English wiki post

A Position On The Spiral: In Potiki, by Patricia Grace, Dollarman and the Maori people have two different definitions of time in their culture. Dollarman views the Maori culture as “looking back, looking back, all the time” (93). “Looking back” for Dollarman implies regression, whereas moving forward would mean building his complex. He states that the Maori are becoming “a slave to past things. And to superstition . . . and all that . . . hoo-ha” (94). Dollarman does not understand the cultural value that the Maoris’ have for the “superstition” and the “past”; that they do not hold the same values that he does. He views everything from a monetary perspective and cannot comprehend why the Maori are not in favor of his construction. He mentions that the “value [of the land] would go right up,” as if he cannot see how the property could mean more than money (92). It shows how much different Dollarman’s view on “value” is from the Maori’s. He keeps offering them money and amenities, but he does not understand that they do not need it to survive as a community.
What Dollarman does not understand is that the Maori people are trying to return to the lives of their ancestors, that they want to look back. Advancement in the Maori culture is returning to the past, because to them “the past is the future” (99). The “future” of the Maori culture to them is reverting back to the way their ancestors lived, “the past.” The Maori talk about how their land is the “ancestral land of the people here. And there are others to who don’t live here now, but this is still home for them” (89). “Still” implies that even those who do not live with them or have moved on are still part of their community, an unchanging connection. Even people who do not live on the land anymore still have a connection to the culture and a part of them is still embedded in the land. The Maori also build off of what their ancestors did. When their meeting house was burnt down, they use the debris from the