Book celebrates Pacificwisdom

A new book takes some positives out of the hardships of Covid-19 and shares words of wisdom from throughout the Pacific.

combines proverbs and photos, highlighting the strength, resilience, and wisdom of people from across the Pacific.

The book is by Apisalome Movono and Regina Scheyvens, both Massey University academics, whose work is focused on Pasifika people and their livelihoods.

Speaking at the launch of the book on Tuesday, Movono said it had come about as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

Movono and Scheyvens conducted research in Pacific development and resilience and when the pandemic struck they felt the need to reach out to their communities and people in the Pacific.

‘‘What amazed us was despite their struggles, despite the hardships, they still came through, they still are happy, their well-being improved, they enjoyed their time together,’’ Movono said.

‘‘We found that they grew their strengths from within, from their customary systems, from their elders, from the wisdom of their parents, and being together as a whānau and as a people.’’

Movono said Mana of the Pacific had been inspired by Mauri Ora, a book of māori whakataukī.

‘‘Here we are today to celebrate, not our book, but this is our achievement as Pacific people, being able to collate and put together the wisdom of our elders for the future generation.’’

Scheyvens said the images in the book didn’t always match the countries of the proverbs, a Melanesian photo might be seen next to a Polynesian proverb. They were trying to speak to values that unite and run across the Pacific.

‘‘Everyone who is from the Pacific knows that strength comes through unity... we wanted a strength-based book that celebrated cultures, celebrated wisdom, celebrated that knowledge.’’

About 20 languages were represented in the book, but Scheyvens acknowledged there were many more languages in the Pacific.

She encouraged people who didn’t see their language represented to go out and write a book, to tell the story of their people.

‘‘We just think these things need to be celebrated, you know, there’s a lot of bad news out there at the moment, but we just feel so uplifted by working on a project like this and celebrating that wisdom.’’

The launch was opened with a performance by students from the Pasifika Fusion cultural group at St Peter’s College, a performance Movono said he was moved by.

‘‘I was just swelling with pride to see the performance, and to see you practising arts and dances of the Pacific, because really that’s what our culture, and our book, is about.’’

Three St Peter’s College students, and several other guests read proverbs of from the book.

Student Nonu Palo read the Tokelau proverb, ‘‘Totō hau tōkiga nei, aua na tupulaga e fāi mai’’, which translated to ‘‘plant a seed today, for the future generations’’.

‘‘I chose this because it was important to start building a legacy today for future generations,’’ he said.

Any profits from the book would go towards community-based resili-Ō ence programmes in the Pacific.