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1981
Volume 11, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2050-4039
  • E-ISSN: 2050-4047

Abstract

The novel (1990), by Alan Duff, demystified the Māori grand narratives of the past previously romanticized by writings from the Māori Renaissance of the mid-1970s and 1980s. In contrast with the negative portrayal of Māori subjectivities and the political immobility generally perceived by critics, this study aims to reconceptualize male tribal models in Duff’s novel. On the one hand, the rangatira (or male elders) and Māori urban gangs engage in tribal patterns echoing utopias of male domination. Whilst on the other hand, female characters such as Beth Heke, her daughter Grace and the singer Mavis Tangata – as examples of warrior-matriarchs – suggest a recuperation of ancestral warriorhood through open democracy and the hybridity of a revised version of tribalism and the Eucharist.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Spanish Ministry of Education (Award PID2019-104526GB-100)
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2024-03-19
2024-10-08
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