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22 Taniwha and Serpent: A Trans-Tasman Riff
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227 22 Taniwha and Serpent A Trans-Tasman Riff Jo Diamond Ma o matau atua e manaaki, e tiaki—may our deities bless and keep us. This essay is the written form of a verbal presentation containing a two-part riff inspired by Vincent Wimbush’s introductory essay to this volume. Not attempting to own the knowledge, practical familiarity, let alone complexities, of riff production by any means, I hope to contribute to the spirit of this conference from a Trans-Tasman (Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia) perspective. It occurs to me that the concept of a riff is particularly suited to this perspective given that indigenous peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia have oral, not written, traditions. Writing came with a “Western” colonizer early in the eighteenth century . It could be said that a considerable amount of scriptural “riffing” has occurred throughout history to turn Maori and indigenous Australian cultures into the written forms they take today. My riff in this essay therefore leads toward and signifies the theme that such Trans-Tasman perspectives, marginalized in some circles though they are, may have important and ongoing contribution to make to the new Institute for Signifying Scriptures (ISS) in Claremont. This riff includes references to snakes in written and non-written religious “scriptures.” It comprises two parts that pertain first to times and spaces before the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and second to the effect of the Christian Bible in this Trans-Tasman context. It ends with some brief references to Trans-Tasman indigenous dialogues that may contribute to the new Institute. A Riff—Part One In the beginning of our southerly migration, there were no land snakes. Sea snakes, however, accompanied our waka, our huge seafaring outrigger vessels that “flew” over southern oceans toward our new home. That home is made of three main islands, representing the waka of our deified ancestor Maui (the South Island), its anchor (Stewart Island), and the large ika (fish) that Maui raised from the sea (North Island) with the aid of a magical fishing line and hook. This new Jo Diamond 228 home was first seen as a cloud-covered archipelago that more than challenged our adventurous ancestors with snow, sleet, and a new meaning for “cold.” Traditional Maori narratives that would eventually be appropriated by non-Maori peoples called this land Aotearoa (long, white cloud). Since time immemorial, we had also known that taniwha (guardian spirits) could seal our eventual fate with twists and turns of fortune depending largely on the effectiveness of our tohunga (priests) and our karakia (incantations). Taniwha shape themselves into sea snakes, eels, wind and water turbulence, and various other forms either killing our people or protecting them, depending on the quality of our spiritual relationship with them. They are part of a pre-Christian Maori pantheon , replete with associated epic journeys and superhuman feats, not to mention a multidimensional cosmology.1 Then one day at the dawning of colonial time, land snakes came to us within the form of a book called the “Bible.” Here, on a new technology called the written page, we saw and heard for the first time the power of the word that gave the minita (church minister) a direct line to a new god. From the minita and the book, good and evil also came, approximating (though not closely enough) the ideas of positive and negative energy that we had always known. Good and evil were new and foreign concepts to us. We did not have the same notions of heaven or the wrath of hell fire and brimstone. The need for self-sacrifice in order to attain life after death was not so much of an “either/or” equation to us. Rather, life and death were an inevitable cycle that promoted human wisdom and luck in lived experiences, including the use of the necessary precautions and incantations to bring favorable guardianship from spiritual entities such as taniwha. It encouraged respect for elders and ancestors as well as deities. The Bible turned our attention away from the taniwha and other pre-Christian spiritualities. It held new revelations, according to its priesthood, including the notion that land snakes are different, from taniwha. This book that came to be known as the paipera tapu (holy Bible) “said” that these land snakes are only evil. They are, so the scriptures tell us, in league not with God but with a devil that could only be harmful, never kind.2...