Public History Review Vol. 29, 2022 © 2022 by the author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. Citation: Greensill, H., Taito, M., Pasisi, J., Bennett, J. L., Dean, M., Monise, M. 2022. Tupuna Wahine, Saina, Tupuna Vaine, Matua Tupuna Fifine, Mapiag Hani: Grandmothers in the Archives. Public History Review, 29, 54–66. https:// doi.org/10.5130/phrj. v29i0.8225 ISSN 1833- 4989 | Published by UTS ePRESS | https://epress. lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index. php/phrj ARTICLES (PEER REVIEWED) Tupuna Wahine, Saina, Tupuna Vaine, Matua Tupuna Fifine, Mapiag Hani: Grandmothers in the Archives Hineitimoana Greensill1,*, Mere Taito2, Jessica Pasisi3, Jesi Lujan Bennett4, Marylise Dean5, Maluseu Monise6 1 Tainui, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Porou 2 Malha’a, Noa’tau: Rotuma (Fiji) 3 Mutalau mo Hikutavake, Niue; Pālagi; Ngāti Pikiao; Tahiti 4 Dededo and Barrigada, Guåhan [Guam] 5 Amuri, Aitutaki; Fasito’otai, Samoa 6 Juju, Pepjei: Rotuma. Asau, Vaitupu: Tuvalu Corresponding author: Hineitimoana Greensill, hine.greensill@gmail.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v29i0.8225 Article History: Received 07/06/2022; Accepted 08/11/2022; Published 06/12/2022 Kia mau ki ngā kupu a ō tūpuna Hold fast to the words of your ancestors This article is the culmination of many conversations we have had about our respective grandmothers in the archives. As a group, we were interested in how we might embody many of the values, knowledges and experiences of our grandmothers in a roundtable at the 2021 New Zealand Historical Association Conference. It is difficult to put on paper the friendship and hospitality that informed these scholarly conversations. However, in keeping with the conversational nature of our roundtable, the format of this paper recognises the depth, complexity and critical work that comes from working together as Indigenous scholars. From our own sea, land and skyscapes to the diasporic realities of generations of movement, migration and contact with outsiders, we trace some of the stories and lineage, emanating from our grandmothers, that have led us into the archives and informed our research. Our discussion was guided by two key questions that focused on the circumstances of finding our grandmothers in our research journeys and the limitations of institutional archives that emerge when we shed light on ‘whānau archives’ and other sites of knowledge. The questions also DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTEREST The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. FUNDING The author(s) received no  financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 54 •• · · mailto:hine.greensill@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v29i0.8225 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v29i0.8225 https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v29i0.8225 https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/phrj https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/phrj https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/phrj played the role of providing structure to our roundtable discussion and therefore will be presented below to achieve a similar signposting effect through our rich kōrero. Where have you met your grandmother in the archives and what has this meant for your research? We felt that this question was a fitting way to open our talanoa about our grandmothers, because there is a certain appeal to a ‘how did you first meet’ type of story. When the meeting is between an unlikely pair of knowledge sources such as grandmothers and institutional spaces of archives, we anticipated that each of us would bring unique and engaging stories of finding our grandmothers in our research. We were not disappointed. One of us found her grandmother tucked under a pile of photographs and then later in microfilms at a public library. Another found her grandmother in a tivaevae book kept at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Two of us have grandmothers who are still alive and therefore offered conversations that were both grounded in the present as well as in the past. Our stories show that our encounters have convincingly changed, for the better, the attitudes and values we have placed on our respective research projects. Mere Taito: Noa’ia ‘e Mạuri. I am the second eldest granddaughter and grandchild of my maternal Mapiga (grandmother) Lily Voi Kafoa. I affectionately refer to my Mapiga Lily as my first storyteller and my first book, because she was literally a carrier and deliverer of hanuju (Rotuman folklore) for her ma’akiga (grandchildren). My Mapiga Lily was born on 8 February 1931 in Rotuma. She moved to Fiji in the 1940s and lived there for about forty years before moving to Australia, where she currently lives. She will be ninety next year. My aunts in Australia tell me that she is doing well and still cheats at a game of cards. As a Pacific person in Aotearoa New Zealand, I feel very connected to my Mapiga Lily’s travelling and traversing ways. Mapiga Lily in Australia in the 1980s. (Private Collection) My creative practice- based doctoral research examines the writing of Fäeag Rotuạm ta- English multilingual poetry as acts of waywriting (writing discovery) and Fäeag Rotuạm ta language regeneration here in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this study, I will be producing a creative artefact, a collection of Fäeag Rotuạm ta- English poetry, and an exegetical analysis of this