PACS108: Indigenous Histories and Creation Stories: Creation Stories

Legends and stories from throughout the Marshall Islands. Each story includes a credit and biographical sketch for the person who provided the story to the book's compiler.

Legends from the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are interwoven with historical interludes and beautiful woodcut illustrations.

Contents include: The story of the creation -- Samoa and Kiribati -- The descendents of Nareau on Tarawa -- The story of Tanentoa -- The descendants of Tanentoa -- Concerning Karongoa-n-Tebabu -- Concerning the possessions and affairs of Karongoa -- The journey of Akau I and Nei Beia -- Te Uekera and Obaia-te-Buraerae -- Tarawa and its people -- Genealogies: The spreading of Karongoa -- Ancestry of the Uea of Tarawa -- Ancestry of Nei Beiarung -- Ancestry of the Uea Tanentoa of Beru -- Intermarriage of first cousins between leading families on Beru, Nikunau and Onotoa -- Acquisition and consolidation of lands by Karongoa members: Temanoku on Tabiteuea.

Though it is set in modern Rotuma, the film is woven around an origin story. Hint: Try searching either the name of the film or the name of the goddess, tafate'masian, in Google Scholar or in OneSearch -- you may find information on Rotuman life or history in the reviews of this film that were written in scholarly journals like The Contemporary Pacific.

Legends in Rotuman and English.

How Māui fished up the North Island of New Zealand (Te Ika a Māui)

Exclusively written in Maori language and aimed at Maori and non-Maori children aged seven to eleven, this book's stories tell the tales of some of the taonga Maori (Maori treasures) held at Aotearoa New Zealand's famous national museum, Te Papa. The book's pukorero, or story teller, is Maui, the great Pacific hero and trickster. The stories are from both long ago and recent times.

Publisher's description: On Good Friday, 1981, Rujen Keju and his two sons come face to face with their complicated inheritance--one that includes years of atomic testing and the continued military presence of the U.S. in the Pacific. In this highly original work of history and adventure, novelist Robert Barclay weaves together characters and stories from mythological times with those of the present-day to give readers a rare and unsparing look at life in the contemporary Pacific.

Publisher's description: This compelling novel will resonate for people everywhere who find their livelihood threatened by "Dollarmen" -- property speculators advocating golf courses, high rises, shopping malls, and tourist attractions. In Potiki, one community's response to attacks on their ancestral values and symbols provides moving affirmation of the relationship between land and the people who live on it.

Publisher's description: As her beloved grandfather, chief of the Maori tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, struggles to lead in difficult times and to find a male successor, young Kahu is developing a mysterious relationship with whales, particularly the ancient bull whale whose legendary rider was their ancestor.