What is a Moko?

Moko is the name for Māori tattoo and the culture that surrounds it.

Often the designs are tattooed in the face for different purposes

and with a wide range of applications which are sacred.Every moko

contains ancestral and tribal messages specific to the wearer. These

messages tell the story of the wearer's family and tribal affiliations,

and their place in these social structures.

'Tattoo' is the English version of the Tahitian word tatu. Tattoo is the

tradition of marking the skin with ink and needles, whereas moko is

the practice of scarring and marking the skin to reflect the whakapapa (genealogy) of the Māori.




Do moko symbols have a meaning?

All symbols have meaning, usually a tribal link that tells the background and stories of the wearer. Moko is a visual language that connects the wearer to their whakapapa and its values.


Why do people get moko?

A moko on the face is the ultimate statement of one's identity .For Māoris,

the head is believed to be the most sacred part of the body Therefore

to wear the moko on the face is an affirmation of the Māori identity,of who they are.


Is it only for men ?

Mokos are not just for men, also women wear moko on the face too. A

woman's moko is worn on the chin, as well as occasionally appearing on the

forehead, upper lip, nostrils, and throat. Sometimes facial moko is unfairly seen as intimidating, regardless of the wearer's intentions, but this can depend on the expression of the face of the wearer. The lines of a moko accentuate the lines of the face so emphasise the expressions that the person have.In this way the person looks like a warrior.

For what reasons people get tattoos?

Part-time Indian?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an autobiographical book written by Alexie Sherman in 2007. The book is about a child, whose name is Arnold Spirit, as well as known Junior, he lives in the Spokane Indian Reservation.

Because of some events that take place during the book, he wants to move from the School Reservation to a public high school located in Reardan, Washington.

The book has a lot of themes in which we can focus on more, but the one that I want to highlight is race and how is it developed in the novel. 

When Arnold decided to move from the school reservation to the all-white public high school, and he starts to travel every day he said something that totally called my attention, “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger, I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other, it was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job” (Sherman, 2007).  Here we can see that Arnold’s point of view is in controversy, because he feels himself stranger in both places, in the reservation and in Reardan, I personally believe that his identity is changing every day, because he has to fight against bullying in the reservation, poverty, alcoholism, poor education, the lack of opportunities and on the other hand in Reardan he has to fight against stereotypes (he as an Indian boy, his talents, etc.)

According to the fact that I decided to talk about, this novel stereotypes a lot about how a white person looks like and how an Indian does. For instance the fact that is highly evident about race is the sport mascot of the Reardan School; Junior realizes that he and the mascot were the only Indians at school, and for me that was an image that we can infer from the message of racism, despite that, Junior has the power, the character, the strength to make friends with white boys from the new school, highlighting his intelligence and his naïve nature.  

All in all, the novel calls my attention in a lot of terms, the way Alexie developed bullying through cartoons, the alcoholism that were immerse in the reservation, the desire to become someone important in life, how some minimum details became some important facts during the novel, for instance when Junior hit the professor and the discovery of junior mother’s book, the novel starts to play the game, they are the most important events in the novel.

What about if Alexie had not move from the reservation to Reardan? ... Interesting...

WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...

So yes, we've been working with this book called "The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian". Haven't you read it yet? Well, let me tell you that you should -or you could watch the movie as well: Film Adaptation (trailer)

Junior, the main character, is an indian teen who was born with "water on his brain". He lives in a reservation (the rez) despised by americans, plus he's an ill guy so he's despised by his peers, too.

You see, it's not only what happens to the main character -because of who he is or where he is from- what makes this book so cool (to me), but the way the book is written, I mean the words, the metaphors and the writer's way of thinking... Yes, I find him pretty clever.

I'd like to analize the chapter called "Hope against Hope", because I believe is pretty much one of the most moving chapters of the book.

In his geometry class, Junior found out that the book that he was learning from is the same book that his mother did learn from about 30 years ago. He had realized they were helpless and he felt so angry about it that he threw the book away and it hit his teacher, Mr. P, breaking his nose.

After that Mr. P decided to have this very important conversation with Junior, which helped him make the biggest decision of his life: to finally leave the rez.

