AOQU (Dec 2020)
Tupaia: Palingenesis of a Polynesian Epic Hero
Abstract
Polynesian navigator Tupaia boarded Captain Cook’s Endeavour in Tahiti in 1769, becoming a cultural intermediary and interpreter during the first encounters with the Māori people in Aotearoa. What we know of Tupaia is gathered by several accounts by members of the British expedition, but no Māori or other Polynesian sources have survived after Tupaia’s death in 1770. As part of New Zealand’s “Tuia 250” commemoration in 2019, Tupaia’s story was retold by poet Courtney Sina Meredith and illustrator Mat Tait in The Adventures of Tupaia, a graphic novel which combines historical facts and anecdotes with fictional interpretations of some aspects of Tupaia’s life. In the same year, director Lala Rolls was finishing producing another major artistic work reinterpreting Tupaia’s story, 2020 documentary Tupaia’s Endeavour. This research argues that these creative works are signs that we are now witnessing to Tupaia’s palingenesis as a Polynesian epic hero and it attempts to construct Tupaia’s heroic identity by looking at shared themes between the graphic novel and the film.
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