The Forked Centre: Duality & Privacy in Polynesian Spaces & Architecture

Abstract

This paper will focus on a spatial duality paradigm that exists at the heart of Polynesian spaces where the notion of private and public is opposite to the Western concept of space. The centre as a limit in Polynesian thinking is the point of extreme transparency where the private individual becomes obliterated. It is the domain of what is termed in Samoa the vä resides. So what is central to any sense of space in Polynesia is the vä or the in-between space, a relational opening up inhabited by deities/community/land/family. According to Alfred Gell, this relational space in tattooing exists in the folding and doubling of skin on the tattooed body collapsing the distinctions between an inside and an outside marking an ambivalent limit.

Reading Bodies, Writing Blackness: Anti-/Blackness and Nineteenth-Century Kanaka Maoli Literary Nationalism

“…31 Albert Refiti links the Samoan iteration of tatau' s incorporation of time and space to other enmeshed relationships: "the repetitive beaten rhythm or ta which the tattooist strike into the skin is a giving over to time (ta) and space (vā)-by investing the body with dimensional consciousness-past/present/future/land/ancestors/community." 32 Taken together, kākau and Pō then reveal a culturally specific method of reading and writing the Indigenous body as a nexus of epistemological, social, political, and familial affirmations-one that can never be erased nor overwritten by settler-colonial attempts to racially reinscribe Indigenous narratives.…”

Bodies Permeable and Divine: Tapu, Mana and the Embodiment of Hegemony in Pre‑Christian Tonga

“…Considering how few discussions of manava have been published, it is notable that all assert an etymological origin in mana (Collocott 1921: 433-34;Refiti 2008Refiti , 2009Wendt 1996: 42). According to historical comparative linguistics, however, manava is one of two modern Tongan reflexes of the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) word ma-ñawa (literally 'breath'), which signifies the heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, womb and bowels.…”

Albert Wendt’s Critical and Creative Legacy in Oceania: An Introduction

“…His leanings toward the postmodern and pastiche are seen in his forays into science fiction (Wendt 1992) and image-text productions in The Black Star (Wendt 2002) as well as in his debut art exhibitions in Honolulu (2007) and Auckland (2008). Wendt's writing has helped to catalyze the global circulation of indigenous Polynesian concepts such as "v " and "p uliuli" (see Refiti 2008;Ka'ili 2005;M hina 2003a, 2003b. Yet in his essays he has been able to embrace Third World decolonization politics and even quantum physics (see, eg, Wendt 1987Wendt , 1976a.…”

“…1 See, for example, Arvidson 1975;C Tiffin 1978C Tiffin , 1979C Tiffin (ed) 1979;H Tiffin 1978;Subramani 1985;Simms 1986;Durix and Durix 1993;Hereniko 1993;Va'ai 1999;Sharrad 2003;Keown 2005. 2 Quoted in "Talking Story with Albert Wendt," a 160-minute videotaped conversation with Peter Brunt, Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin, Linda John, Vijay Naidu, Wally Penetito, Teresia Teaiwa, Alice Te Punga Somerville, and Graeme Whimp, at Victoria University of Wellington, 19 May 2005. 3 Ponifasio and architect and design lecturer Albert Refiti have had particularly fruitful exchanges around Samoan concepts such as the v (space) and memory, cognizant of and engaging with Wendt's prior excursions there (see, eg, Refiti 2008).…”