Te tōrino haere whakamua,whakamuri: spiral storytelling,Cousins (2021),and Māori screen adaptations

Abstract

This article explores the 2021 film adaptation of Patricia Grace’s novel Cousins (1992) and the central role of te tōrino (spiral storytelling structure) in both works. Te tōrino reflects Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) understandings of time and life, premising non-linear, cyclical, and polyphonic narrative methodologies, and is employed by Grace in her novel. Grace-Smith and Gardiner’s adaptation notably retains this approach, and in doing so, the filmmakers follow the tradition of Fourth Cinema, using Māori principles to guide production, in contrast to mainstream cinema conventions. The Māori cinematic corpus contains eight literature-to-film adaptations, and yet, little research has been undertaken to understand the process or the influence of Māori storytelling histories. The retention of te tōrino in Cousins highlights potential implications for adaptation studies, particularly around the existence of a narrative core, the role of the author, and the application of Western theoretical frameworks on Māori adaptations.

Introduction

Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) have a long history of storytelling, which remains a central component of contemporary culture and knowledge production. Oral storytelling continues to influence contemporary Māori art forms, particularly in the intersection of literature and film: adaptation. Yet, little research has been committed to understanding the influence of oral storytelling on Māori novel-to-screen adaptations and the adaptation process. Conventional adaptation studies, shaped by scholars such as Linda Hutcheon, Robert Stam, Thomas Leitch, and Dennis Cutchins, have largely emerged from Western theoretical traditions rather than Indigenous or specifically Māori epistemologies. This research, by contrast, engages a Māori storytelling lens, centring Indigenous narrative traditions and epistemologies. In doing so, it broadens adaptation discourse and invites both Māori and non-Māori scholars to consider alternative narrative frameworks.

This paper will explore the use of te tōrino (spiral storytelling structure) in the novel Cousins (Grace, 1992) and the screen adaptation of the same name (Gardiner & Grace-Smith, 2021). Te tōrino reflects Māori epistemologies, particularly in understandings of life, time, and nature, and as such centres non-linear, cyclical, and polyphonic methodologies. Grace employs this structure in her novel, and it is notably retained, against prevailing industry standards, in the screen adaptation. The filmmakers emphasised the significance of this spiralling structure, highlighting its importance to the storytelling process and the film’s thematic depth. This article incorporates insights from published interviews with directors Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace-Smith to support this analysis, providing context on the adaptation process and reinforcing the ways in which te tōrino has been woven into the film.

The title of this article translates to at the same time the spiral goes forwards, it goes backwards. This saying speaks to not only the central elements of this spiral storytelling structure but also the paper’s central argument that Māori film adaptations continue the long history of Māori storytelling by spiralling out into new mediums and formats while also maintaining a connection to, what renowned Māori storyteller Witi Ihimaera refers to as, “the source” (Ihimaera et al., 1996, p. 17).

Te tōrino

As a culture steeped in oral tradition, storytelling was vital to Māori knowledge production, transference, and storage. Within storytelling, multiple frameworks, concepts, and strategies exist to structure traditions and reflect epistemologies. One such concept is te tōrino, which has long been present in Māori storytelling, as noted within and giving title to volume five of Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing (Ihimaera et al., 1996). While there is no fixed framework for this spiral storytelling concept, the presence of a spiralling motion in contemporary Māori literature has been referenced by many academics (D’Cruz, 2009; Della Valle, 2010; Ihimaera et al., 1996; Knudsen, 2004).

Building on this conceptualisation, this article draws out key elements of te tōrino as a storytelling structure, expanding on its connections to Māori epistemologies. Te tōrino can be read to reflect Māori understandings of time, life, and connections to nature, drawing upon natural patterns like the koru (new, unfurling fern frond). Māori understand time as non-linear, constantly moving in, out, and around itself, and life as cyclical, continually moving through phases, exemplified in the saying, te tōrino haere whakamua, whakamuri (at the same time the spiral goes forwards, it goes backwards). The image of the spiral visualises this by highlighting the simultaneous forward and backward movements and the three-dimensional nature of the spiral as representing movement through cycles. In resemblance to the koru, te tōrino also embodies the element of multiplicity. Like multiple smaller budding koru within the central frond, te tōrino suggests new and multiple beginnings, linking in with the centrality of collectives and communities within the Māori world. As a reflection of these epistemologies, a te tōrino structure can be characterised by non-linear, cyclical and polyphonic narrative methodologies, highlighting ideas of life and growth.

