The Whale Rider follows a prominent Maori family during a time of deep cultural, political, and ecological crisis for their New Zealand community of Whangara. By traditional inheritance rules, a young girl named Kahu will grow up to become the chief of the village, but the current chief, her great-grandfather Koro Apirana, thinks no woman could ever do the job. Still, Koro Apirana knows that only the right leader can save the Maori, who have been drifting toward a Western way of life for decades and losing their language, traditions, and connection to “the original oneness of the world.” In this original state, Koro Apirana explains, humans obeyed the Gods and lived in balance with other creatures. But then, we started arrogantly dividing the world on our own terms, exploiting nature and elevating the “rational” (things we understand) above the “irrational” (things we do not, including the Gods).
Koro Apirana uses the sea as an example to prove his point. The Maori used to avoid overfishing by deliberately assigning fishing grounds, he notes, but now everyone just catches as many fish as they can, so fish populations are dwindling. But whales are faring even worse. Koro Apirana tells a haunting story about going whaling with his uncle and feeling awestruck at the animals’ beauty, only to watch his own people harpoon and dismember them. Traditionally, his people are supposed to respect whales because their ancestor Paikea (or Kahutia Te Rangi) came to Whangara on the back of a bull whale. The novel reveals that this bull whale is still alive, and he misses Paikea so desperately that he can scarcely find the will to keep living. In the novel’s climax, he beaches himself in Whangara, hoping to die. But instead, he meets young Kahu, who is not only Paikea’s descendant but also the first human in generations capable of talking to whales. Koro Apirana recognizes the sacred tattoo on the whale’s head and announces that his people “[will] have ceased to be Maori” if they don’t save him. But they do, thanks to Kahu: she rides the ancient whale, saving both of their peoples and reestablishing the deep interspecies connection that they had long since lost. The whale regains the will to live and lead his herd, and Kahu’s special powers show Koro Apirana that she will be the wise, decisive leader her community needs.
The Whale Rider intertwines these two storylines in order to show that when humans start viewing ourselves as superior to the natural world and exploiting it for our own benefit, we destroy it—and ourselves—in the process. But the novel also shows that if we can recognize that we are inextricably linked to nature and follow the lead of the indigenous people who have stewarded it for centuries, we can once again live in harmony with it, as Kahu does with the whale.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Humans and Nature ThemeTracker
Humans and Nature Quotes in The Whale Rider
So the whale rider uttered a prayer over the wooden spear, saying, “Let this spear be planted in the years to come, for there are sufficient spear [sic] already implanted. Let this be the one to flower when the people are troubled and it is most needed.”
And the spear then leaped from his hands with gladness and soared through the sky. It flew across a thousand years. When it hit the earth, it did not change but waited for another hundred and fifty years to pass until it was needed. The flukes of the whale stroked majestically at the sky.
Hui e, haumi e, taiki e.
Let it be done.
The human had heard the young whale’s distress and had come into the sea, playing a flute. The sound was plangent and sad as he tried to communicate his oneness with the young whale’s mourning. Quite without the musician knowing it, the melodic patterns of the flute’s phrases imitated the whale song of comfort. The young whale drew nearer to the human, who cradled him and pressed noses with the orphan in greeting. When the herd traveled onward, the young whale remained and grew under the tutelage of his master.
“Hey!” one of the boys had said, pointing. “Over there. Orcas!”
It had been uncanny, really, seeing those killer whales slicing stealthily through the sea, uncanny and disturbing, as if a dream.
Even more strange, though, was that Kahu had begun to make eerie sounds in her throat. I swear that those long lamenting sighs of hers were exactly the same as I had heard in the movie theater. It sounded as if she was warning them. The orcas suddenly dived.
The heartache of that separation had never left the whale, nor had the remembrance of that touch of brow to brow in the last hongi.
Then the camera focuses on the other men, where they stand in the surging water. The chain saw has just completed cutting through the whale’s lower jaw. The men are laughing as they wrench the jaw from the butchered whale. There is a huge spout of blood as the jaw suddenly snaps free. The blood drenches the men in a dark gouty stream. Blood, laughing, pain, victory, blood.
Yes, people in the district vividly remember the stranding of the whales, because television and radio brought the event into our homes that evening. But there were no television cameras or radio newspeople to see what occurred in Whangara the following night. Perhaps it was just as well, because even now it all seems like a dream. Perhaps, also, the drama enacted that night was meant to be seen only by the tribe and nobody else. Whatever the case, the earlier stranding of whales was merely a prelude to the awesome event that followed, an event that had all the cataclysmic power and grandeur of a Second Coming.
I thought I saw something flying through the air, across the aeons, to plunge into the heart of the village.
A dark shadow began to ascend from the deep. Then there were other shadows rising, ever rising. Suddenly the first shadow breached the surface and I saw it was a whale. Leviathan. Climbing through the depths. Crashing through the skin of sea. And as it came, the air was filled with streaked lightning and awesome singing.
Koro Apirana gave a tragic cry, for this was no ordinary beast, no ordinary whale. This whale came from the past. As it came, it filled the air with its singing.
Karanga mai, karanga mai,
karanga mai.
“But then, […] man assumed a cloak of arrogance and set himself up above the Gods. He even tried to defeat Death, but failed. As he grew in his arrogance, he started to drive a wedge through the original oneness of the world. In the passing of Time he divided the world into that half he could believe in and that half he could not believe in. The real and the unreal. The natural and the supernatural. The scientific and the fantastic. The present and the past. He put a barrier between both worlds, and everything on his side was called rational and everything on the other side was called irrational. Belief in our Maori Gods […] has often been considered irrational.”
“[The whale] is a reminder of the oneness that the world once had. It is the birth cord joining past and present, reality and fantasy. It is both [real and unreal, natural and supernatural]. It is both, […] and if we have forgotten the communion then we have ceased to be Maori!”
[…] “The whale is a sign. […] It has stranded itself here. If we are able to return it to the sea, then that will be proof that the oneness is still with us. If we are not able to return it, then this is because we have become weak. If it lives, we live. If it dies, we die. Not only its salvation but ours is waiting out there.”
Without really thinking about it, Kahu began to stroke the whale just behind the fin. It is my lord, the whale rider. She felt a tremor in the whale and a rippling under the skin. Suddenly she saw that indentations like footholds and handholds were appearing before her. She tested the footholds and they were firm. Although the wind was blowing fiercely, she stepped away from the sheltering fin and began to climb. As she did so, she caught a sudden glimpse of her Koro Apirana and Nanny Flowers clustered with the others on the faraway beach.
She was the whale rider. Astride the whale, she felt the sting of the surf and rain upon her face. On either side, the younger whales were escorting their leader through the surf. They broke through into deeper water.
“Very well,” the ancient bull whale said. “Then let everyone live, and let the partnership between land and sea, whales and all humankind, also remain.”
And the whale herd sang their gladness that the tribe would also live, because they knew that the girl would need to be carefully taught before she could claim the place for her people in the world.
Kahu looked at Koro Apirana, her eyes shining.
“Oh, Paka, can’t you hear them? I’ve been listening to them for ages now. Oh, Paka, and the whales are still singing,” she said.