creative collection. A particular focus of the Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202255 creative process of writing is the reading of creative multilingual Fäeag Rotuạm ta text. My study positions reading and writing as symbiotic literary processes that ‘sustain’ each other. In the context of waywriting, I am constantly mulling over the prerequisite conditions for multilingual writing, one of which is a functional multilingual linguistic repertoire. In turn, this line of thinking has inspired me to consider the history of my Fäeag Rotuạm ta language learning. Was my acquisition of Fäeag Rotuạm ta immersive? If so, who was responsible for this natural exposure? These reflections centre my Mapiga Lily as the historical source of my Fäeag Rotuạm ta learning: a process marked by seven years of language immersion in the 1970s in Vatukoula, Fiji. I imagine my Mapiga Lily lining the walls of my glottis like protective wallpaper with hanuju, prayer, songs, and everyday functional varieties, as if it were a final act of hanisi (love) before she emigrated to Australia in 1980. Introspectively, then, my research is not about meeting my Mapiga Lily in a temperature- controlled archive, because she does not exist in an archive per se, but rather about remembering, acknowledging, and honouring her in my use of Fäeag Rotuạm ta in the creative component of my research. Acknowledging Mapiga Lily in my creative practice means that my research is meaningful and personal, because it engages my immediate and extended families, especially their memories of our lives in Vatukoula. However, this research is not just about me and my family. It is also about community: how individuals, artists, and families contribute to the long- haul, intergenerational phenomenon that we call language regeneration. Centring my Mapiga, family and community also confirms that my decision to commence doctoral studies was not made on the whim of ‘doing a PhD for the sake of doing a PhD’, but rather on relevance and need. My research stands to bridge theoretical and practical gaps that relate to Fäeag Rotuạm ta language resources, Fäeag Rotuạm ta creative literature, and Rotuman creativity theory. It also makes visible the critical role of grandparents, especially grandmothers like Mapiga Lily, in the intergenerational transmission of languages. It demands from me, as a researcher and creative practitioner, to explore the ‘firing up of language memory’ as a workable source of language regeneration. Hineitimoana and her grandmother, Tuaiwa, in Whāingaroa (Private Collection) Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202256 Hineitimoana Greensill: Kia ora tātou. Ki te taha ki tōku whaea, ko Tuaiwa Hautai Kereopa tōku tupuna wahine, ko James Rickard tōku tupuna tāne. Ko Hineitimoana tōku ingoa. On my mother’s side, my grandmother is Tuaiwa Hautai Kereopa Rickard. The research that I am engaged with is an exploration of the intellectual and political work of Māori women in the 1970s, focusing specifically on their writing. At the centre of my project is my grandmother, whose writing and political thought I explore as part of the broader whakapapa of Māori women’s intellectual production in the late twentieth century. I consider my grandmother’s presence throughout my research journey, and the ways in which her story can be recast by working across both public and private archives. I also contemplate the deeper ways in which I have come to know my grandmother, and the unique role and responsibilities that I have as a mokopuna engaged in tupuna- centred research. Like Mere, I have lots of memories of my grandmother, who passed away in December 1997. While these memories become more distant with each passing day, doing this research has brought me closer to her. It has enabled me to meet her again in letters, photographs, memoirs, interviews, and conversations. Even just a momentary encounter with someone who knew my grandmother, or had witnessed her in action somewhere, has led me to unexpected, and sometimes quite extraordinary, places, deepening my understanding of who my grandmother was. In terms of the more intentional kind of research that I am doing, I have been looking at both a whānau archive – a collection of my grandmother’s things that our whānau have been kaitiaki (caretakers) of since her passing – as well as her presence in the public archive. As part of my research, I have been engaging with some of my grandmother’s letters; one of the interesting things I have found is that reading them is almost like hearing her speaking again. Her written texts are constructed in a way that is so natural and so close to the style, tone and feeling of her spoken voice. I still feel her presence in the room when I read her writing and I still feel the impact of her words. When I first started to engage with her writing, I remember sitting down in the library and opening a box that had some of her letters inside. I pulled one out and started reading it, and right in that moment it felt like she was there; it was her voice, not mine, reading the words as my eyes followed the text across the page. That was the beginning of my project and the moment in which I met my grandmother again in the archives. As a mokopuna, having the opportunity to spend time with my grandmother in this way is such a taonga. I cannot help but think of how privileged I am to be doing this kind of work – to be able to spend hours poring over my grandmother’s writing, listening to her voice, pondering her