Cousins: 1992, 2021

The novel follows the lives of three cousins, Missy, Makareta and Mata, as they encounter one another and face challenges throughout their individual and collective lives. Written by Patricia Grace, the first Māori woman to publish a novel, Cousins explores the impacts of colonisation, whakapapa (genealogy, system of connection and relationality), and mana wāhine (power and authority specific to women) against a changing 20th century New Zealand backdrop. The novel intertwines the lives of these cousins as threads, each representing a moment in their lives, told through changing first and third-person narration in a non-linear structure. The polyphonic structure highlights the self-determining nature of the cousin’s stories. However, it does not isolate them, as they spiral in and out of each other’s lives and are ultimately intertwined through whakapapa and fate.

The adaptation notably maintains this spiralling approach against mainstream cinema conventions and industry pressure. The film was directed by Grace’s former daughter-in-law and screenwriter, Briar Grace-Smith, and veteran producer Ainsley Gardiner, both of whom had worked as directors and screenwriters on the film Waru [eight] (Cohen et al., 2017)—a feature film comprising eight vignettes, each written and directed by Māori women). Cousins stands out as a significant moment in Māori cinema as the first film to centralise a te tōrino structure, the first film directed by two Māori women, and the first feature film-length adaptation from Grace’s literary corpus, noting Te Moemoeā [the dream] (1989)—a television adaptation of a short story by the same name, for the series E Tipu E Rea [grow up tender young shoot] (1989)—a television series that explored Māori experiences in the 1980s in New Zealand.

Non-linear and socio-centric

As mentioned, one of the critical elements of te tōrino is the non-linear aspect, reflected as fluid movement through time and space without explicitly signalling shifts (Lee, 2009). For Māori, time does not move forward in a straight line but instead, as Grace notes, the “past and future [circle and spiral], so that it all becomes part of the present” (Sarti, 1998, p. 49). This can be understood through concepts such as whakapapa, in which Māori believe they are born of their ancestors yet are also reconfigured within them and holding their future descendants within them through “the spirit’s extension across generations” (D’Cruz, 2009, p. 461). Furthermore, Lo and Houkamau (2012) argue that in Māori society, time is driven by the “natural flow of things” or socio-time (p. 108). This is held in contrast to structured clock-time, cut off from social systems or linear progression time, driven by action or movement, which operates within Western structures and dominates mainstream Hollywood productions as the prevailing understanding of time (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010; Lo & Houkamau, 2012). In how Cousins imagines time, through te tōrino, a distinct Māori epistemology appears.

Personal time and historical time

Grace’s novel presents a socio-centric approach to time, primarily seen through the lack of time or date-stamping of action. In the novel, “personal time” is prioritised over “historical time” in that the character’s experiences of events and life are accentuated over detailed descriptions of time (D’Cruz, 2009, p. 460). Grace does not emphasise dates with the use of date stamps or structured time by noting movement, both of which are a common practice in epic novels that span extended periods (Puckett, 2016). Instead, the novel removes any specific present-time markers, reflecting time as socio-centric and personal. This way, time is understood through individual and collective experiences, such as births, deaths, or aging. The novel intertwines historical time by incorporating landmark events from Māori collective consciousness, such as the farewelling of the 28th Māori Battalion or the 1975 Land March. Although these references have noted historical temporality, they are positioned as primarily being understood through character development, for example, in understanding Bobby’s trauma or Makareta’s political conscientisation. As such, historical time becomes defined by and experienced through the personal and collective.

