IndexFilm AnalysisConclusionWorks CitedFilm Analysis It is recognized that colonization has had a destructive effect on indigenous gender relations that has reached all spheres of indigenous society. The colonial system positioned indigenous women as the property of men with primarily domestic roles. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Linda Tuhiwai Smith in her Methodologies of Decolonization, highlights that a key issue for Indigenous women in any challenge of contemporary Indigenous politics is the restoration of women to what are seen as their traditional roles, rights and responsibilities. In Niki Caro's film Whale Rider, Paikea asserts her right to be the chief of the tribe and ultimately her determined claims restore her rights and responsibilities. Paikea decolonizes the mind of her grandfather Koro who believes that women are incapable of leading a community. Colonialism recorded the distorted history of indigenous peoples. In that story the prominent role played by indigenous women is silenced. Representation also means proposing solutions to real-life dilemmas that indigenous communities face and trying to capture the complexities of being indigenous. In this context, this article shows how the film represents the struggles and lives of indigenous peoples to the dominant society. Therefore, this article argues that Niki Caro's Whale Rider is the testimony of a young Māori girl and also gives voice to the stories silenced in the film. Storytelling is part of every culture and its literature, but this is especially true for indigenous peoples. . Linda Tuhiwai Smith in her book Decolonizing Methodologies states: “Indigenous languages, knowledges and cultures have been silenced or misrepresented, ridiculed or condemned in academic and popular discourses.” Therefore it is in the hands of indigenous peoples to represent themselves and give voice to their cultures to the world. This is why indigenous people tell their stories; write their own versions, in their own way, for their own purposes. It is not simply a matter of giving an oral tale or giving a genealogical name to the land, but a very strong need to bear witness to and restore a spirit, to bring a fragmented and dying world back to life. The film Whale Rider written and directed by Niki Caro is based on Witi Ihimaera's novel The Whale Rider which tells the story of the Maori people. This article takes three concepts from Smith's Methodologies of Decolonization and applies them to the work selected for study. The concepts are testimonies, effect of colonization in indigenous gender relations and contested histories and multiple discourses on the past by different communities. Testimonio, a Spanish term understood as “witness account,” embodies a narrative research methodology rooted in Latin American history. A witness is a first-person account of the person (narrator) who has faced instances of social and political inequality, oppression, or any specific form of marginalization. John Beverley, an expert on testimonial literature, suggests that the best way to approach the subaltern is through testimonial literature. Testimonial literatures alter the balance between center and periphery by reconfiguring global cultural differences by pushing the margins towards the center. According to Gugelberger, the situation of the narrative in testimony must involve an urgency to communicate, a problem of repression, poverty, subordination, imprisonment, struggle for survival, and so on. Testimonials are simply telling your own stories. Therewriting of indigenous peoples is called “the empire responds” and also becomes a testimony of their lives and cultures. Māori author Witi Ihimaera sees his writing as a valuable opportunity to express his experience of being Māori. He has assembled five volumes of Maori literature which, according to him, represents the "crossroads". . . of a literature of the past and of a literature of the present and the future". Ihimaera is the first Māori author to publish both a book of short stories, Pounamu Pouramu (1972), and a novel Tangi (1973). Among his works The Whale Rider is the novel that the Maori community welcomes best. It is a magical and mythical work about a young girl whose relationship with a whale ensures the safety of her village. It is based on an ancestral story of the Whangara people of the east coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Unlike the novel which is narrated in the first and third person with the narrating voice of the girl's uncle, Niki Caro's film Whale Rider begins with Pai's narrating voice. The first-person narration makes the film a testimony. The film implies an urgency to communicate and a problem of repression. Through testimonies, the voice of the voiceless is recorded. Pai says: In the old days, the earth felt a great void. She was waiting: she was waiting to be filled; wait for someone to love him; waiting for a leader. And he came on the back of a whale: a man to lead a new people. Our ancestor, Paikea. But now we awaited the firstborn of the new generation, the descendant of the whale rider, the boy who would be the leader... There was no joy when I was born. My twin brother died and took our mother with him... Everyone was waiting for the firstborn to lead us. But he died. And I didn't. Whale Rider chronicles a young Pai girl's journey to becoming the leader of the community. It also describes the burden of Koro, Pai's grandfather who is looking for an answer to the question of who will be the next leader to lead the community. The irony is that the leader is next to him, but his narrow view of tradition and rigid rules do not allow him to see the person who should be the leader. Not that he doesn't like his granddaughter, he loves her, says Pai: “My Koro wished in his heart that I had never been born. But he changed his mind." When it comes to leading the community, as a person who defends his tradition, he prevents Pai from attending the sacred school of learning of Maori tradition. One reason for Koro's mentality may be the impact of colonialism in the history of indigenous peoples. Koro is in perpetual mourning for a lost tradition, for his diminished community. His students at the Sacred School of Learning failing to meet his expectations of the emergence of a leader, Koro takes to bed, bitter and disappointed. Paula Morris in her review of the film says: “For Koro, the story is a burden, to be borne and passed down. For Pai, history is alive and calling to her from the ocean.” When Pai asks Koro about the history of their ancestors, Koro tells her to look closely at the rope that is used to power the boat's engine and asks her what she sees. Seeing Pai say, “Many pieces of rope all twisted together,” Kora says, “Exactly. Weave the threads of Paikea together, so that our line remains strong. Each of your ancestors, all united and strong. Until your whale." After saying this, Koro uses the rope to start the engine but it tears. Koro says, “Useless rope, damn it. I'll get another one." Here the rope may be a metaphor for Pai herself because Koro sees her granddaughter as useless and looks to other families for leadership. While his grandfather is away to get another rope, Pai repairs the torn rope and starts the engine. It runs the engine. This particular act of Pai predicts