Contexts

What is comparable across indigenous contexts, and what is distinctive to particular indigenous contexts? And given the centrality of traditional stories and the land in many indigenous contexts, do these stories, their relationship to the land, and their transmission from generation to generation function similarly across space? Professor Williams will trace the functioning and dynamics of oral transmission of traditional stories through two comparisons. First, he will examine the extent to which Māori families pass on Māui stories, compared with Navajo and their stories about Mai’i (coyote, a trickster figure). Second, he will trace the similarities and differences in the functioning of landscape and oral traditions amongst Indigenous Peoples, focusing on Rarotongan people and Native American people. This will explicitly open up the comparative space that this roundtable panel aims to explore.