Hai

Hello to all -well none at the moment because I have yet to invite anyone, but still, hello. I have no idea what I shall post here, aside from thoughts and pictures, and verifications that I am indeed still alive in the Wellington winter. I leave tomorrow, on a jet plane no less, for far away lands. I will jump the date line and never see the 23rd of June. Today is a day of warm sunshine, bike riding, packing, last minute freak outs punctuated by moments of sheer laziness.

So, just as an explanation to catch everyone up to speed: I am going to Wellington New Zealand to conduct thesis research on whales and the Maori people. I did at one point have a coherent way of organizing my thoughts so here is a brief set of questions I hope to explore.

How do whales figure into the indigenous culture of New Zealand/Aotearoa and how does folklore inform the interactions between the Maori people and whales? Where does the imagined universe, embedded in traditional stories, intersect with the natural physical environment, and what sort of meaning is derived from these interactions in this intersection?

To this end I hope to explore both historical and contemporary relationships between the people of Aotearoa and multiple species of whales. I'm going to be in Wellington for most of my time mostly because it's geographically in the center of the country and it has several museums with useful things in them, like exhibits on whales, the maori people, and the natural environment.

Oh, and an explanation for the title, which I think only a few of you will understand immediately. Keith Basso is an amazing author of a book I have had to read several times now called Wisdom Sits in Places. You should all read it, especially if you are interested in ethnography. He does a fantastic job of exploring the Cibecue Apache and their use of place names to tell stories. Baleen is basically what a lot of whales use to eat krill. It's kind of like a giant strainer - they gulp a bunch of water, close their mouths and shoot out all the water, but the krill get caught in the baleen. yup. I'm studying whales and would like to do something like Basso (but let's be real, that's not going to happen, I can only hope to start on that path...) and thus Basso meets Baleen.

If for any reason you have some chocolate you want to get rid of, some awesome postcards you can't find a home for, or even just some fun snail mail lying around, feel free to send it to 11/35 Torrens Terrace Mt Cook Wellington 6011 New Zealand. Rest assured I will find a good home for it.