The film maintains this socio-centric approach in choosing not to use any temporal stamps. However, unlike literature, film has the added contextual arrangement of visuality and must engage with visual temporal and spatial realities. Although visual elements might signify the movement of time, the film does not centralise the idea of linear, structured time—time remains woven into the fabric of the world through the characters. For example, Makareta’s political conscientisation is visualised using décor with Che Guevara posters, costuming with mod-style clothing, and spatial realities in the tertiary-coded settings. In engaging with the narrative’s historical time, the film does update its temporal boundaries. The film extends into the 21st century to incorporate modern realities, including updating the 1975 Land March to the 2004 Seabed and Foreshore Hīkoi. The filmmakers’ non-literal translation here remains truthful to the wairua (spirit, soul, essence) of Grace’s novel, which is its cultural and social authenticity in building the narrative’s movement of time as intertwining landmark individual and collective experiences.

Temporal fluidity and the present

Māori understandings of time are also reflected within the temporal structuring of the novel and the film, with each period embodied as the present. The novel achieves this by removing past tense descriptions and time stamping to highlight a temporal or structured shift to audiences. This contrasts with many epic novels in which dates signify the movement of time or past tense descriptors are employed to alert audiences to the temporal period of the central narrator or character. Instead, in Cousins, movement through time is not signified or is made vaguely.

The film maintains this, presenting each temporal reality as the present. Filmmakers jump between temporal periods constantly, and the film’s culmination is born by spiralling in and out of multiple temporal spaces in no chronological order. There is no clear past, present, or future; they exist simultaneously. The film crosscuts three major periods in the characters’ lives and includes one more from Mata’s earlier childhood. This use of crosscutting allows audiences to enter into Māori time, in which all storylines or temporal periods are happening concurrently. The non-linear approach shows that intertwining individual and collective experience, not chronological time, determines the movement between temporal periods. This temporal fluidity is likened to whaikōrero (speechmaking), in which the progression of the speech is determined by kaupapa (issue, point), and to make that point or service the kaupapa, the kaiwhaikōrero (orator) will draw upon events, people, and narratives from across time. The ability to spiral through time and make present the past or future is considered a valued skill (McRae, 2017). This was noted by the filmmakers, who referred to the book “as an experience . . . [similar] to whaikōrero; [that] the speaker . . . must jump between past, present, and future before coming to a conclusion” (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 20). Maintaining this style was considered central to the adaptation, that a linear film “simply wouldn’t have worked,” as the “spirit” of the film is “non-linear” (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 20). Here, the filmmakers argue that the spirit is the presence of a non-linear methodology and that the essence of Cousins is about spiralling forward and backward simultaneously. The filmmakers used the term “spiral storytelling” in that the movements through time are connected and seen as fluid and natural, as opposed to fractured (Santos, 2021, para. 24). The novel and film saw central narratives built through emotions and experiences occurring across different temporal realities; the climax or conclusion of the narrative was not found in making sense of the present but in weaving the different temporal narrative threads together.

The spiralling non-linear approach was noted as contentious, as it markedly deviated from mainstream cinema conventions. Filmmakers mentioned there was “push-back,” and although they do not name names, it is clear that it was industry pressure concerned about a film style that popular audiences were not used to and which was assumed would require an uncomfortably high level of engagement (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 22). To alleviate any potential confusion, the filmmakers were “encouraged” to use time and location stamps to contextualise and situate different temporal periods (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 25). This pressure highlights that industry concern over audience understanding was driven by economic motives—the te tōrino structure being deemed potentially less financially sound than conventional Western ones. The wāhine Māori (Māori women) filmmakers instead chose to prioritise the core of the narrative, validating Māori storytelling methodologies and epistemologies and highlighting that a shift into a Western medium does not necessitate a shift into Western narrative structures.

Cyclicality

The idea of cyclicality, understanding time and life as constantly moving through never-ending cycles, is a central element of Māori epistemologies and is reflected in te tōrino. The conceptualisation of cyclicality is evident within understandings of life, as seen in the Māori creation traditions, and death, moving to the next realm. The use of the term cycle, being associated with the spiral, crucially emphasises the “open-ended possibilities associated with the [shape]” and contrasts the closed-loop connotations embedded in shapes such as the circle (D’Cruz, 2009, p. 459). This open-ended reality contrasts with linear progression and instead reflects storytelling methodologies of unfurling narratives, connecting back to the koru and its multiple unfurling spiral-shaped fronds, symbolising both perpetual movement and growth.

