Haunting and the (Im)possibility of Māori Gothic

Abstract

This chapter discusses the conditions of possibility for a media form that could be called ‘Māori Gothic’. It begins with the notion that Māori Gothic is an oxymoron because the embrace of departed spirits in Mātauranga Māori (knowledge of the Māori world) does not allow for the dread-filled manifestations of haunting on which the Gothic thrives. This position is interestingly complicated, however, by a number of recent art and media productions that have focused on Māori ghosts and ghostliness. Of these, the chapter offers an analysis of the 2009 New Zealand film The Strength of Water (dir. Armagan Ballantyne) The film interestingly represents haunting as a warm and even welcome experience while at the same time it feels like a Gothic film, suggesting that the Gothic affect of dread lies elsewhere than in the haunting. The chapter argues that understanding Māori Gothic on the basis of this film requires paying attention not to a ghost but rather to a taniwha, an occult figure that is sometimes terrifying but more often protective. The taniwha functions as a hinge between the interior Māori spirit world and the exterior Pākehā (settler) world, redistributing haunting in such a way that it becomes an effect of postcolonialism rather than an affect of Māori mythology.