on books and television documentaries.

His 1998 book,Woven by Water: Histories from the Whanganui River, is a study of race relations on what is arguably the most distinctively "Maori" river in the country. Rising in the volcanic central plateau of the North Island, the awa [river] is regarded by Whanganui iwi [tribal groups] as an ancestor, as the source and the center of their lives. However, in the 1930s they realized that their river had been taken from them by stealth; by the 1970s a State hydroelectric scheme began to divert its headwaters. In the mid 1980s the author met Titi Tihu, tohunga [priest] of the river, then in his late 90s, who for many years had been battling in the courts for the return of the Whanganui to his people. So began an unusual relationship, and a fraught project that took more than a decade to complete.

David will discuss the challenges he encountered as a Pakeha in putting together a book from oral and written sources and how this engagement changed his worldview.

Event Sponsor
Center for Pacific Islands Studies, Dept of English, Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, and EWC Pacific Islands Development Program, Manoa Campus

More Information
Letitia Hickson, 956-7700, ctisha@hawaii.edu, www.hawaii.edu/cpis/news_2.html

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