Moana (again)

When I was in grade school – not that long ago – we were taught a story that hadn’t changed since the 19th century: that the Maori arrived in New Zealand by accident, starving and desperate to bump into land after going adrift far to the north.

[image error]A New Zealand art treasure: The Arrival of Maoris in New Zealand, 1898, Louis John Steele & Charles F Goldie, oil on canvas. Currently held in the Auckland Art Gallery.

This was complete bullshit.

And now I’m completely addicted to this song from Moana.

For all the film’s problematic aspects, can I at least count it as a success that Disney viewers now know that Pacific Islanders were – are – the greatest navigators the world has ever known?

It makes my skin tingle.