actions, and imagining what she was thinking and feeling at different moments in time. Being able to travel through time and space to different moments in my grandmother’s life and to relive those moments with her is an opportunity that others in my whānau may not have. Had we, as mokopuna, lived in our grandmother’s time, we would have sat, as she once did, at the feet of our tūpuna listening to their stories. As a student, this is something that I get to do every day. I sit at my grandmother’s feet listening to her stories, while others in my whānau are working to provide for their families, engaging in hapū and community work, recording and transmitting cultural knowledge, and holding space for us on our whenua. Knowing this makes me very much aware of my role as a connector of past, present and future imaginings of my grandmother’s story, and of the responsibility that I have as a mokopuna to do this work justice. Jessica Pasisi: Ko e matua tupuna fifine haaku ko Lela Sialemata, ko e matua tupuna taane haaku ko Matagi Pasisi/Patiti ko e matua taane haaku ko Ben Pasisi, hau au i tau maaga ko Mutalau Ululauta Matahefonua mo Hikutavake Tamahatokula Mahinatumai. Ko e higoa haaku ko Jessica Lili Pasisi. I am the granddaughter of Lela Sialemata (see Figure 3) and the daughter of Ben Pasisi, and I belong to the villages of Mutalau and Hikutavake in Niue. I also feel incredibly privileged to be able to do research that connects me to my grandmother and to think about the ways I may sit at her feet and feel her wisdom in the stories of my Dad and in public archives. In my PhD thesis that looked at Niue women’s perspectives and experiences of climate change, I walked my research from Management Communication to Pacific Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202257 Studies, using Pacific Studies lenses and thinking to engage more critically with assumptions and theories in Management, as well as creating space for an Indigenous- led thesis project that would uphold the mana of Niue women and their experiences and knowledge. It was in this movement that I came across my grandmother’s image for the first time, tucked in a pile of family photographs. Unlike the many photographs of my Pālagi family, which were framed and hung on the wall, there were no images of my paternal grandmother growing up. As a child, I never questioned why this was. But the gravity of it hit me recently, and I’ve been thinking about the privilege and responsibility that comes with my growing knowledge of, and connection to, my grandma Lela. I printed and framed that photo of my grandmother and gave it to my Dad. It was a simple gesture, but it was perhaps more meaningful for him than anything I had done before. For him, it was the first time his mother had been welcomed into his home. Since my doctorate, my Dad and I have been as thick as thieves recounting stories of his youth, the challenges of coming to Aotearoa, the challenges of marrying a Pālagi woman and becoming part of her family, and what he remembers of his mother and life in Niue when he was growing up. As I was unpacking the ways in which Niue women experienced climate change in my thesis and the ways that these experiences can be reproduced in academic spaces, my Dad and I would also unpack what felt like an ocean of memories and stories that had been stored away. The connections of these two spaces is something I’m still thinking about and engaging with in the research I’m currently doing on Niue concepts of happiness and wellbeing. Culturally, Niue knowledge is often shared generationally, passed from grandparents or parents to their children. While I never got to meet my paternal grandparents, through my Dad’s stories I still have a connection to both my Dad’s childhood and his memory of his parents – the kinds of work they did in their family and community, where they lived, the sea or bush tracks they walked, how they came to Aotearoa, what roles they had in the family. It’s sometimes surprising how relevant my Dad’s recollections and stories have been in the ways I have been able to talk about climate change and the environment with people back home in Niue. Often my conversations would turn to what Niue would have been like for people in older generations, and these stories from my Dad have given me touch points that feed conversations and questions that cross different generations Grandma Lela Sialemata, Niue. (Private Collection) Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202258 Io- A- Te- Are- Tini. (Private Collection) A gift that surpasses the completion of my doctorate has been getting to know my grandmother through my Dad. We have searched in libraries for her name and seen her birth certificate after hours of scrolling through microfilms of records that have since been washed away by cyclones. I have seen records of the children my grandmother had and a document showing that she had signed up as part of a Christian congregation. My Dad and I have pieced together who her birth and adoptive parents were and how they were related, as well as mapping out a wider family tree that now includes several generations. All the while, my Dad shares memories of things she told him, things he saw her do, how she was an amazing Niue woman. Grandma Lela had traditional medicinal knowledge, made cultural dress, was mother to eleven children, acted as a midwife, helped with sick children, and was wife to my grandpa – Matagi Patiti/Pasisi. Whether it was the first photograph of my grandma Lela in a family archive or the subsequent trips to public libraries to find her in microfilm, this ability to be so personal in my research has dramatically changed the kind of academic I am and the kinds of research that I want to keep doing. It makes visible the many pathways into our history and cultures that are defined by who and where we are now and that are only made possible by the relationships that we have and take time to nurture. This research space also recognises that there are generations of questions. While I grapple with things I would like to know, my Dad also has questions and through me asking mine, he gets to ask his, too. Whether we get the answers we are looking for is not an end point in itself, because for us, part of the magic is having the time to ask these questions together. Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202259 Marylise Varena Frankie Dean: The research that I have carried out over the last year and a bit focuses on the female domestic labour migration scheme that spanned over several decades in the early to mid- 1900s.1 This research has an emphasis on the involvement of my grandmother in these schemes. The domestic schemes were utilised as a migration avenue for Cook Island women, as well as for women from the other Realm nations of Niue and Tokelau. This research has taken me to all kinds of archive spaces. In one instance, I made a journey to the Alexander Turnbull Library and met my grandmother, Io- A- Te- Are- Tini, in one of the books that showcases beautiful pieces of tivaevae, of which my grandmother was an absolute star.2 The consequences of this finding meant that I felt even more of an obligation to carry out this project. Not in a burdening sense, but in a way that I felt it was my responsibility. And not to tell the entire story, but at least this part and at least to get the ball rolling. Meeting my grandmother, almost two years ago and many times since then, has pushed me to complete this project. But it has not always been smooth sailing. Knowing of her presence in the archives and thinking about what my project will inevitably do when it is published has given me extra motivation. As I have gone through the journey of writing my thesis and talking about my grandmother’s experiences of the domestic schemes, I have felt the obligation grow stronger and stronger. Though her name may not have been explicitly mentioned in the research process, especially in the archives space, knowing that she was involved in these spaces gives me a similar sense of her presence as I get from seeing her name in print. Through this journey, I have been able to see my grandmother in many of the experiences that women had in the domestic schemes – experiences such as labouring for wealthy European families and connecting with other domestic workers. Some of the other workers would also be from the Cook Islands, which must have been comforting in a strange land. My grandmother maintained other peoples’ household with great precision and care. Her precision and care can also be seen in her tivaevae work; the care that goes into choosing the patterns and the colours, and being careful while stitching. In some of the stories that have been told to me through my interview process, I have also seen another aspect of my grandmother in the archives. This is our family archive of stories that may not always be on paper but are definitely in a lot of our elders’ hearts. These stories have shaped their worldview and by continuing with my project and recording some of these stories, there is an opportunity to place them on shelves for future generations. Afu’t a‘u‘ua se, ma ạfu’t fū se (As a generation takes their rest, another generation rises): Susau Marie and Maluseu Monise. (Private Collection) Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202260 Maluseu Monise: Hanuj! Storyteller’s call to attention! Mā! Audience’s heeding reply! (M. Taito, 2021) Hanuj’okia rogrog on otou mapiạg hạn ta, Susau Marie. It is my wish and honour to share one of the many hanuju (stories) of my grandmother, Susau Marie. I was told that a hanuju starts in the middle and ends in the middle. With this intention at the forefront, I wish to acknowledge the multiple entry points when grappling with the remembrance of our family’s matriarch Susau Marie. Like Mere, Hineitimoana, Jess, Marylise and Jesi, I met my mapiạg hạni in the archives. In 2019, our matriarch was laid to rest from sharing her love in this realm. In July 2019, I embarked on a master’s thesis to explore Rotuman worldviews in Kirikiriroa. This is where I encountered all these wonderfully gifted, generous, and intelligent scholars in Pacific and Indigenous Studies at Te Whare Wānanga O Waikato. Being surrounded by a village of thinkers, feelers and intellects that were not afraid to push the boundaries of Pacific normality, invited me to step into a world of potentiality and possibilities beyond my imaginings. As I was navigating our Rotuman literature canon, I crossed paths with two books by Elizabeth Kafonika Fiu Inia, Fäeag ‘es Fūaga: Rotuman Proverbs (1998) and Kato‘aga: Rotuman Ceremonies (2001).3 In the acknowledgements of these books, I found mapiạg hạni’s name Susau Marie. Although it was foreign to me to read and say her name aloud, a rush of memories and emotions waterfalled upon me. A river of remembrance gave way to her love for knowledge accumulation, sharing and exchange. Re- meeting mapiạg hạni in the digital archives of Google Books and a Rotuman website offered a