Some thoughts on Māori Storytelling

In Māori storytelling of recent years, I have seen a couple of things that are worth noting and offering a comment about. The first is the tendency in some productions (I stress, some) to idealise Māori culture and people, particularly historical Māori culture, ancestors and the like. There is a tendency to see ancestors as all wise, all knowledgeable, as perfect even rather than seeing them as humans who have lived lives albeit, in some cases, extraordinary ones. In some of my classes, I have counselled students not to put their ancestors on a pedestal and have said things like "we are just as brilliant and just as dumb as they were, we are just as beautiful and just as ugly..." The point is that we ought to see our tupuna, and our Māoritanga generally, honestly and truthfully, for the fulness of their humanity. We ought to be honest about their failings as much as their strengths.

A second point concerns the preoccupation with outward expressions of our culture rather than the inner journey. The success of story and storytelling is the degree to which we can take our listeners and audiences on an emotional journey. Storytelling, like all art, is about moving people in some way, about speaking to their hearts as much as their minds. 

In some Māori storytelling in the past, not enough attention has been paid to this. In some instances, storytellers have included some kind of outward expression, like a haka, for example, in their story but have not paid attention to how the haka, at that moment, assists and uplifts the emotional journey of the story. Sometimes it looks like the storyteller thinks that just by putting a haka or a waiata into a story somehow makes it a Māori story. Or, "this is a Māori character therefore there must be haka or something". It's a falsity because it is not really connecting with what is actually happening in the experience of that character in that moment.

Not paying enough attention to the emotional journey of a story - moment by moment - can lead to some lazy and ultimately unsuccessful ways of increasing dramatic tension. For example, being overly melodramatic is a sure sign of lazy storytelling. There was a period in Māori theatre where it seemed that every play included a tangi scene. Now, don't get me wrong. In some productions, the tangi scene was perfectly legitimate and appropriate for the action of the play. But in others, however, it seemed that the tangi scene was artificially inserted into the flow of the play to try and create tension and interest. It didn't work. It felt manipulative and false.

Māori storytelling, like all storytelling, should touch the heart and move people.