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27. James
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Potiki, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Indigenous Rights and Oppression
The Power and Importance of Stories
Love and Community
Sustenance and Sufficiency
Life and Death
Ability and Disability
Summary
Analysis
A woman (Roimata) describes the seagulls carrying her back home so many years ago. She says she’s learned to keep her eyes open and to watch the skies, no matter how dark the weather is. She recalls the night she and Hemi brought in the haul of kahawai from the bay. She speaks of how life and death, life and suffering, are inextricably intertwined, and how this is the way things should be.
Each of the stories in this chapter gives readers a different lens through which to view the events described by the book. Each story is colored by the person who tells it. Together they underline the importance of love and connection and also show why people are stronger together, because it’s only together that any sense can be made of the world. Roimata’s story described the tidal pull of love and the cycle of life and death, giving a spiritual dimension to Toko’s existence.
Active
Themes
A man (Hemi) speaks of his connection with the land and how much strength and bounty a person can find there and in the fellowship of human community. He says he isn’t yet sure how he feels about the “other thing” (the destruction of the development), but he is proud of the “young ones” for acting. Only time will tell if it was the right thing to do or not.
Hemi’s story predictably focuses on the land and the power that can be found when people work together. Importantly, the stories of others—particularly the murdered Toko and the loving, vengeful Tangimoana—are changing and expanding the way he thinks about the world.
Active
Themes
The young man (James) doesn’t speak because he already told his story in the poupou. But in telling it there, he gave new meaning to Toko’s life. The young woman (Tangimoana) reads a poem about “the color red,” which associates red with death and fire but also with the cycles of the day and the blood of living and with “sacred” anger. The boy (Manu) tells a story about a silvery barracuda sleeping in the night sky. There were birds (and he was one of them) flying around the barracuda’s head, along with a “little taniwha” (a guardian spirit), which the barracuda ate.
Active
Themes
The old woman (Granny Tamihana) speaks of all those whom she has loved who have died, in whose steps she has yet to follow. The “child-woman” (Mary) doesn’t say her story aloud. Everyone else tells their own stories, too, throughout the long dark night.
Active
Themes
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