and becomes a symbol ofmending the community torn apart by his ancestors by becoming the leader. Koro cannot see this gift from Pai. Pai communicates with the sea, the whales and his ancestors. He also finds the sacred whale's tooth that Koro threw into the sea and asked the boys to find it but the boys failed to catch it. All these events show Pai's innate potential to become a leader. She was not chosen according to her grandfather. In his speech at school, his eyes filled with tears, he says: "I was not the leader my grandfather expected." He says that by being born he broke the line of the ancients. He also claims that “it was no one's fault. It just happened." His point is that if community knowledge were given to everyone, there would be many leaders. He confirms his point by saying that if the chosen one gets tired, others can step in and help the community be strong again. According to Koro, Pai's twin brother is the chosen one but he is dead and she is not. Therefore his intervention questions the hierarchy that prevails in learning community knowledge. Seeks to broaden the narrow vision of the community. It is Pai's appeal to Koro, to give knowledge to everyone, not just the chosen one and also regardless of one's gender. The effect of colonization on indigenous gender relations is destructive. It has reached all spheres of indigenous society. The colonial system positioned indigenous women as the property of men with primarily domestic roles. Smith, in her Decolonizing Methodologies, highlights that a key issue for Indigenous women in any challenge of contemporary Indigenous politics is the restoration for women of what are seen as their traditional roles, rights and responsibilities. Smith also says Māori women are caught between the written accounts of white male writers and the claims of the few Māori women who dispute those early accounts. She gives examples of this, one being Elsdon Best's view where he says of his research on the Tuhoe tribe: "As in most other barbarian lands, we find that here women were considered inferior to man." The other is Rangimarie The view of Rose Pere, herself a descendant of Tuhoe Potiki, states: “As a woman, I have been exposed to very positive female role models from the line of descent of both my birth parents. The older men and women… have demonstrated clearly, by the legacy they have left, that men and women, adults and children, work side by side and together.” This is one such example that reveals how indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women are misrepresented by Western researchers. Indigenous women must question this misrepresentation. Therefore, the daunting task for Māori women seeking to reconstruct traditional roles is that they must challenge existing knowledge that is primarily ideological or false (Smith 170). In the movie Whale Rider we have Pai's grandmother who is from the Muriwai line. She tells Pai that she should be proud of her Muriwai blood. Despite Koro's strict rules, Pai does his best to learn his community's tradition. He learns to use "taiaha" from his uncle. She claims her genealogical right to be the leader of the community and ultimately her certain claims restore her rights and responsibilities to be a leader of the community. Koro after Pai's rescue of the whales tells her: “Wise leader, forgive me. I'm just a newbie starting out with flying." It can be said that Pai decolonizes the mind of his grandfather Koro, who believes that only males can ascend to the role of leader and that women are incapable of leading a community. Like Muriwai, the heroine who played the traditional roles of women of the past, Pai reconstructs the rolestraditional in the present. Therefore the process of decolonization involves a critical engagement with the colonial past. The idea of ​​contested histories and multiple discourses about the past, by different communities, is closely linked to the politics of everyday contemporary Indigenous life. It is part of the fabric of communities that value oral ways of knowing. These contested accounts are archived in genealogies, landscaping, weavings and carvings, even the personal names many people bore. The means by which these stories were archived was through their knowledge systems. Many of these systems have since been reclassified as oral traditions rather than stories. In the film, there is only a slight mention of Muriwai, the female heroine of the Moari community, but Paikea, the male hero, is mentioned fully and the image of Paikea riding a whale is shown in a sculpture. Muriwai's story is sidelined in the film. This shows that the politics of representation exists within the Māori community. Niki Caro is a non-Maori New Zealander. When it comes to representing unfamiliar communities, Niki Caro says that by being in the field with people she can experience the truth and beauty of a culture. As for playing Maori in Whale Rider, Niki Caro says, “I absolutely serve the truth of the story.” While Niki Caro seems faithful to the original story, it fails to highlight Muriwai's story. For example, the story of Paikea is told at the beginning of the film but not the story of Muriwai. The Myth of Muriwai – “Behaving like a male” – Muriwai was the greatest chief of the tribe of Nanny Flowers, Pai's grandmother. Mihi Kotukutuku, known as a model of female non-conformity, is a descendant of Muriwai. Thus in both myth and history the active role of women can be seen but is not taken into consideration by the male-dominated indigenous society. In the film, Pai challenges tradition and embraces the forgotten past to find the strength to carry his people forward. The film ends with Pai's hopeful narration: “My name is Paikea Apirana and I am descended from a long line of chiefs stretching back to the whale rider. I am not a prophet, but I know that our people will move forward together, with all our strength." Upasana Tayal says: “Unlike other films featuring Maori protagonists, Whale Rider ends on a surprisingly positive note” (Review). Pai tells his story. She becomes the representative of the heroine Muriwai. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Conclusion In conclusion, Niki Caro although an outsider, tries to be part of the community and represents the genesis, function and implications of Maori ritual beliefs and the role of women in the world and also in the indigenous community in the New Zealand increasingly westernized. The film reveals the functioning of patriarchy in so-called matriarchal indigenous communities. Therefore, this article shows how the film represents the struggles, complexities and lives of indigenous people to the dominant society through the testimony of a young Māori girl. He also reads the silences in the film which in turn tells the stories silenced within indigenous communities. The film is not only the testimony of a Maori girl but it is also the testimony of an indigenous culture that is slowly dying. Works Cited Beverly, John. “The margin at the center: on Testimonio”. Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. 35, no. 1, 1989, pp. 11-28. Musa Project, doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0923. Accessed February 10, 2018. Dodd, Kevin V. “Whale Rider: The Re-enactment of Myth and the Empowerment of Women.” Journal of Religion & Film, vol.16,., 2002.