Ariki

He ōrite te mana o te karakia ki tō te tangata e rumaki ana ki te wai e ai ki a Leilani Kake i roto i te *Ariki*, 2007; kei te whakamahi ia i ngā mea e rua ki te whakaatu i ngā tikanga o te tamaiti e tupu ana. I roto i te ataata e ono meneti te roa, kei te āta huri haere tāna tamaiti a Andre, he whā tau te pakeke, i te hōpua, kei te titiro whakarunga ake ki te kaimātaki, ko ōna makawe e tāheke ana ki muri. Tīhaoa e ngā apaapa orooro o te karakia, o te imene tuki (he hīmene e waiatahia ana i te rohe o Manihiki), ko tēnei mātātuhi mō Andre hei ariki he tohutoro ki ngā āhuatanga o te mana, o te tapu, o te wehi – he tukunga iho nō ngā tūpuna, nō ngā atua.

The act of immersing oneself in water can be as powerful as prayer and in *Ariki*, 2007 Leilani Kake employs both to document the beginnings of a rite of passage. In the video Kake’s four-year-old son Andre slowly encircles the pool, his face glancing skyward to meet our gaze and his hair cascading behind him. Enveloped in a layered soundscape of karakia (prayer) and *imene tuki* (a traditional Cook Island hymn from the Manihiki region), this imagery of Andre as an ariki (paramount chief) conjures the qualities of mana (authority), tapu (sacredness) and wehi (awesome power) which were believed to be inherited from the ancestors and the gods.

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