relation paradigm that was foreign, yet familiar in the ways in which the text and space encompassed a reunion and homecoming of sorts. Both of Elizabeth Inia’s books traversed the significance of Fäeag Rotuạm ta (Rotuman language) as a tē fakhanisi (gift) – a unique perspective and experience of the world as relational kin that evokes various rituals to embody, express and elongate the Rotuman mäeavhanisi (modalities of love). Hearing mapiạg hạni’s voice guide me through both texts has grounded my ability to reimagine how we converse. It has opened dialogue between my mother, brother and wider family’s fragmented memories, connecting and interconnecting our collective hanuju of mapiạg hạni. This recurring process has deeply shifted my perceptions of loss and sorrow as the remembrance and healing occurs when we share our hanuju. My research has offered a deeper understanding of the importance of our individual hanuju as fragmented memories or archives that add to the ancient puzzle of the collective Rotuman story. This recognises how a Rotuman worldview in Kirikiriroa, Waikato, Aotearoa needs to be told, documented and retold for future generations to find our fragmented hanuju. Jesi Lujan Bennett: Håfa adai todus hamyo. I na’an- hu si Jesi Lujan Bennett, and my mother’s family is from Guåhan (Guam) in the Mariana Islands.4 I am the granddaughter of Guadalupe Garrido Blas Lujan, lovingly known to many as Mama Lou. When I am not FaceTiming my grandmother, mother, or sister (or wearing my great grandmother’s dress, cigarette burns and all), I am a lecturer in Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. I often reflect on my diasporic Chamoru identity and the ‘inbetween- ness’ I felt being raised in the United States.5 I remember how the smell of cooked SPAM®, eggs, and fresh rice filled the morning air of my San Diego, California, home as my mom hurried me and my sister to get ready for school. As I rushed out the door, my grandmother’s voice would cut through the hustle, ‘Don’t forget to kiss your mama!’ I Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202261 would give her a hug goodbye as she whispered in my ear, ‘Make good friends, and don’t forget, Chamoru hao (you’re Chamoru).’ I was born and raised in the continental United States, unlike my mother and grandmother who are part of a larger migration of Chamorus who moved away from the Mariana Islands in the 1960s. As a child, I remember trying to make sense of my experiences in a Chamoru household run by Chamoru women alongside the realities of growing up in California. The staunch Chamoru mothering from my multi- generational household often meant being one of only a few children in school that even knew an island like Guam existed, beyond the footnotes of American history books on the Spanish American War and World War II. My research and the archival material I use are intrinsically part of my relationship with my grandmother. My Chamoru upbringing led by my mother and grandmother is tied to a long history of Chamoru women maintaining positions of power and authority within a matrilineal society. My dissertation addressed the repercussions of the United States’ militarization of the Mariana Islands and subsequent growth of Chamoru diasporic communities. More recently, I shifted my focus on diasporic Chamoru experiences to examine the importance of Chamoru women’s stories in understanding the outmigration of my people. The Mariana Islands, the homelands of Chamorus, have dealt with the onslaught of various waves of colonialism, often changing the routes of mobility available to Chamoru families, like my own. My research grapples with the outmigration of Chamorus under Spanish and American colonial rule (though we have also dealt with Japan and Germany as colonising powers) through uncovering the often- absent experiences of our women and the ways they aided community building in these diasporic spaces. Their organising and continued role as matriarchal figures impels new narratives about Chamoru issues to deal with a historic lack of engagement with Chamoru women’s stories. Jesi Lujan Bennett and her grandmother, Guadalupe Garrido Blas Lujan, at the San Diego International Airport in San Diego, California. (Private Collection) Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202262 Considering the Archival Edges Our conversations have demonstrated that the impact of finding and engaging with our grandmothers in our research have been quite varied. For all of us, however, there has been a clear sense of obligation and responsibility to seek out our research pathways with integrity and, as Hineitimoana mentioned, ‘to do this work justice’. But perhaps carrying out our research mahi well and with integrity requires from all of us a good and clear understanding of what knowledge spaces such as family archives offer Indigenous- centred research that colonial archives cannot. All but two of us found our grandmothers in two different knowledge repository spaces: family and institutional archives. In the next and final question of our round table discussion, we explore further the spaces of family and colonial archives, particularly the limitations of colonial archives that come to light when we place them alongside whānau archives and other sites of knowledge. How would you describe the edges of the archives you work with, and what knowledge is visible in these spaces? Hineitimoana: Ngāti Kahungunu legal scholar, grandfather and storyteller extraordinaire, Moana Jackson, talks about