Indigenous Societies
1. What object does the grandfather throw overboard a boat (and expects will be retrieved)?
- a. his father’s brass heirloom pistol
- b. his traditional chief’s necklace
- c. his sacred black harpoon
- d. his sacred smoking pipe
- e. his radio
2. What is the central conflict in “Whale Rider”?
- a. How do indigenous societies keep their traditions and yet accept change?
- b. How indigenous societies must fight through the legal system to gain title to their land.
- c. How can indigenous societies reverse language loss?
- d. How do indigenous societies gain control over rising blood pressure?
3. What item has not been finished, but finally is (and is then used) at the end of the film?
- a. a chief’s house
- b. a traditional canoe
- c. a woman’s hut
- d. a ritual club
4. What (or who) is the grandfather trying to find?
- a. the sacred carved steering paddle for his carved war canoe.
- b. a leader who will lead his people into the next generation.
- c. a new husband for his spinster granddaughter.
- d. all of the above
5. What does the grandfather do when the object is not retrieved?
- a. leaves it there and sinks into a depression.
- b. retrieves it himself and then breaks it in half with his bare hands.
- c. forces his son to retrieve it.
- d. leaves it there and it is never retrieved again.
- e. calls up a supernatural whale ancestor who swallows it up and spits it onto the beach.
6. This film…
- a. captures the confusion of traditional culture in the transition to a modern one.
- b. graphically depicts the abuse of native peoples at the hands of more technologically advanced white colonists.
- c. focuses on what might be called “slave labor” conditions in Third World sweatshops.
- d. portrays how one man is able to overcome his drug addiction to become the next chief of the tribe.
- e. all of the above
7. How does ‘Whale Rider’ conclude?
- a. the grandfather drowns, killed as he tries to ride a whale.
- b. the girl is allowed to become a leader.
- c. the girl’s mother is brought back to life by the supernatural whale spirit.
- d. the girl helps win the court battle and gains ocean fishing rights for her people.
