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28. The Stories
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
The last story belongs to Toko, who tells it from beyond death. The night he dies, he says, is a night as full of stars as the long-ago night of the big fish. He wakes up and realizes that Manu is not in their room, so he goes out in his wheelchair to look for him in the wharenui. Toko goes slowly to avoid straining his enlarged heart. As he backs up the ramp, the dark figure of a stranger slips through his door and out into the darkness. Toko stops and listens but only hears usual noises: Mary ambling up the path after him, Manu having a nightmare.
In giving the last chapter to Toko, the book cements his position as an important storyteller and story-keeper in his community. It also reinforces the idea expressed throughout by Roimata, Granny Tamihana, and others, that there is a thin line between the living and the dead. Toko still considers himself a member of his community and his spirit hasn’t left even if he’s now dead. Importantly, he found himself in the wharenui on the night of his death out of love and concern for Manu. Despite the difficulties he has moving himself, due to his disabilities and his declining health, he still finds ways to be there for the people he loves.
Active
Themes
But as he approaches the door, Manu cries out “There’s fire. And it’s real.” Then Toko hears something burst. Manu screams, and Toko rushes through the door, which has become the doorway of death. Now, from the other side, Toko watches his people as they work the gardens, fish the sea, and stand on the shore. As they listen, they wonder what the future will hold. They can’t hear what it will bring, but Toko can. He sees logs being rolled into place as barricades, stones being taken up. He hears the tekoteko (the ancestors) closing ranks with the people. Toko’s final words are a poem in the Māori language.