Unfurling beginnings

As a narrative, Cousins realises this in how the story unfurls into and around itself, spiralling back to multiple beginnings. This narrative style sees cyclicality as prioritising multiple and open-ended possibilities, unlike mainstream Western structures in which narratives find linear endings and singular resolutions within their temporal reality (Cutting, 2016). These endless possibilities and beginnings are made possible by interweaving the non-linear nature of te tōrino, in which events from the past unfurl to find new meanings in the present and the future and vice versa.

This is most clearly seen with Makareta’s death. The progression of the cousins through connection and disconnection moves nearer to the finality of Makareta’s death. However, her death does not act as an ending or a resolution to the narrative but represents a series of new beginnings. Her death is brought on, on a micro-scale, by disease and the movement of time, but on a macro-scale by the finding of Mata. Her narrative push to find Mata results in her fulfilling her promise, allowing her to find spiritual and emotional rest. Her death is, therefore, a beginning; she can move on. For Māori, death does not represent an ending but is understood as marking movement to the next phase. At death, Māori are welcomed by Hine-nui-te-pō (female deity associated with death) to return to their ancestors in Hawaiki (the ancient homeland of Māori). This embeds the idea of beginnings but also reinforces the notion of the cycle, as in this journey, Māori return to the homeland from whence we came. This understanding echoes how Makareta’s ancestors come to her in death. As a matakite (a person who holds second sight), Mata witnesses her dead grandmother, Kui Hinemate, “stood with her hands in front of her, palms upwards,” alongside their other ancestors, beckoning Makareta to her next journey (Grace, 1992, p. 247).

Makareta’s death, as an unfurled beginning, remains in the film, although it has an added visuality as required in the medium. The film must engage with the reality of visualising the dead and, in doing so, upholds another crucial aspect of the Māori world. As repeated throughout this article, the veil between the realm of the dead and living is thin, and Māori believe that ancestors walk with us. The film validates this by depicting the dead Kui Hinemate as physically present. There is no change in colour tint, diffused glow, depth of focus, or any technique commonly used to insinuate memory or living dead; Kui Hinemate occupies the same space as the living. As discussed by Walker-Morrison (2020), this validation of Māori spiritual realities can be understood as Indigenous spiritual realism, countering the notion of the “fantastical” embedded within discourses such as magical realism (p. 124). In this way, the film upholds Māori conceptualisations of time and death. It extends upon the novel’s capacity to depict, without drawing attention to, these complex temporal and spatial realities with visceral realism (Lee, 2009).

Makareta’s death also offers Mata and Missy new beginnings. For Mata, it provides a beginning in returning home, not just for a temporary period, and for Missy, to start a new cycle of reconnection. This is realised in Mata’s journey back, where she reminisces on the “place that had been in [her] mind for many years” (Grace, 1992, p. 252). In returning to her land, she realises the cyclicality of her life. Like Makareta, this next phase is acknowledged by the appearance of Mata’s mother and Kui Hinemate, who greet her on her homecoming. This cycle of reunion and connection is echoed in Missy, who takes Mata to sit on the other side of Makareta. This reunion prompts the novel’s end but not narrative possibilities. Upon sitting down with Makareta and Missy, Mata reflects on no longer seeing her mother and Kui Hinemate but notes that even though she could not see them, she knew she “would see them again” (Grace, 1992, p. 256). In this, the novel ends with a new, unfurling beginning, leaving open possibilities of new phases within the human and spiritual realms.

Continuing possibilities

This sense of endless beginnings is echoed in the adaptation, retaining the cyclical and open-ended spiral structure. The film maintains the beginnings of Makareta’s death but extends the narrative past Mata and Makareta’s homecoming, spiralling back to a previous scene not present in the novel.

