Our framework

Mana Moana focuses on a collection of culturally significant power words that are defining, archetypal and essential to our collective Moana cultures. This focus on words is based on an approach by Friere who believed that language, or generative words, hold the keys to unlock cultural meaning and learning.

Mana Moana activates and engages with a repository of seventy power words and associated proverbs and stories that are widely shared across the South Pacific.

These words have been chosen because they “evoke thoughts, feelings, or reveal a historical perspective that has an intrinsic meaning to people or cultural way of life.” See Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education: Kivaki Press

All Mana Moana concepts map back to proto-Polynesian, Austronesian, Oceanic, Fijic or Eastern Oceanic root or source words. To do this, POLLEX-Online was used. This is a large-scale comparative dictionary of Polynesian languages. Edward Tregear’s comparative Maori-Polynesian dictionary was also useful. He created this resource in 1891.

All of the power words selected in Mana Moana continue to be spoken in many - at least fifteen - contemporary Pacific languages or reflexes. There are occurrences when the meaning of contemporary words are no longer in alignment with each other. However, many have survived centuries of linguistic adaptation and innovation to remain recognisably similar in essence.

Consistent with the Friere’s model, these power words have been made into images created by Dr Johnson Witehira of Tamahaki (Ngāti Hinekura), Ngā Puhi (Ngai-tū-te-auru), Ngāti Haua, Palangi and Samoan descent.

Each image was meticulously researched by Johnson, ensuring the patterning and images were culturally congruent with Pacific worldviews and the knowledge held within the words.

They images assist with learning and intergenerational transfer. They activate the power words visually so that they can be used in interactive ways.

They contain visual clues about who we are and who we were as Pacific peoples. They help us hold the words, and their meaning, and reach for the ways our ancestors thought; how they named and knew the world.

Images provide ease of access to concepts for for those unfamiliar with the native tongues of their ancestors. They are designed to help all people who are not fluent in Pacific languages access the beauty of core concepts.

By reflecting on these images, conversing with others about what they mean, we aim to create open space for interpretation, inviting meaning rather than defining it. This allows people to bring their own ethnic-specific knowledge and dialects to the generative words. Mana Moana aims to create dialogue and stimulate intergenerational transfer.

While revitalizing old ways of knowing is the goal, it is important to acknowledge that Mana Moana has been re-created in a contemporary context. It has been a research-based process, but it has also been a using a creative endeavour. The aim has been to craft something fresh, woven from the fabric of the ancient.

More than 250 proverbs have been collected that reference, extend and enrich the meaning of each of the generative words. Proverbs in indigenous languages from Tonga, Samoa, Niue, Tokelau, Hawaii and Māori have been collected. These contextualise the generative concepts in ethnic specific ways and provide culture-specific nuance and references.

The beauty of proverbs is that they are made to be passed down. They are practical, memorable and bite sized. They have travelled from lip to lip, from breath to breath, over centuries. Proverbs distil and crystallise thinking. They encapsulate values. They are small soundbites of much greater articulations and broader understandings of knowledge. They are perfect for beginners and they do not tire or patronise experts. In very practical ways we can harness them into our everyday. Not only can be influenced by their wisdom and insights, but we can also practice them, sound them out on our tongues, and pass them down to our children. We can use them in our own oratory, both formally and informally. Proverbs, on many levels are perfect.

“The folktale is for entertainment. The myth is for spiritual instruction. It's the trail back to yourself. The myth comes from the imagination, and it leads back to it.” Joseph Campbell

Culturally defining stories have been selected which map onto and extend further the generative concepts and proverbs. These hold and activate the power words and proverbial knowledge within the action of narrative arcs.

As Jo-Ann Archibald points out: “The story doesn’t tell us what to think or feel, it gives us the space to think and feel.” We learn and teach through stories in Mana Moana experiences. They contain what Arthur Frank calls “narrative resources” which can help us story our own lives.

The word ‘story’ is preferred to the word ‘myth’ which is heavy with the baggage of being ‘untrue’. Stories - on the other hand - are powerful. Sometimes they are true. Sometimes they are illusory. But stories are always real.

Archetypal characters, such as Tagaloa / Tangaroa, Sina / Hina, Tigilau / Sinilau, Maui, Ru, Tu / Ku, Rogo, Lata / Rata and Tane appear in the Mana Moana material.

As Joseph Campbell writes:

“Every mythology in life has to do with the wisdom of life as related to a specific culture at a specific time. Our narratives, myths, stories, chants, poetry include themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don't know what the guide-signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself.”

Mana Moana aims to help us reclaim our stories and guide us in contemporary life.

A proud history of oratory is the hallmark of many Pacific cultures, where embellishment, allusion, poetry and metaphor has been highly prized for centuries.

The use of metaphor and figurative language to speak indirectly allows us - as Professor Futa Helu identified - to “mean more than what we say”. This gestures towards a preferred communication style which is culturally resonant for Pacific peoples that indirect and rich in allusion.

On small islands where relationships are important and words are considered powerful, the use of metaphors have helped us to speak more easily about difficult subjects for milennia.

Multipe metaphors have been collected and are presented in Mana Moana, so that they can be used and applied in contemporary contexts and conversations.

The Mana Moana canon of concepts is organised thematically and metaphorically into earth (fanua/fenua), sky (langi / rangi), sea (moana), va/wa (relational spaces between), kainga (family and people) and atua (realm of spirit and gods).

All of these combine to provide a mega-metaphorical island-scape of sea. This is dreamed as “Motutapu”, an imaginative ancestral, sacred island of origin.

Motutapu contains a whole geography of metaphoric possibilities. This is a library of landscape. The idea is that every inch of our shared landscapes have been deeply theorised by our ancestors. The mountains, lagoons, waves, forests and beaches are imprinted with proverb and narrative. An exploration of this metaphorical island becomes a way of organising and accessing the ancestral knowledge that is held there.

Mana Moana does not just focus on words, proverbs, images, metaphors and stories, but also the underpinning philosophies, values, and ethics.

Widely shared Moana cosmological world-views story humans as genealogical and evolutionary relatives of all that has been created. As magical and as imaginative as creation stories may appear, their congruence with the most emergent science is an interesting collision. Cosmogonies and creation stories lay the foundations of all beliefs, values, ideas and philosophy of the world that we know the world through.

This steps us into a relationally oriented, genealogically constructed, deeply connected, quantum universe. As part of the family of things we are deeply connected. We are creatures of interdependence.

At the core of Mana Moana is an intervention logic that draws on many healing traditions of the Pacific. It illuminates a therapeutic “movement” that is shared among multiple Pacific cultures.

This is based on the concept of vā and focuses on intentionality, reciprocity, wellbeing and the need to restore relationships if they have been breached. At the heart of this way of thinking about relationships is the importance of aro’a atu, aro’a mai; the reciprocal flow of empathy and compassion.

This healing logic is applied to restore relationships, individual wellbeing, family harmony, workplace dynamics, systems, our relationship with the environment and with spirit.

This connects us to a wider kaupapa and purpose of healing our relationships with ocean, land, sky, spirit, self, and other people, so we can bring things back into balance.