whakapapa, the interconnected web of relationships and stories that make us who we are, as ‘a series of never- ending beginnings’.6 In reflecting on my own research journey and encounters with my tupuna in the archives, I find new beginnings to countless stories wherever I turn. Sometimes those new beginnings are not what you expect, or where you expect them to be, but as Alice Te Punga Somerville reminds us, an archive is not confined to one particular location or type of object. An archive is not just a sterile, temperature- controlled building with security cameras and swipe card access that houses cardboard boxes and manuscripts: ‘Archives are places where things, people and ideas come together’.7 Archives are all around us. This is certainly something that I have found to be true in the work that I do. This kind of expansive view of what an archive is aligns with Māori ways of viewing knowledge. Our pātaka kōrero, our storehouses of knowledge, are not limited to written texts. They are in our carvings and songs, on our marae and in the stories of our tūpuna, our elders, grandparents and ancestors. In terms of the edges of the archive, I am not sure that there are any. What I have found, instead, is that the archive is constantly expanding and creating new beginnings for new stories, or for old stories that remain untold. Another thing that I have been reflecting on is how our whakapapa, how those genealogical ties that we have to our tūpuna, enable us to do the kind of work that we do in a different way. These reflections have, in turn, informed a series of questions: What do the ways in which we know our tūpuna mean for our research? How is the presence of our tūpuna felt in the work that we do? What is the role that our tūpuna play in shaping our archival projects? How does our proximity to tūpuna create moments of tension? And how does it create opportunities to tell a more holistic story about our tūpuna and their lives? These are questions that I continue to wrestle with in my research. Marylise: The more that I ponder on this question, the more I feel that the once clear distinctions I had formed were rather misguided. I have seen some overlap and connections in the different archival spaces, where the knowledges do not counter one another but rather add to the richness or shed a different perspective. I have learned many things about my grandmother through talanoa with family members in preparation for my masters thesis, and I see the inner workings of these stories of my grandmother in the academic archival space. One of my most prominent findings of my grandmother in the archives was through a book about tivaevae. To me it signified how highly skilled she was in this artform, which was reaffirmed in the talanoa that I had with family members; bringing the knowledge of her skills to the forefront and surpassing the knowledge I had of her before that. Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202263 Mere: Rekindling and firing up language memory finds me traversing three knowledge spaces: kạunohoga (family), puku ma fäega (Rotuman language text and audio), and puk fạiva (creative text). In all these three spaces, my Mapiga Lily is ever present. She emerges in the kạunohoga space from memory objects like photographs, the sound of clanging aluminium buckets, the smell of a burning mosquito coil, and orange bingo pellets. The bingo pellets have raised the memory of me accompanying my grandmother to her bingo games at the Rotuman Hall in Vatukoula. I would often rub the bingo pellets between my teeth because I enjoyed the squidgy sound it made when plastic rubbed up against enamel. My grandmother would demand I spit it out in case I choked. I can hear her saying, ‘Äe se ania!’ (‘Don’t eat it!’). These memory objects hold sounds and smells that return me to the place where my Fäeag Rotuạm ta was born. From the space of Fäeag Rotuạm ta audio and text, I find Mapiga Lily in the reading of hanuju such as ‘Malol ta ma Noa’ (Noah and the flood) in the Puk Ha’a (the Holy Bible) and ‘Kirkirsasa’ in Titifanua and Maxwell’s text.8 Mapiga Lily introduced my siblings and me to Kirkirsasa’s bravery and her tattooed armpits during hanuju time; she was our first storyteller, our first book. It is impossible to ignore her hovering presence when reading Fäeag Rotuạm ta creative text. My preoccupation with finding Mapiga Lily in my research has also made me curious about how other Pasifika poets have presented their grandmothers in their work. In the third space of puk fạiva, I discover Albert Tuaopepe Wendt’s grandmother in the poem ‘Photographs’: her name is Mele.9 Her photograph ‘has occupied the place of honour’ in Wendt’s Vaipe home and, even at the age of ninety, she ‘detested being called an old woman’. Like Mele once was, Mapiga Lily is now ninety and living a very comfortable life in Australia. My Aunt Kamoe tells me that she can still call ‘Trump!’ in a game of cards; her mind is sharp enough to cheat and recognise victory when she wins. And like Mele, Mapiga Lily holds a place of profound honour in our kạunohoga (family). Finding Mapiga Lily in these three knowledge spaces outside an institutional archive overturns the legitimacy of institutional archives as ‘authoritative’ and ‘definitive’ sources of historical knowledge. Hineitimoana drives this point well: ‘Archives are everywhere’. The pervasiveness of historical knowledge outside of institutional spaces enables Indigenous creative practice scholars like me to draw from a wider pool of knowledge sources. I can find my Mapiga Lily in a bingo pellet. I can hear her in a clangy aluminium bucket. I can feel her in a poem and bible verse. All three sources invoke language memory. Memory (individual and communal) can often be perceived as unreliable and unstable by Euro- centric standards, but I argue that it is memory drawn from family archives and objects like photographs that enriches the archival research process. As Marylise rightly mentions above, institutional and family archives should ‘not counter one another but rather add to the richness or shed a different perspective’. Indigenous creative research, therefore, is not bound by Euro- centric colonial archival text alone. When we are not held ransom to one source of knowledge, we are empowered to be creative and experimentative in our research methods and approaches. This is the research trajectory I intend to stay on for a very long time. Jess: I am interested in what a whānau or magafaoa archive might be and mean for me. As I engage with more of this knowledge, and connect with Tagata Niue and other Pacific scholars, like everyone on this roundtable, I feel like we get closer to understanding the spaces that our knowledge inhabits and the ways we can express this in our scholarly work and share it with our families and communities. In many ways, the edges of institutional archives feel limited by who and how they were set up and the mechanics and systems that maintain them, whereas a magafaoa archive moves and expands to the places where memories and stories originate, where they are found and remembered. When I write about where our family information is or how to get to it, it becomes a map. There is the physical, geographical and tangible side of this map, and then there are the parts that bring it into focus for my magafaoa archive. Is an archive limited to geographic space? When we find things in conventional institutional archives, is there a way of claiming it or recognising that it fits in a bigger space of connection. Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202264 Maluseu: The edges of the archives that I work within continue to move further and further away, like the moving horizons of my imaginaries. The conjuring of imaginaries that speak to our futures is well discussed and documented with only a handful of current scholarly work that address Rotuman archival explorations as a source of clearing the path forward. An ancient knowledge transference that we experience as living histories. Meeting mapiạg hạni online has regifted our family fragmented hanuju that routes to an ecosystem of hanuju. Our sensory experience is the reason why I am explicit about meeting the archives from an imaginary capacity, which can bridge ecosystems of realities, truth and paradigms that reveal and heal wayfinding hanuju. We can observe how a hanuju finds a home in you. Knowledge as hanuju can be a living, breathing, sentient being who finds and intersects multiple places of belonging. This is the essence of embracing hanuju as an ancient practise that continues to weave futures for Rotuman mobility. A hanuju does seek to be right or wrong, but instead seeks its way back home like water trickling down a mountain side. Our archives can then be seen as a living reality through the sharing and practise of honouring hanuju. Our fragmented memories, stories, literature and orature are still finding their way back home just like us. Which begs the question of me as an emerging scholar, how do I clear the path for the flowing hanuju to traverse their own homecoming? To be finally embraced by their kạunohoga (family) with a mamasa (Rotuman welcome home ritual). Jesi: Even though Chamoru women are prominent figures within our communities, there are few resources written about the experiences of our women, let alone those within the diaspora. My childhood during the 1990s and early 2000s was not particularly different from that of other Chamorus, where those abroad now outnumber the Chamoru population within the Mariana Islands. Scholarly and literary engagement with the outmigration of Chamorus from the Marianas and their subsequent diasporic experiences is profoundly absent from larger discussions of Pacific Islander mobility. Historical records of Chamoru movement are predominantly written by European explorers and missionaries, often focusing on their interactions with Chamoru men. Chamoru men are given names, stories, and, at times, recognition of their contributions to events. Chamoru women on the other hand are rarely mentioned in colonial writings. They remain silent, nameless figures, and often numbers or statistics without noted contributions to the islands’ rich past. Chamoru scholars Christine Taitano Delisle, Anne Perez Hattori, and Laura Marie Torres Sauder, have taken on the task in their own work to discuss and celebrate the complex stories of Chamoru women throughout our islands.10 I use my grandmother and her friends’ stories to address this notable void by initiating a deeper examination of the experiences of our women in diasporic spaces, and how their Indigenous identity can be mobilised, incorporated, and inclusive in geographic and cultural contexts. It has been some time since I have dealt with the morning chaos of getting ready for school with my mother and grandmother. However, their stories continue to shape how I think about Chamoru women as steadfast pillars in our families and diasporic communities. My grandmother is a long- time member of the Sons