56 pages • 1 hour read
Alan DuffOnce Were Warriors
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Music
Music is a recurring motif in the narrative that serves both as a binder for the community and as a last vestige of Māori cultural identity; even those alienated from their culture can claim it as their own. Even though she’s uncertain about many aspects of her culture, Beth asserts near the beginning of the novel that “we’re a musical people, us Maoris. Comes natural to most of us; plays a bigger part in our lives, I think. Though Beth couldn’t be entirely sure on that, since she hardly knew a European, not to talk to go to their house see how they lived“ (43). Her uncertainty is reinforced when Grace is actually attracted to the Tramberts’ house in Chapter 7 by a piano. Nevertheless, all Māori in the novel have a proficiency in or an appreciation for music, whether it be in the loud, disharmonious atmosphere of McClutchy’s, the younger generation’s parties at the Brown Fist headquarters, or the hymns sung at Grace’s and Nig’s funerals.
Mavis Tatana represents the power of song in the community. Although not as famous as Kiri Te Kanawa, Mavis’s music speaks directly to the missing cultural identity of the people at McClutchy’s, and later, she becomes the leading voice of traditional Māori hymns. According to Jake,
[W]hen Mavis sang she gave you no choice she bowled you with her talent, almost frightened you with the scope of herself, the tones and shades and hues and sheer range of her notes. […] Mavis Tatana, the lone star amongst the burnt-out bodies and yet representing something of you, everyone knew this” (58).
Even to Jake, Mavis’s music represents “something of” the collective, despite the fact that he is one of the most disconnected characters from his culture. Music eventually becomes a tool for education and for reclaiming their cultural identity. Chants, hymns, hakas, and waiatas are all musical cultural traditions that Beth and Te Tupaea help the Māori of Pine Block to reclaim in their Saturday meetings. By doing so, they help to reinstate pride in being Māori even at the most difficult of times.
Stars
Stars are a recurring symbol in the narrative that has a dual meaning. They foreshadow a development in a character’s life and connect characters to their Māori ancestry. In the latter case, Jake explains to Cody:
[Jake’s ancestors] used em to navigate when they came here [Two Lakes] on their canoes. […] The stars guided them” (181). Much like all connections to Māori culture and history, however, this inherited knowledge has been lost to Jake: “But don’t ask a man how, I’m juss dumb Jake Heke who don’t know much about this crazy damn life (181).
With Jake’s aversion to Māori cultural practices, reclaiming this lost knowledge seems impossible. In fact, when he’s accused of raping Grace and he sets off into the night, stars foreshadow his complete marginalization. When he tries to see the faces, specifically Nig’s, in the group of Brown Fist nearby, he has “no moon, not even a lousy star to help see em with” (157), implying that his connection to his family, both past and present, as well as his community, is completely cut off.
For Grace, stars foreshadow her death. She follows a first shooting star to the Trambert estate, then a second, wherein she comments on “another shooting star scribing its signature across the sky. Ah, so sad really: just a brief moment in time and then gone forever” (73). As bright and warm as Grace is, she, too, only exists for a brief moment in time. However, when she dies and her mother holds her funeral, she, like her ancestors, is placed among them in the night sky: “(And take your place amongst the stars…) […] (Oh yes, look! The stars, girl. The Milky Way.)” (120). Beth imagines that Grace is connected to her Māori ancestry through the stars.
Rusted Car Wrecks
The rusted car wrecks in Pine Block are a symbol through which Duff signifies the impact of socio-economic inequities in the community. This impact is, namely, the loss of childhood innocence. The car wrecks are “rusting monuments” to the people of Pine Block, who neither have the means nor the will to renovate them into working condition again. Instead, these unfulfilled projects replace a proper playground. The neighborhood children inherit them, signifying the erosion of their familial bonds. Though the environment is highly dangerous and prone to giving infections to children with its jagged, rusty edges, car wrecks are where children spend their days when their parents do not take care of them. Their innocence is often lost among the car wrecks, either through drug use or parental neglect. For some, like Toot, who was abandoned outright by his parents, the car wreck was home by necessity. Like many other neighborhood children, therefore, Toot has had his childhood innocence taken from him. He’s forced to fend for himself at a young age and falls into drug use. Although he understands how bad sniffing glue might be for him, his need to disconnect from his harsh reality surpasses the dangers.
