Linguistics and Literature Studies Vol. 6(5), pp. 206 - 210
DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060502
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"New Zealand Was Maoriland Then": A Postcolonial and an Ecocritical Reading of Mihi and the Last of the Moas (1943) by Lyndahl Chapple Gee

Valentina Napoli ^*
Roma Tre University, Italy

ABSTRACT

New Zealand writer Maurice Gee would have been 11 or 12 when his mother, Lyndahl Chapple Gee (Harriet Gee's penname), published the children's picture book Mihi and the last of the Moas: the Adventures of Mihi, a little Maori boy, with the very last of the Moas,in 1943. The book is written in verse of the nursery-rhyme variety (paired quatrains in lines of somewhat irregular metre and length) and illustrated by Lyndahl herself with half-a-dozen delicate watercolours and pen-and-ink drawings. Kathryn Walls defined it as the New Zealand version of Kipling's Jungle Book. The story is set in a vaguely designated location in pre-european Aotearoa, New Zealand. The only human character of the story is Mihi, a little Māori boy orphaned when his family is killed by an invading tribe, who is cared for by the creatures of the forest and befriended by the last living moa, who takes him away to live with him in his underground cave, from which, when he becomes ill, Mihi rescues him by building a raft and rowing him out through a long secret tunnel into the sun. The purpose of this article is to read Chapple Gee's children story through postcolonial lens, analysing how the wiping out of Mihi's family and tribe by invaders can be interpreted as a metaphor of the British colonisation of New Zealand. This is clearly evident in the representation of the happy and peaceful life of Mihi's tribe before the invasion: "New Zealand was Maoriland then/ no white man had come, with his musket and drum/ to fight with the brown-skinned men" [1, p.5], in contrast with the murders and devastation following the arrival of the enemies. The aim of this article is also to attempt a reading of Chapple Gee's story in an ecocritical frame. The environmental topic permeates the story and it emerges in an indirect, allegorical form, through a fable about the survival of the last moa, an extinct New Zealand native bird. The character of Mihi, the Māori boy, represents New Zealand indigenous people's spiritual relationship with the natural environment as well as their role as kaitiaki, guardians of natural resources.

KEYWORDS
New Zealand Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Eco-criticism, Children's Literature, Maurice Gee, Mihi and the Last of the Moas, Jungle Book, Lyndahl Chapple Gee

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Valentina Napoli , ""New Zealand Was Maoriland Then": A Postcolonial and an Ecocritical Reading of Mihi and the Last of the Moas (1943) by Lyndahl Chapple Gee," Linguistics and Literature Studies, Vol. 6, No. 5, pp. 206 - 210, 2018. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060502.

(b). APA Format:
Valentina Napoli (2018). "New Zealand Was Maoriland Then": A Postcolonial and an Ecocritical Reading of Mihi and the Last of the Moas (1943) by Lyndahl Chapple Gee. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 6(5), 206 - 210. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060502.