Wai? Indigenous Words and Ideas Arcia Tecun

Lana Lopesi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon interested in Indigenous and Women of Colour Feminisms, Contemporary Art, and Global Indigeneities. We begin this episode by reflecting on both of our recent shifts in social and political context moving from Aotearoa-New Zealand to the continental United States. This episode covers terms and the differences of scale across societies, feminisms including Sāmoan perspectives, and an analysis of various systems of power from the macro level to the internal. We conclude with a reflection on ideas, community impact, as well as consider cultural values and their entanglements within an assumed system of morality, which is gendered in particular ways.
 
Bloody Woman by Lana Lopesi.
 
Terms: Karanga (a formal or ceremonial call); karakia (ritual chant, say grace), Nafanua (Guardian/Patron/Goddess of War), Salamasina (15th century paramount who held all four district titles as Tafa‘ifa), Vā Moana, Kaukalaikiiki/Tautalaitiiti (‘to speak above one’s age’, impudent, cheeky).

Indigenous Tongan scholars Dr. Ka‘ili and Dr. Hafoka join this episode of remembering the 2017 Rugby League World Cup and the impact of Mate Ma‘a Tonga. We reflect on the background to doing research at that time and thinking about the geopolitics of sport alongside an exploration of Tongan Indigeneity. One of the iconic moments we recall is the roll of diaspora and descendant populations having the opportunity to play for Tonga with an international rule change allowing overseas players to represent a heritage country. We discuss several topics including identity across borders, the philosophy behind faiva or performance in sport, and how nationalist boundaries of identity were transcended through Indigenous depths of fonua (land, country, heritage). We conclude by sharing some thoughts on deeper relationships to ancient Tongan sport such as kasivaki (an Indigenous Tongan underwater ‘rugby-like’ game), the unifying force of global sport that transcended common ideas about identity, and a symbolic meaning of Mate Ma‘a Tonga.
 
This podcast is intended to be complimentary to the article ‘Indigenous Performances of Tongan Identity in Global Sporting Events’, written by ‘Inoke Hafoka, Arcia Tecun, Tēvita Ō. Ka‘ili, and S. Ata Siu‘ulua.
 
Terms and Basic Interpretations: Kasivaki (underwater Indigenous Tongan game played with stones and coral posts), Tauhi Vā (performance art of social-spatial relations), Faiva (performance, to relate spatially), Mālie (bravo, exclamation of a beautiful performance), Māfana (warmth, exhilaration, spiritual phenomenon), Fonua (placenta, land, country, heritage), Sipi Tau (Tongan posture or ‘war’ dance/challenge), Hikifonua (Tongan concept for ‘diaspora’ meaning to lift and transport land represented by people), Punga Tea/Punga Kapa (coral stone posts used in Kasivaki), Tautai (sea warriors/seafarers), Ukuloloto (sea diving), Mate Ma’a Tonga (give your all for Tonga, literally ‘die for Tonga’).

Kehaulani Folau is a Madau-Moana (Oceanian) scholar and doctoral student of education, and Tino is a critical educator and activist. We discuss ‘diversity’ in the context of dominant schooling institutions, including its impact and limitations. Our talanoa/platica is inspired by recent legal acts to ban diversity initiatives, and Tino’s online commentary “DEI can’t save us, so why do we try so hard to save it?”. We critically reflect on the institutional limits of diversity initiatives, imagine a more robust political project of liberation, but also end with examples of how such initiatives despite their shortcomings have been beneficial.

