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2. Mary
Themes
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
Roimata describes how she goes away to finish her schooling at 15, after her father dies. She doesn’t come home for 12 long years. When she does return, she comes unannounced, approaching the Tamihana family’s community quietly and on foot. As soon as the train arrives at the station, she sees the seagulls wheeling above the shore, and she heads for them. It’s after dark when she draws close and only then does she recognize the distinctive signs of communal mourning. Someone—she doesn’t know who—has died. She decides to sleep on the beach and wait for the light of morning.
Chapter 3 elaborates on the end of Chapter 1, describing how Roimata came back to Hemi, Mary, and her home. The seagulls are an important personal symbol to her. Like the community members, they live between the land and sea. And because they remind her of home, they are a clear point of connection between the past, present, and future. Note too how what Roimata hopes will be a new beginning also marks an ending—she returns home to discover a funeral underway.
Themes
In the morning, Roimata joins a bus of mourners who’ve come from far away to pay their respects. As they approach the wharenui, she realizes that the deceased is a member of Hemi’s immediate family. Inside, she sees that it is Hemi’s mother. Seamlessly, as if she hasn’t been gone for 12 long years, the rituals of mourning and loss slip Roimata back into the community where she spent so much of her childhood. She embraces Granny Tamihana and Mary. She notes a new generation of children and wonders if Hemi has married.
Note how the Māori traditions speak as clearly to Roimata as words might. One glance at where people are standing helps her to understand which family has lost someone, even before she sees the body waiting in the casket. Rituals and traditions provide continuity not only with the deep, cultural past, but with one’s personal history, too. See how easily Roimata slips back into place even though she’s been gone for many years, through the shared rituals.
Themes
It isn’t until Hemi’s mother has finally been buried that he and Roimata have a chance to speak. Roimata tells him she was already on her way back before she learned about the death. She considers the story of Rona, who was pulled into the sky the moon, and recognizes how easy it is to be pulled away when one isn’t rooted deeply enough. Hemi isn’t married, and in fact, before her return, he’d all but given up hope of finding a partner. He’s happy that she’s come back.