and Daughters of Guam Club in San Diego and, depending on the year, she proudly serves as a board member. Her stories, and those of the other women – all leaders in their own right – in the club, often come to me in conversations over the phone, slow texts, or over healthier Chamoru meals (without our beloved and incredibly unhealthy SPAM®). They generously invite me in to explore photographs from family collections, read over newsletters and flyers saved from past Chamoru events, and attend senior lunches at the Guam Club to reflect on the long journeys that brought them to San Diego. Once my grandmother sounded her metaphorical kulo’, or conch shell, to her friends, they began to share their archives full of rich accounts of creating and sustaining Chamoru communities beyond the Mariana Islands. My grandmother’s archives matter and are necessary for considering Chamorus diasporic experiences and the resilience of our women. Uncovering and asserting the experiences of diasporic Chamoru women is a Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202265 decolonial act to better understand Chamoru movement and the specificities of how colonialism manifests differently in the lives of women. Legacies of being a matrilineal society place Chamoru women’s authority at the centre of the home, clan, and island life. I bring together these various Chamoru experiences and historic accounts to highlight the bountiful stories of Chamoru diasporic women that have yet to be fully engaged with. Chamoru women abroad offer new and unexpected ways to understand centuries of struggle, adaptation, and resilience in the face of colonialism. Chamoru women’s perspectives in the home islands and in the diaspora can also put forward new possibilities in thinking about Chamoru identity and movements towards the true liberation of our islands. Conclusion Finding our grandmothers in our research – some more ‘archival’ than others – has enabled us to uncover and assert the experiences of Chamoru women; reconnect fragmented Rotuman stories online; rekindle and fire- up Rotuman language memory; explore magafaoa archive spaces and their potential to expand the places where Niue memories and stories originate; discover family contributions to the New Zealand Domestic Scheme; and uncover new stories and beginnings from the genealogical ties that we have to our tūpuna. Tuaiwa Hautai Kereopa Rickard, Varena Frankie Dean, Lela Sialemata, Lily Voi Kafoa, Susau Marie, and Guadalupe Garrido Blas Lujan have brought a humanness and a profound sense of community and familial relevance to our varied paths of archival research and knowledge- making. Archives need not be sterile institutional spaces. They are all around us. Our grandmothers have shown us that. Endnotes 1 From here on, this is referred to as the domestic schemes. 2 Tivaevae is the art of quilting in the Cook Islands. It was heavily influenced by the wives of missionaries who were staying in the Cook Islands. 3 See Elisabeth Inia, Fäeag ‘es Fūaga: Rotuman Proverbs, Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 1998; Elisabeth Inia, Kato‘aga: Rotuman Ceremonies, Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 2001. 4 In the Chamoru language, Guam is called Guåhan. The Mariana Islands are also referred to as Låguas yan Gåni. Låguas are the southern, populated islands and Gåni refers to the northern islands in the archipelago; Tiara R. Na’puti, ‘Speaking of Indigeneity: Navigating Genealogies Against Erasure and #RhetoricSoWhite’, in Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol 105, no 4, 2019, pp495- 50. 5 ‘Chamorro’ is often used in general practice, when writing in English, and written according to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’ orthography. ‘Chamoru’ is used when writing in the native language. In 2017, Guam’s Kumision I Fino’ Chamorro (Chamorro Language Commision) adopted ‘CHamoru’ to emphasize that ‘CH’ and ‘NG’ are considered one letter and should be capitalised as such. I choose to use ‘Chamoru’ to reference our Indigenous language and be inclusive of the Mariana Islands as a whole. 6 Jackson, M. 2021, Decolonisation and the Stories in the Land (Online). Available: https://e- tangata.co.nz/comment- and- analysis/moana- jackson- decolonisation- and- the- stories- in- the- land/ (Accessed 27 May 2022). 7 Alice Te Punga Somerville, ‘“I Do Still Have a Letter”: Our Sea of Archives’, in Chris Andersen and Jean M. O’Brien (eds), Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies, Routledge, Abingdon, 2016, pp121- 127. 8 See Puk Ha’a the Holy Bible in Rotuman, Bible Society of the South Pacific, Suva, 1975, 1990, pp10- 12; Mesulame Titifanua and Maxwell Churchward, Tales of a Lonely Island, Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 1995, pp86- 90. 9 Albert Wendt, Photographs, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1995, pp77- 82. 10 See Christine Taitano Delisle, Placental Politics: CHamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2022; Laura Souder, Daughters of the Island, University Press of America, Lanham, 1992; Anne Perez Hattori, Colonial Dis- Ease: US Navy Health Policies and the Chamorros of Guam, 1898- 1941, University of Hawaiʻi Press, Honolulu, 2004. Greensill, et al. Public History Review, Vol. 29, 202266 https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/moana-jackson-decolonisation-and-the-stories-in-the-land/ https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/moana-jackson-decolonisation-and-the-stories-in-the-land/