Kui Hinemate’s closing off-screen narration acts as a sound bridge from the tangihanga (rites for the dead) to cut back to the scene from the childhood of the cousins swimming in their stream. In the safety of her cousins, Mata feels brave enough to put her head under the water, where she sees ribbons of red and blue nestled among green river reeds; what she understands is the taniwha (supernatural water-based creatures) mentioned throughout the film by her cousins. Taniwha act as signifiers of danger. Often considered dangerous themselves, they warn humans of water-based dangers and are, therefore, also symbols of cultural knowledge and spiritual protection. An implicit reading would suggest that the taniwha symbolises the importance and healing found in connection to whānau (extended family) and culture.

This inventive cinematographic extension expands on the thematic and structural elements of cyclicality inherent in Grace’s ending through the introduced visual metaphor of the taniwha. Returning to this earlier scene of the children swimming, the film extends it by adding the image of the taniwha, allowing the scene to unfurl further. Earlier in the film, this moment is laced with uncertainty and fear for Mata, representing the danger and fear associated with taniwha. In return, the narrative unfurls, and we see Mata overcoming her fear and putting her head under the water. Mata exclaims, “I saw it,” beaming to her cousins, and the rest of the scene plays out with feelings of joy and wonderment (Gardiner & Grace-Smith, 2021, 1:31:55). Mata’s vision of the taniwha echoes her sense of place and connection, signifying the dual aspect of safety and protection associated with the taniwha. These new feelings echo those found in their adult reunion. The unfurling of this scene invites the understanding that the existence of these past moments in the present can inspire new meanings about the future. As the cousins cycle back to their childhood, their childhood becomes their future.

This cyclicality is also seen in Kui Hinemate’s voice-over. Her narration echoes that which opens the film, however, with slightly different dialogue emphasising a different reading of their lives. As the beginning emphasises disconnection, the ending emphasises reconnection. Here, the narrative does not march towards a singular resolution but offers many different co-existing narratives. In D’Cruz’s (2009) work on the novel Cousins, she refers to the “many-stranded circle” as a mode of circulation in a spiral, in which many “opposing strands approach each other without merging” (p. 459). Pulling on this analysis, one can see the cousins as individual strands spiralling out through disconnection and back together in reunion and connection. As such, the film does not offer closure by simply circling back to the same beginning in mirrored narration. Instead, it cycles upwards and outwards, filled with new growth from their journeys, reminding audiences of the new possibilities that unfurl past the bounds of the film. This extension of potentiality echoes the sense of possibility also alluded to in Grace’s ending.

Polyphony

Another critical aspect of Māori storytelling is the centrality of collectives and the concept of co-existing realities, which is reflected in te tōrino through a polyphonic structure. Māori society operates in a collective reality in which individuals are understood as important in their own right while making up and working for the collective. However, unlike Marxist collectivism, Māori collectivism is not premised on materialism and effacing individual agency but on kin-based unity with land and intertwined spiritual realities. At its core, the narrative of Cousins is polyphonic in that it equally follows the narratives of three different characters (Bruns, 2008). Here, this reading diverts from the simple definition of multi-voiced to include multi-levelness, which understands a precondition of not only many, equal voices but also holding “relative independence” (Bruns, 2008, p. 190). This sees that characters remain independent, occupying their self-determining narrative and do not all subscribe to the same authorial worldview. Although these character strands exist separately, they must be read together, as the title and structure of the novel suggest. As understood by a te ao Māori (Māori worldview), these individual strands exist as inseparable parts of a whole: being cousins bound together by whanaungatanga (relationship principle) and whakapapa.

Furthermore, Cousins extends simple definitions of polyphony to include many equal voices representing different realities, multiple temporal periods, multiple realms, and smaller unfurling narratives. Here, polyphony interweaves with non-linear and cyclical storytelling to extend Western understandings of polyphony to include a complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional, multi-temporal, polyphonic structure. This spiralling structure further emphasises the possible coherency of multiple narratives occurring simultaneously as a metaphoric representation of whakapapa (D’Cruz, 2009). This is realised through the conceptualisations of time and life embedded in te tōrino; reading these narratives together can occur because of how te tōrino spirals through characters, space, and time. In this way, Māori polyphony is interwoven with non-linear and cyclical realities and, as understood in the works of pioneering Māori filmmakers Barry Barclay and Merata Mita, represents an authentic approach to representing Māori realities and stories on screen (Barclay, 2015).

