Y’ALL my sister just dropped a theory about Moana on me and I’m
Grandma Tala. She seemed like a fairly healthy old woman on the whole, right? Dancing with the sea and the rays, doing Old Crazy Lady things etc etc. Okay. Sure.
The thing is, my sister suddenly pointed out that, ever since Moana dropped it as a baby, Tala had possession of the Heart of Te Fiti. The source of Life.
And then she gave it to Moana, who ran off with it to try and get the islanders to voyage out for Maui, and… suddenly deteriorated. Died.
What if the Heart had been keeping her alive. Te Fiti gave Life to the islands, but in the hands of another, what if that isn’t what it does? What if the Heart grants immortality? What if Tala knew, and still gave up the Heart so that Moana could find Maui, restore Te Fiti, and save Motunui?
And if that’s what the power of the Heart really was, no wonder the monsters wanted it.
someone who didn’t grow up in pacific island culture probably won’t understand why moana’s dad said ‘coconut is all you need’ and make fun of that one line (just check the youtube comment)
but get this. every part of coconut is usable. every. single. part of it. the leaf, the fruit, the fiber, the shell, the husk, the wood. you can weave the leaf into daily things like baskets, sleeping mats, heck even the walls to your house. the coconut shells can be used for eating utensils and even fuel to fire. the milk from its meat is a very integral ingredient to most of our cooking.
when i was a kid, i would get seafood allergy or just seafood poisoning because sometimes when you cook fish wrong it’ll give you bad rashes or stomach ache. my mom would go outside and get one of those young coconuts from a tree in our garden, split it open, pour the water into a big glass, and tell me to drink all of it and my rashes or stomach ache would go away.
like, literally… you would be impressed by the things any part of coconut can be used. there’s a whole website for that, actually.
just… ugh, i love the little things from my culture that are shown in this movie…
You know, one thing I really liked about Moana was the inclusion of dance. I mean, from my understanding of Polynesian cultures, dance is pretty important—it tells stories, it means something. And it keeps coming up in the movie. The villagers dance, there’s a couple of dance moves during “We Know The Way,” and … cut for spoilers …
