Hinano Murphy served as a cultural advisor on the blockbuster Disney hit ‘Moana.’ And as powerful as her guidance proved to be in capturing the spirit of her community, she is much more than that. An Indigenous elder and expert in Tahitian lifeways, Murphy founded the Atitia Cultural Center on Moorea and works as the cultural director for the nonprofit Tetiaroa Society. At the 2024 World Wilderness Congress convened in the Black Hills, Hé Sapa in Lakota, she carried the message of the ocean and the Polynesian community speaking on several panels about the need for all nations to ratify the High Seas Treaty and pass a ban on deep sea mining. Deceleration caught up with her in a wide-ranging conversation about relying on the ancestors, working to protect life on our unraveling Earth, and the power of youth in the climate struggle. Enjoy! — Ceiba Ili
Hinano Murphy speaking with Deceleration at the World Wilderness Congress
Recorded August 30, 2024
Ceiba Ili, Deceleration: Thank you so much for being here with us. We’re very honored to have you. Can you just share your name and what your work is?
Hinano Murphy: Well, thank you for having me here, for inviting me to speak. My name is Hinnano Murphy. I come from Tahiti, a little island in the middle of the Pacific. I work as my background is teaching, and I work now as a cultural adviser, for Tetiaroa Society, a small NGO, based in the middle of the Pacific, nearby Tahiti, north of Tahiti. And our program is mostly to use these little atolls as, you know, an open laboratory, a learning space for our youth, but also for everyone coming from all over the world. We know how fragile the ecosystem of an atoll is fragile, and it’s a good example.
So there, we run a restoration program, you know for the island, the restoration of the habitats. We also run outreach programs for the community, for our children. We run a lot of scientific programs trying to bring the birds back to these atolls, but we really understood very fast that we cannot save our little atolls if we don’t go global. And that’s why now we are here. We are going to the ISA, and this is trying to understand more, to bring back to the community, and have our community, you know, trying to raise awareness among our community so they can understand more the challenges of today and being more aware of how to protect and how to deal and how to reconnect with our our island and bring all the care and the love that we have for our ocean, for Mother Earth, for every living being on our planet Earth.
Thank you so much for sharing that, and, thank you for all the work that you do for all of us because when you’ve shared you’ve shared that when we are protecting one area, we’re helping all severn generations of life, of not just humans and children, but all life. I wanted to get your opinion on how do the youth talk to the adults in a lot of our communities, especially in the cities, that have forgotten this connection that you talk about and continue to destroy our collective environment. What is something that you could share or say to the youth or to the people that have forgotten that?
I think that this issue is a world issue. We have communities all over the world trying to face all these challenges today. And, of course, trying to be connected to nature, it looks like today, for us, it’s a big, big problem as it is a very simple act. It’s very simple, like you’re breathing air around you. It’s that consciousness that we have to get and to regain. And by bringing that and trying to make our youth understand, make the young generation understand, but also it’s a call to the elders to help make that connection. And that goes to learning your language, learning your culture, learning yourself. Because this is who you are in your culture and what you are. And if you learn who you are and where you are anchored and bring that to the youth, I think this is one step.
That’s one of the first steps that we can do. It’s to really bring the youth to know who they are and where they come from. Where they come from is to acknowledge your ancestors, acknowledge your people, acknowledge your elders, and acknowledge the place you are living in.
You have the luck to live in a place where Nature is calling us to give back. Not to only take and take, because there is an end to this extracting. We have to learn how to give back to nature, to how to give back to our siblings. And for us, Nature is our sibling.
It’s part of us. In our language, we don’t have a word for nature. We borrow it from another language. But for us, we all always look at everything surrounding us like relatives to us. Like, it has got the essence of life. Like me, I have the essence of life. And it’s because of all of us having this essence of life. We should share it, but we should also maintain it and care for it. That essence of life, it is a gift from our ancestors who gave us life. But for all those who went, who passed away, but they’re still there around us, And they’re still in this environment that we’re living because they care for us to have that life. They care for us to keep living as long as possible.
I think the message today is Nature is calling us to give back, to care, to to give back our love to Nature. Because you can’t think of protecting something if you don’t love. You have to love yourself. You have to love who you are. Then you are able to share it and to acknowledge every living species as something very important around you. When we look at the ocean, we don’t look if we wanna spend a lot of time, we look at everything surrounding us. We look at fish. We look at big mammals. We look but we also look at birds, you know, flying over because there is a relationship between land and ocean. There is that friendship. There is that circulation of, you know, the knowledge. We know water comes, flows and goes into the ocean, but also goes in the sky. And this is your element. It’s not only the land, but you have to also acknowledge that above you, there is a sky, and there is life in the sky, and there is life under your feet. And we are able to stand on the back of our ancestors. And that brings pride to you because you’re not somewhere else.
