Manawa Hine

Description

Title: Manawa Hine: He wāhine i tohe ki te tai (Women who swam against the tide)
Author: Kuini Rikihana
Illustrations: Sarah Wairau
Te Reo Maori translation: Hēni Jacob
Publisher: Te Tākupu, Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Ōtaki, 2020
Format: Paperback, illustrated, bilingual (te reo Māori and English)
Condition: Very Good

Description:

Four women. Four seas. Four times they refused.

Manawa Hine is a bilingual collection of stories about tupuna wahine — ancestral Māori women whose feats have been carried in oral tradition for generations and who deserve to be known by name.

Kahe Te Rau o te Rangi swims a treacherous channel in the dark of night to save her people, with her baby strapped to her back. Hinepoupou, left for dead by her abusive husband, sets out on a long-distance swim home guided by her dolphin ancestors and fuelled by thoughts of revenge. Hūria Mātenga battles through raging seas to pull sailors from a sinking ship — a real woman, a documented act, recognised by Queen Victoria herself. Pānia of the Moana turns the tables on her husband, refusing to let him own her.

These are not invented heroines. They are remembered ones. Kuini Rikihana — journalist, writer of Ngati Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Āti Awa ki Waikanae and Ngāti Toarangatira — has given them written form for a new generation, in te reo Māori and English together, with illustrations by Sarah Wairau and translation by Hēni Jacob.

Published by Te Tākupu, the press of Te Wānanga o Raukawa in Ōtaki, this is Māori storytelling published on Māori terms, from the community the stories belong to.

Why We Stock It:

These women existed. Some of them swam distances that would challenge a trained athlete in ideal conditions, through open ocean, in the dark. The stories have survived colonisation, and deserve to be on shelves where people can find them.