Page-to-screen translation

The ability to depict these complex layers within the different mediums of literature and film can be understood through the availability of tracks (Stam, 2005, 2019). Literature, with its single track, the written word, differs from film’s “at least five tracks: moving photographic image, phonetic sound, music, noise,” as well as the written word, with which cinema must engage (Stam, 2019, p. 81). The availability of tracks understands literature as having a noted strength in depicting characters’ interiority, whereas cinema has a noted strength in visual and aural corporeality. With the shift to the medium of film, many of literature’s techniques, such as internal monologues or stream of semi-consciousness, are not directly available or, more accurately, appropriate in a realism mode. However, the Cousins adaptation compensates for this by taking a non-literal translation approach and relying on the gains available via multiple tracks.

One area that could have been complicated in visualising the polyphonic nature of this narrative on-screen could have been depicting the move between three characters across multiple temporal periods. In the novel, chapter titles with character names and internal monologues are employed to alert readers to any shifts in whose story is being told. The film could have reprised this technique by using character title stamps, but instead, the filmmakers relied on a more physical and symbolic approach, emphasising existing visual elements and introducing new symbolic visual components.

Visual symbolism and metaphors

Within existing elements, the filmmakers emphasised noted physical attributes from the novel to create visual threads throughout temporal movements. This is seen particularly in the visualisation of the character’s hair, in which the film amplifies the visual importance of the three distinct hairstyles of the characters from the novel, aiding in building character recognition and expanding upon existing thematic relevance. In the case of Mata, her short, frizzy, dark hair becomes a visual signifier across the temporal periods, as well as reproducing thematic elements relevant to her character, such as her feelings of abandonment, a lack of care, and being negatively othered.

The film also introduces a new visual symbolism through colour association. Each character is linked with a specific colour palette from the film’s opening images, which then comes to dominate their presence on screen. This allows the filmmakers to develop existing thematic materials from the novel and create more visual motifs for the characters, compensating for internal monologue in the novel. Makareta is associated with blue, Mata with green, and Missy with red. For Missy, red can be read as visualising her fiery, down-to-earth, hardworking nature and acknowledging her position as ahikāroa (maintaining fires of occupation). The colour can also be seen to build a symbolic association with deities such as Papatūānuku (Earth mother) and Hine-ahu-one (the first woman, made from red clay). This symbolic association reinforces Missy’s connection to female gods and their role as progenitors, compensating for Grace’s poetic allusions to these deities in the opening of Missy’s first section chapters. A similar reading can be done for Mata, seeing green as related to renewal and growth, and Makareta, seeing blue as expressing notions of serenity and wisdom, both of which speak to narrative and thematic elements of their stories.

This medium shift gain of the visual track also allows filmmakers to expand upon thematic elements as visual metaphors, particularly with the taniwha. As noted earlier, adding the taniwha works to reconceptualise the novel’s thematic position of seeing whakapapa and connection to culture as healing. The final realisation of the taniwha, as streams of red, reflecting Missy, and blue, reflecting Makareta, ribbons nestled among green, Mata, river reeds, with the added musical accompaniment of soft, melodic violin and piano, adds a level of physical corporeality to the thematic elements. Audiences see, hear, and feel the atmosphere of peacefulness and hopefulness inspired by the cousins’ past present reunion. With these medium gains, the adaptation embodies Grace’s novel in a way that is unavailable in literature.

Implications for adaptation studies

In looking at the whakapapa and realisation of the film adaptation of Cousins, some interesting discourses arise concerning understanding Māori adaptations and how contemporary mediums and artworks engage in traditional storytelling concepts. Particularly in understanding the notion of narrative cores, the position of the literary author and filmmaker as auteur, and the importance of socio-cultural specificity.