It's really moving the way Mr. P talks to Junior, he was like confessing his sins to the kid and you could feel he was truly sorry for what he had done in the past; he hurt physically and mentally, the indian kids back then, until they gave up their culture. He killed their culture, but he didn't want to do it anymore.

Mr. P saw a glow in Junior that no other kid in the rez had, he believed that Junior had thrown that book away because he still had hope, like a sign that he was refusing to give up while his classmates and all the people in the rez had already given up. Mr. P knew that Junior deserved better and that's why he tells him that the only way for him to keep his hope is leaving the reservation.

What we see in this chapter is completly heartbreaking, I mean, does you're culture defines your worth? So, because you're indian (and not NORTHamerican) you're worthless? It's really sad the fact that you have to walk away from you're "home" (or the place you were born in) to somewhere else so you can find a better life. A life that you could've perfectly had there if they had respected you, your culture and your hope, if they had helped you to keep those things.

People don't respect anything or anybody they consider less than them, and the truth is that they consider EVERYthing and EVERYbody less than them - and when I mean people, I include us as well... "Who is without sin, cast the first stone", anyone?...

The Legend of Paikea

The Legend of Paikea

The Maori are an indigenous people from New Zealand. They came to this place it does more than 1000 years from their mythical natal land Hawaiki's polynesia.

Nowadays the people maori represents 14% of the population; their history, language and traditions are very important for identity of this country.

Their cultural representations as songs, dances and haka (dancing of ancestral war) are very interesting, but what caught my attention was The Legend of Paikea, Whale Rider, who arrived from the sea mounted in a mother-whale to create the land of people maori, and to teach traditions and sacred rituals for that the people to remain united and to respect mother Nature.

In the film that we saw, Whale Rider, was reflected as Maori try to keep their customs in modern times. In this history a girl named Paikea, fight for comply her destiny, to be a leader for her people. But this is overshadowed by the desire of her grandfather Koro, because he hoped to have a grandson to inherit the title of leader.

Throughout the film we see that such a title is forbidden for women to, however this does not stop Paikea in continuing her learning behind her grandfather, demonstrating great courage and bravery for wanting to preserve her roots.

The film so much  as New Zealand´s traditions teach us much about how our culture must to be, because today most Chilean don´t know, nor care to learn from their ancestors or roots, in this case the Mapuche are a mainstay essential to the beginnings of our history as a country.

I hope this actually change, because for to grow as a country, it is extremely important to preserve traditions, but adjusting to the present.

Here I leave a link , about Paikea's history, I hope that they enjoy it!! http://activitiesnow.com/wwmagazine/Christchurch/pages/page_50.pdf

The Black Panther Party for Self Defense

This time I will talk about the BPP because for me, they were very interesting for the reason that I still don’t know if they are good or bad people, I mean, obviously they were good with their owns and because they fought for their rights, they were human beings like everyone, but discriminated by their skin color, so if you look at them by that point of view, they were really good GOOD people, but at the same time, THEY KILLED PEOPLE because they thought that was the only way to do things.

The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary organization founded by P. Newton in 1966 and he had a very solid vision for this “the vision of the Black Panther Party was to serve the needs of the oppressed people in our communities and defend them against their oppressors.”  And it was inspired by Malcolm X in the use of violence, because violence was the only language that white racist understood.

The Black Panther did really good things, they opened school for black people of poor neighborhoods, because they want their children go to school because they wanted that they have a good life, were the “white people” respected them. They have food and clothes on black churches, because for them hunger was one of the means for oppression and that must be helped.

But after all this, they always acted with violence! They just killed people and with that, they just brought more death and nothing changed.

If a have been there, I don’t know how I've probably acted in a situation like that, I don’t know If I just fought with guns or just sit and watched how everything was destroyed around me, I probably would be proud of this people that fight with such determinism for something that they believe is the right thing, but I don’t know if I could stay in the front line with them, I mean, really fighting with guns and killing people…

And there will be always the same question that I can’t answer…they were good or bad people? Maybe you will say it’s depends, but depends of what?

Finally they dissolved in 1982 because they started to separate in little groups until it was just a few members, because they were really young and politically disorganized.

