Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Whale Rider, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humans and Nature
Maori Identity
Gender and Power
Familial Love
Summary
Analysis
When Kahu is three months old, her mother Rehua dies. Rehua’s mother wants to raise Kahu; Porourangi and Koro Apirana agree, but Nanny Flowers objects. Still, she remarks that Kahu’s birth cord and genealogy will inevitably bring her back to Whangara.
Rehua’s tragic death means that she will not give birth to a son, and Koro Apirana probably won’t get the male chief he wants. Nanny Flowers’s comment about Kahu’s birth cord seems to foreshadow events that will occur later in the novel. Notably, Nanny Flowers buried the birth cord, so if this ritual really foreshadows Kahu's return, then that is due above all to Nanny Flowers's foresight. Thus, even while Koro Apirana insists that men alone should wield power, his wife is really the one who saves their people.
Themes
Whangara’s people descend from Kahutia Te Rangi, who traveled from the ancestral homeland of Hawaiki to the North Island of New Zealand on the back of a whale (the ancient whale). He threw spears that brought life to the island, married a local woman, and then founded and served as the chief of Whangara. Generations later, his descendants Koro Apirana and Porourangi will become chiefs—but it’s not clear what will happen to Porourangi’s daughter Kahu.
Ihimaera explicitly connects the origin story from the Prologue to the drama surrounding Kahu’s birth. Koro Apirana’s authority is based on his direct relationship to Kahutia Te Rangi through the male bloodline. This may help readers understand why he sees Kahu’s birth as a threat: she would break a centuries-long tradition of male chieftainship. As Whangara’s people are already losing their Maori roots and facing an identity crisis, Kahu could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. On the other hand, perhaps a woman leader is exactly what Whangara needs.
Themes
When Kahu is almost two, she comes to Whangara for summer holidays and grows very attached to Koro Apirana. But he doesn’t love her back because the idea that she could become chief frightens him. She surprises the family twice on this trip: first, she turns out to love Maori food, like fermented corn. The second surprise happens when Koro Apirana calls all the men to a tribal meeting to explain that he will start holding classes on Maori language and tradition. He describes how he bit the big toe of his mentor, a priest, as part of a ritual to receive the man’s powers. But Kahu has snuck into the room, and she suddenly bites Koro Apirana’s toe. Rawiri and his friends find this hilarious, but Koro Apirana doesn’t.
Kahu’s behavior suggests that she already has a deep connection to Maori culture, which is more unusual than it sounds. Namely, readers should remember that the New Zealand government spent a century trying to eradicate Maori people by assimilating them into white society, and so even Rawiri and his peers are only starting to learn about their own culture. But Kahu seems to understand it by instinct. When she bites Koro Apirana’s toe, she reenacts the ceremony that gave him his special chiefly powers. This strongly suggests that she is destined to inherit his role as chief—but this implication seriously bothers Koro Apirana because it challenges his male supremacist beliefs.
Themes