You just imagine that you are stepping on the back of your ancestors, and your ancestors are carrying you all the time. All you have to do is to do that connection with it, with the connection with your ancestor. And it is the rivers. It is the water that flows and takes you around and acknowledges every living species around you.
And if you have that and if you give that to your children, bring back the children to live, to come back and reconcile in nature, anywhere. You know? It could be a place where it is polluted. But if you bring back that love, that place is going to heal.
Mother Nature does not need us to survive. We need Mother Nature. So we need to acknowledge that we need to give back to Mother Nature and say, we are still here, and we are strengthened by what you give us. And we are lucky, and we are. It’s just that gesture of saying, ‘Yes. I know you’re there. I know you are my strength. I know you are and the love I can give to you. It’s from the bottom of my heart and from the essence of my DNA going back to you because you gave me back that.’
The youth is our hope. I’m talking as a grandmother. You are our hope to carry on that message. You are a force because that’s why we are standing today. Because we want to give you that. We want to share that to the youth because you are going to stand up today. Don’t be weak. Just take that strength that you have anywhere you are and keep on going. Because you could overcome this. But it is a test from our Mother Earth, you know? It is a test. It’s testing us how strong we are and how strong our youth is.
The elders are still there. Don’t think that they are gone. They’re still there around you. And you have this message that you have to carry in your heart, in your mind, in your blood, in nature, in every living species.
So I do believe in you and in everybody around. I do believe in nature, that nature is but just listen. And two things for our mother nature: Just listen and give love. Give love. And that love will operate it and turn it into an action that you will find in your heart. Where am I comfortable? Where can I stand to do something for Mother Nature? You will find it, because you reconnect, you reconcile with everything that surrounds you. Every living species, living being around us. Reconcile. Forgiveness. Reconcile and stand strong.
I’ve heard several people say, ‘Look, look! There’s Moana’s grandmother.’ Can you share why they’re saying that in the streets here at Wild12?
Thank you. I think that I don’t deserve that title, but I worked with Moana, with Disney, for the movie for five years as one of the cultural advisers for the movie. And I tell stories a lot for this movie and make sure that they don’t miss the core of who we are. They don’t miss that message of who we are.
We are the people of the ocean, and the ocean is a living entity. The ocean is like our ancestor. And it’s very important that the world knows that 71 percent of this mass is ocean. And this is the blue of our island Earth. And it is very important that life is there. And that message, I think, that movie makes me realize how much we touch the world with this movie, with Moana.
Acting like Moana was the ocean was an entity, could deal with having that relationship with all humans. But through Moana, through this little girl, that story came up.
I was very happy to share all the stories of how I was born in the ocean, how my grandmother and how my mom was dealing and telling us stories. How I lived, you know, very close to this ocean. All stories that are funny sometimes are really important.
But in grandma, grandma in our family they are the driving force because they know everything about giving birth, about raising children, about everything around, working hard, you know. And they are the ones who connect us with this holistic part. And finding the power to empower us as girls to stand up because you have to be strong to give birth, to live, to raise the children. You have the empowerment of all our daughters, you know, and, of course, all our men. We are mothers of men and daughters, you know, young men and young daughters. So this is what we wanted to show. Grandmother is just not there to cook for us. But that holistic part of her, that spiritual part of her speaks to us, and give us that power, that strength to overcome the challenges of tomorrow.
So my call today is, you know, we have crazy ideas of all nations in the world because of the economy, because of, you know, whatever, to strip mine our ocean. And that’s why I’m here.
I’m here to try to call for all Indigenous people to rally to go to this cause, this cause that we have to protect the ocean. If there is no ocean, there is no us. There is no island Earth, and this is very important.
At this critical time, where lot of company mining companies, after having to mine all the land, they are having this idea that it’s easier to go and mine and stripmine the ocean to get something that took millions of years to create. So removing all these from our ocean, it’s removing life. Because if it took millions of years, we can’t believe that we are going to give this healthy ocean for our children, and the next and next generation to come if it takes millions of years. This is the end of us. So my call wants to be the call of every Indigenous people, everyone that is listening, that is, you know, thinking and caring about our Mother Earth. The urgency is saving our ocean.
Thank you so much. Thank you for your time and for sharing your words. We’re going to be sharing this far and wide, And I know that your call is going to be heard. I’ve been so inspired. My colleagues and everyone have been very inspired by your words and empowered too. So thank you. Thank you for that.
Thank you so much to you, and we keep in touch. And I think that this is a good message. It has been wonderful to meet you.
And don’t don’t forget: I trust you. I believe in you. And stand up.