Here is a movie about them, you can watch it if you want, it show how was their life and how was being a black panther member, hope you like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOOi7z9wXC4

thank you for your time :D

Maori people : HEI TIKI

The maori people came from Polynesia and hawai, they arrived to New Zealand and there they try to keep tradition up of their cultures. He maori word means “local” or “native”. They characterize to be warriors and won war. The tattoos are really important in their lifes, in fact the face tattoo is the most important, his name is “moko”. Today still there are men that wear that tattoos. I think that this culture is really interesting because they have costum that doesn´t disappear at the moment and they have a lot of traditions interesting like the aotearoa haka, that is a ritual before their games, they show their tongues to scare their enemies and demonstrate they didn’t have fear of them. It is really amazing thing to me, when I saw it I believe that they are stronger and all of that. Maybe they pretended that were strong to won the war because the other felt intimidate with their ritual. When we see something like that we feel interested, don’t you? Here in our country is weird see something of the aboriginal people just of Mapuche people but hey are like aloof of us. Other thing attractive of this people is a figure that his head is warped, it is represent a human fetus, this is a souvenir his name is Hei Tiki and is normal in many places. This represented fertility to the women and for that the women bring put like a collar. They have own language is the maori but they talk English too. The movie that we saw today make me interesting me in this culture and I looking for information about that but I decide choose the video.

Here I let you a video of Haka, I hope you like this like me. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L11jcvY-IM 

Rabbit- Proof Fence.

Contextualization

 In 1930 Australian democracy, practiced not very usual forms for social planning

- Separated the mestizos from the aboriginal communities in which theywere born and enclosed them  in special schools where they were trained to serve whites, as seen in the book.

Referring to the book the rabbit-proof fence in Australia is a historical fact. 

 A British colonist Thomas Austin brought 24 wild rabbits from the UK  in order to raise this species for human consumption.

But this situation went out of control and the rabbits  population started to grow unmeasuraly which led them to escape from this  zone.

  

By the end of the century the amount of rabbits was  was equal to or even greater than the number of the inhabitants of the continent, hence, it was suggested fencing part of the continent in  order to protect grazing land.

my comment

In my opinión as much as the book as the movie “Rabbit on the proof fence” has allowed me to deal with severa topics and stereotypes, we can see  discrimination and persecution from white people against the black by transforming them into their slaves instead of their friends.

I believe within this last few days I have centered myself in the vision from the first unit, mainly in segregation and discrimination which I find very interesting due to the social and moral topics because this makes us realize some of our mistakes and falls, like when we try to look like something we are not or we don’t know and we have no idea how it might affect other people.

This book touched me from beginning to end  and left us a lesson about what is really important, no matter the color of our skin or gender, within our lives. The important thing is our integrity.

I would like to share something I have written on Reaction paper.

“I believe that the enemy is in ourselves and we all need to start a revolution for the people, for ourselves, in us are the words “DO NOT STAY IN SILENCE”, we must take the actions to react, not let us trample and enforce our rights, end for once with all the discrimination and be part of it, the answers is in ourselves we need to create a belief and make it the change. We all deserve a normal lifestyle without pointing out our acts and mistakes.”

Why wait for a leader or a manager? We can move the world with our ideas.

I found this poem on the Internet, this speaks for itself. :

Rabbit - Proof  Fence  poem

 Take away from my home

Ripped away  from my family

All because I´m a halft cast

I'm force to abandom my cultural ways

I'm forced to abandon my language

Sometimes it feel like there is no sun in the sky

No justice against  crime

 It seem quite  hopeless

Im loosing  all my faith,

I need to break free

I need  to escape

Along  with my sister and cousin

I´ll  run as fast as I can with them by my side

I know it  won't  be easy

It's a long  way to go

But I won't  loose hope

Many will try to harm us

 Many will try to trick us

But I won't loose hope

I'm almost back where I belong

I'm almost back to jingalong

 With the spirit bird guiding us every step of the way

My hearts fills with joy

I feel a familiar warmth

I feel a familiar breeze

 I'm finally back where I belong

After all the pain and suffering

After all the  lies and injustice

I'm finally back to Jigalong

And from that day on I knew

That  it was my duty

To never leave.

and finally the hints with a video trailer of the film, which takes us through the major scenes book and one of the most important when it is violently removed from their home.

Thanks (:

By Diego  Azocar Helo.