The core and the source

In adaptation studies, there is a broad dismissal of the notion of the “essence,” “spirit,” or “kernel of meaning” within a narrative and a claim that all readings of texts are subjective, developed through webs of trans- or intertextual messaging (Cutchins, 2017; Stam, 2005, p. 15). Influenced by Bakhtin’s ideas of literary language and dialogue, which understands that texts are negotiated by a multiplicity of influences, prevailing adaptation discourses see there exists a gap “between language and expressive material,” and as such, “words (or any other texts) can never mean exactly what a speaker intends” (Bakhtin & Holquist, 1981; Cutchins, 2017, p. 73). As such, notions such as fidelity are impossible, as “there is no such transferable core” or absolute reading of a text, regardless of authorial intention (Stam, 2005, p. 15). However, in the adaptation of Cousins, there is a clear acknowledgement of the spirit of the narrative, argued in this article as te tōrino, and the importance of Grace as the author.

The idea of there being a core, or, more aptly termed in Māori, wairua of a narrative replicates Māori notions of storytelling, particularly pūrākau (traditional narrative form). It is understood that the purpose of pūrākau is to hold “philosophical thought, epistemological constructs, cultural codes, and worldviews that are fundamental to our identity as Māori” (Lee, 2009, p. 1). This understanding is underscored by the reality of the Māori world being an oral culture, in which narratives existed not only as an art form but also as a way of storing and transferring knowledge across generations. These narratives are told in many ways, changing across time, space, and speaker; there is no singular version. However, these narratives do not exist in a vacuum; they are bound to their role as vessels of knowledge, and as such, maintaining the core embedded within is fundamental to every retelling (Ihimaera & Hereaka, 2019; McRae, 2017). The knowledge embedded within is considered taonga tuku iho (treasures passed down from ancestors) and, therefore, is a crucial element to be considered by contemporary ages. Realising this within the adaptation was central to the filmmakers’ intention, that it “is really important . . . to capture the spirit” (Newall, 2021, para. 10).

In the case of Cousins, the filmmakers acknowledged the spirit of the film was te tōrino. Throughout the film’s marketing, the filmmakers addressed and acknowledged the core as centring the text’s non-linear, cyclical, and polyphonic elements (Newall, 2021; Tuiburelevu, 2021). As this structure exists not only as an artistic or aesthetic endeavour but also as speaking to and validating Māori epistemologies and realities, it acts as a central core to the narrative. In this way, the wairua of Cousins represents a spiralling back to the source. In speaking of contemporary Māori authors and, broadly, artists, Ihimaera (1996) discusses how artists spiral out towards new genres and forms, particularly ones from the West, but “constantly return to the source” (p. 17). The source is representative of not superficial or tokenistic features, which would tend towards issues of essentialism, but Māori knowledge, values, history, and culture. This spiralling is reflected in the whakataukī (proverb), kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua (walking backwards into the future). In Cousins, this spiralling backward to ancient sources was noted by Gardiner, that working with this spiral storytelling structure allowed her to move past industry norms and “look at storytelling from a completely new-old [emphasis added] point of view” (Newall, 2021, para. 25).

Authorship

This notion of core and source does not undermine the position or role of the author in the adaptation of Cousins. During interviews surrounding the domestic release, filmmakers frequently referenced Grace, emphasising the “importan[ce]” of maintaining “the initial feeling Patricia ignited” and the corresponding sense of responsibility (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 18). There is a level of acknowledged reverence for the author. However, this reverence does not entirely correspond to ideas like auteur theory, which elevates the artist as the central or sole creative authority but instead acknowledges the artist’s position as a māngai (mouthpiece). As a collective society, Māori artists represent not just individual realities but also communal ones and, therefore, hold a much broader sense of the role of the author. As Barclay (2015) discussed, representing one’s culture is “a right and responsibility” and crucial to maintaining Indigenous cultures (p. 7). Thus, the adaptation studies discourse around dismissing the author and authorial intent in favour of reader response, as championed by Boyum (1985) and resonant with Barthes’ (2008) seminal work The Death of the Author (1968), then diminishes the author’s mana (inherent power and authority) and their responsibility to their community.

Furthermore, there is an inclination in adaptation studies to centralise the notion of the individual, premising that art is created, adapted, and consumed by the individual. This does not recognise the Indigenous experience in which culture and meaning-making are understood as collective processes. For Māori, art is often made collectively or on behalf of and received collectively; therefore, meaning is created collectively. In the case of Cousins, there were two directors and a flat hierarchy of all cast and crew, representing a collaborative community process “akin to working in a marae [traditional community centres]” (Tuiburelevu, 2021, para. 43). This aligns with Fourth Cinema production contexts in which principles of collectivity and whanaungatanga are upheld (Barclay, 2015).

