This article focuses on a contemporary poem, in which a Hawaiian word piko appears. It was published in 1991 under the title of "Choosing My Name." The author, Puanani Burgess, was born with multiple ethnic backgrounds, but came to identify herself as an indigenous Hawaiian at some time in her life. The subject of this poem is her realization of being Hawaiian. The linchpin of the whole poem is a Hawaiian word, piko. This ancient word has a wide variety of meanings, including the umbilical cord, the navel, the fontanels, and the genital organs, but at the root it means a part that connects two objects. In the classical Hawaiian culture, the notion of piko was closely related with the idea of genealogy. In this contemporary poem, this "traditional" notion serves as a reminder of the forgotten past of the imagined Hawaiian nation. This article discusses how the poet tried to re-imagine her Hawaiianness by reactivating the notion of piko. This approach results in several conclusions. First, the poet appropriated the traditional notion of piko to cope with the real-life situation she had been facing. Born with multiple ethnic backgrounds, her identity tended to diffuse, but her piko name served as the symbolical bonds to connect her to the Hawaiian nation. Secondly, the poet played a passive role, as well as an active one, in the process of reconstructing her identity. She understood the symbolical bonds as something she had been given, not as she had chosen herself. Thirdly, this poem exemplifies the general desire to be "connected back" to a Gemeinschaft. She made the use of the image of piko, or an umbilical cord that connects a fetus to the womb, to express her emotional connection with the ethnic past. On the whole, the poem speaks of her struggle to reconstruct her identity through activating the traditional idea of piko. Her attempt can be understood as what Anthony Giddens calls "the reflexive project of the self".
雑誌名
死生学研究
巻
14
号
1
ページ
8 - 33
発行年
2010-12-15
ISSN
18826024
ISBN
9784925210171
書誌レコードID
AA11838867
日本十進分類法
105
出版者
東京大学大学院人文社会系研究科グローバルCOEプログラム「死生学の展開と組織化」
出版者別名
Global COE Program Development and Systematization of Death and Life Studies
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祖先・私・子孫をつなぐピコ(へその緒)の名 : 現代ハワイ先住民による自己の再帰的プロジェクト
da014001.pdf
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