This episode features Moana Iose who is an artist and Indigenous art policy consultant, as well as the founder of Salt Lake City’s Pasifika First Fridays and the Lost Eden Gallery. We begin with a look back to our global crossing of paths and our shared connections at Auckland Uni. Moana was involved in the ‘I too am Auckland’ project while she studied at Waipapa Taumata Rau (formerly Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau, a.k.a. University of Auckland), where she drew inspiration from Black student organising at Harvard to help catalyse discussions of race for Māori and Pacific students in New Zealand’s universities. We reflect on being from, living outside of, and then returning to Salt Lake City, and the complicated love we have for this place and the simultaneous frustration we have with this society. Moana shares her views and work with Indigenous art and responding to community and place, while challenging the dominant narratives that have been imposed on folks of colour. She also shares some of the story behind the fiercely local and yet internationally reaching Lost Eden gallery and the young Indigenous artists who are currently based there. We conclude with reflections on being critically conscious in our current moment, developing a sense of stewardship and connection to where we live, and valuing the significance of art in our world.

Building on an earlier episode about Critical Tongan Studies, Ata and I revisit this idea and discuss the various waves that make up a rich intellectual tradition based in the regions associated with Tonga. Acknowledging the social and national construction at a particular point in time we seek to localise and unpack the context where different philosophical traditions emerged by imagining both a pre- and post- Kingdom of Tonga context. We don’t cover everything, but we spend some time on the foundational shifts in thinking and questioning based in the era when Queen Sālote Tupou III reigned. This includes commissioning research of early Tongan scholars and scholars of Tonga who would be crucial in capturing a memory of Indigenous cultural practices and arts as well as further developing a critical intellectual tradition that asked important yet challenging questions. This includes scholars like Epeli Hau’ofa, Elizabeth Bott, I. Futa Helu and more, up through to the contemporary Early Tongan Scholars and Global Tongan Scholars’ networks of today.
 
References Mentioned:
Women of Power Part 2
Tongan Society: Discussions with Her Majesty Queen Sālote Tupou
Tales of the Tikongs
Songs and Poems of Queen Sālote
Queen Sālote of Tonga
 

This episode begins with some reflections on my experience and relations to people of place and to being mindful of where one lives, especially if one’s immediate ancestral ties lie elsewhere. I think about responsibilities and possibilities of relating differently and better to where I currently reside by digging deeper beyond the dominant understandings of Indigenous people and issues here in Utah. I highlight a variety of sources by Indigenous folks in order to respect their capacity and listening to what they have already shared by reading what is already available and putting in some work to better understand it. Topics include remembering Soonkahni (Salt Lake Valley), Indigenous identities and cultural politics in this place and remembering a more complex and nuanced reality outside of our current cultural climate crisis. I work through different words and terms and where they derive from along with a range of meanings. This episode concludes by thinking about Farmer’s historical observation of a shift from an aquatic age to a hydraulic one that underpins various issues currently faced right now in this place. An overarching theme is a practice of respecting elder cultures and perspectives in order to more meaningfully relate to place.
Terms: Soonkahni (Salt Lake Valley in Newe Taikwa-Shoshoni Language), Piapaa (Big Water, Sea, a name for the Great Salt Lake in Newe Taikwa), Pia Okwai (Big Flow/River, a name for Utah’s Jordan River in Newe Taikwa), Newe (The People), Neme (The People), Nuuchiu (The People), Nuwuvi (The People), Diné (The People), Awahko (Sucker fish in Newe Taikwa), Paa Kateten (One name for Utah Lake in Newe Taikwa).
Suggested Reading List: History and culture - Darren Parry’s Bear River Massacre; Forest Cuch’s (Ed) A History of Utah’s American Indians; We shall remain – Utah documentary series; Dora Van et. al’s History of Unita Valley Shoshone Tribe of the Utah Nation. Non-Indigneous writers/producers - Black hawks mission of peace by Philip Gottfredson and The Black Hawk War Utah’s Forgotten Tragedy documentary film; Utah’s Black Hawk War by John Alton Peterson; On Zion’s Mount by Jared Farmer; Place and Personal Names of the Gosiute Indians of Utah by Ralph V. Chamberlin. Linguistic – Drusilla Gould and Christopher Loether’s An Introduction to the Shoshone Language; University of Utah’s Shoshoni Language Project.