Haunting and the (Im)possibility of Māori Gothic

Abstract

The Gothic is no longer, if ever it has been, a singular vision. Of course, the Gothic has always been about the remainder, that remnant of being that Gothic culture beckons into the limelight (or perhaps the liminal light) as part of its modus operandi. But increasingly the Gothic has been multiplying into Gothics, suggesting not simply a reproducible swarm of supernatural creatures but also a range of hermeneutic processes that hone in on the ontological, and indeed spiritual, status of that which is there-but-not-there. In order to pursue the potential reach of Gothic multiplication, this chapter will address the conditions of possibility for a form of Gothic that goes beyond its Western, literary roots to encompass Indigenous film — specifically what could be called ‘Māori Gothic’, referring to the first peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand. I must admit from the start that I am sceptical about the straightforward applicability of Gothic conventions to an Indigenous worldview, for the simple reason that, in the case of Māori, the traditional embrace of departed spirits does not allow for the dread-filled notion of haunting on which the Gothic thrives. Nonetheless, dread is not unknown in the Māori world and neither are supernatural spirits, a situation that may spur us to rethink the status of haunting, at least for non-Western forms of Gothic.