1 Reconstituting Indigenous Oceanic Folktales

Indigenous communities in Oceania have always used folktales to explain their social, psychological, political, and cultural environment. This tradition continues today in the cultural productions of many Pacific writers, artists, and filmmakers. Their “texts” are often saturated with social and political discourses that challenge ideology, tradition, and power. I explore how scholars in various discursive traditions have used folktales as structures for viewing culture, society and events, and I do so in order to re-view folktales within an indigenous cultural production in Oceania. Folktales as Social Cultural Texts If we are to see folktales as “text ” then we need to consider the definition of “text ” as a social cultural production of society. We need also to attend to the specific demands of theory that address the existence of “text ” as a constituting product of social and cultural imaginings. The first place to begin this inquiry is to consider text as a structure of feeling or experience as expressed by Raymond Williams in his discussion of the various discourses we produce in society to explain our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, utterances, and experiences. According to Williams, “…a ‘structur