Dismissing the author is also not necessarily appropriate for Māori adaptations due to the importance of whakapapa. In te ao Māori, understanding the whakapapa of a phenomenon, here narrative, is crucial. As such, acknowledging Grace, the many hands who previously wrote screenplays, including Mita, and the involvement of the Grace whānau was central to the adaptation (Newall, 2021; Tuiburelevu, 2021). This whakapapa approach acknowledges the contribution of all preceding influences, which in the specific realm of narratives, as discussed by Mita, recognises that narratives “keep changing . . . getting more and more truthful” (Mita et al., 1983, p. 31). One can also apply the broader spiralling metaphor Ihimaera discusses, in which storytelling and narratives can spiral, through many hands or cycles, backwards towards the source and forwards into new mediums and formats. As such, the inclination towards attempting to free adaptations from their source text or author is not necessarily appropriate when considering Māori adaptations or storytelling.

The politics of Māori and Indigenous adaptation

All the points of this discussion around the adaptation of Cousins allude to or demand a recognition of the politics of Māori storytelling. For Māori, an Indigenous Peoples living in a settler state, every undertaking that upholds our culture and worldview is a political act; as Grace-Smith notes, “[a]n Indigenous story is inherently cultural, social, political” (Muru-Lanning, 2021, para. 11). Māori storytelling has been impacted by colonialism and, as such, has to engage in concerns of cultural fidelity and the politics of representation. This recognition needs to be central in understanding Māori adaptations not only in the evaluation of the text and process but also in how one applies academic discourses to examine it. Some scholars of adaptation studies, particularly those in African and transcultural adaptation, acknowledge the reality of politics and power within non-Western adaptations (Cham, 2005; Stam, 2019). However, there must be an appreciation and awareness that for Māori, adaptation does not only evolve out of the history of literature and cinema, which have been used as tools of colonialism and therefore require informed examination, but also out of distinct storytelling and epistemological realities. Without acknowledging these socio-cultural, political, and historical realities, one could misread and mis-contextualise the text and process of Māori adaptation.

This political reality is true for other Indigenous groups globally, and many of the issues surrounding adaptation studies and Western-informed discourses discussed in this article will apply to other Indigenous adaptations. However, as this article acknowledges the distinctiveness of Māori cultural realities, it is appropriate that culturally specific and relevant adaptation studies are partaken by and for other distinct Indigenous groups. Parallel research by other Indigenous researchers would be welcomed and would add to the budding field of Indigenous adaptation studies.

Conclusions

The adaptation Cousins understands that the screen can be a space of sovereign expression, where Māori can produce films guided by our culture’s values and reflect, in totality, our knowledge, experiences, and realities (Barclay, 2015). The film does not centralise dominant Western narrative methodologies but foregrounds Māori narrative methodologies, philosophies and epistemologies. The fact that the te tōrino structure is retained in the film adaptation, as it goes against the prevailing Western storytelling and film conventions, is notable. Not only is it maintained, but it is expanded with the use of cinema’s additional tracks, highlighting how the film can offer new ways to actualise the “fluid movement between time and space” (Lee, 2009, p. 4). In engaging with the source while spiralling out into new forms, Grace-Smith and Gardiner follow the Fourth Cinema tradition. As Mita (2000) said, the use of film in this way works to “re-enforce [our] identity, build [our] self-worth and self-esteem, and empower [us] with knowledge” (p. 8). This act disrupts the colonial gaze and works to further the project of decolonisation.

In recognising this, one can see that Māori adaptation stands distinct from Western adaptations. As such, there needs to be careful consideration in applying, with broad strokes, the discourses of adaptation studies, as many of them are not necessarily fit for purpose in a Māori context. This article suggests that any engagement, analysis, evaluation or research on Māori and Indigenous adaptations must be done with cultural specificity, not only in content or process, but particularly in applying theoretical constructs that embed Western assumptions about art, literature, and cinema.