Nana in Poukahangatus: Character Analysis

Overview

Nana appears most fully in the poem Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside, where she emerges as a warm, permissive presence in the narrator's life—a woman who is not biologically related to the narrator but who occupies the role of grandmother nonetheless. The narrator's opening confession—She's not my real nan / but I have always wished she was—frames Nana as a figure of chosen family, someone whose love and care the narrator claims even without blood ties. Nana is defined by small domestic rituals: letting the family smoke inside when they drink wine and play cards, drying wishbones from chicken carcasses in a margarine container on top of the fridge, wearing black leather pumps. These details accumulate into a portrait of a woman who is both grounded and quietly superstitious, someone who keeps hope close at hand in the form of dried wishbones.

The collection also tells us that Nana's beauty was striking enough to cause men to crash cars—a detail that links her to the collection's broader meditation on how Māori women's bodies and appearances are seen, desired, and objectified. And in the narrator's memory, Nana's iron becomes the tool the thirteen-year-old narrator secretly uses to straighten her hair, connecting Nana to the collection's exploration of colonial beauty standards and hair politics.

Plot Role

Nana is not a protagonist in the conventional sense; Poukahangatus is a poetry collection, and Nana appears as a recurring figure within the narrator's constellation of family and memory. Her primary role is as an anchor of domestic warmth and cultural continuity. She is the figure who makes the narrator feel glamorous when dropping ash into a pāua shell—a small moment that ties Māori material culture to the intimacy of shared ritual.

Nana also functions as a bridge between generations. She met her husband in the late sixties, placing her within the generation of Māori women who moved to cities like Wellington in that era—the women depicted in In the 1960s an Influx of Māori Women, who wore printed mini dresses, bought makeup at Elizabeth Arden in shades too pale for them, and hid vodka in a spare basement refrigerator. While the poem does not explicitly name Nana as one of these women, the timeline aligns: Nana's mod dress and flipped black hair in the late sixties matches the chapter's depiction of Māori women navigating urban life and assimilation pressures. This connection is interpretive rather than explicit, but it gives Nana's domestic rituals a broader historical context.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Nana's actions reveal a woman motivated by care, resilience, and a quiet defiance of convention. Letting the family smoke inside—even conditionally, only when we drink wine and play cards—is a small rebellion against the rules of proper domesticity. It creates a space where the family can gather, drink, play, and smoke together, and the narrator feels glamorous participating in it. This is not neglect; it is hospitality on Nana's own terms.

The wishbones drying on the fridge suggest a woman who holds onto hope and ritual. Wishbones are saved from chicken carcasses, dried, and presumably saved for the moment when someone will pull them apart and make a wish. Nana's practice of preserving them is a small act of faith in luck and possibility—a counterpoint to the grief and loss that also marks her life.

Her beauty, described in Chapter 1 as causing men to crash cars, is a trait that carries both power and burden. The narrator inherits an awareness of this beauty and its effects, and the collection explores how such beauty is seen through the male gaze. Nana's beauty is also tied to her Māori identity—her dark Waikato DNA, high cheekbones and heavy wet eyes—which the narrator explicitly wishes she had inherited.

At her husband's funeral, Nana's actions are striking: she ashes out a half-sucked cigarette in the fresh sour soil during the burial. This is a gesture of grief that refuses sentimentality. She does not weep publicly or speak; she performs a small, almost defiant act of mourning that matches the poem's overall tone of smoking as a form of comfort and coping. In the car park afterward, the family smoked back tears with another cigarette pacifier / like babies numbed on a nicotine nipple—a visceral image of grief managed through ritual.

Chronological Arc

Nana's arc in the collection is told in fragments rather than a linear narrative. The clearest timeline runs from her youth in the late sixties—meeting her husband in a little mod dress with her black hair flipped—through her marriage and family life, to her husband's death and her widowhood. The funeral scene in Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside is the emotional climax of her arc as presented in the collection.

The narrator's relationship with Nana also has its own arc. In Chapter 1, the thirteen-year-old narrator secretly uses Nana's iron to straighten her hair—a private act of colonial self-modification that connects Nana's domestic objects to the narrator's struggle with her own hair and identity. By the time of Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside, the narrator is old enough to participate in the adult rituals of wine, cards, and smoking, and to articulate her wish that Nana were her biological grandmother.

Relationships

The central relationship is between Nana and the narrator. The narrator's wish to be born with Nana's blood in her veins—her dark Waikato DNA, high cheekbones and heavy wet eyes—is a wish for a specific kind of Māori inheritance. The narrator's own sister has these features, and the narrator's envy of her sister's hair and eyes is part of the collection's broader meditation on beauty, inheritance, and belonging.

Nana's relationship with her late husband is sketched in affectionate detail. He was a cowboy with mutton chops and tan-lined legs in short cream shorts who rode a commercial digger to work and picked the family up on Sundays in his station wagon, playing Johnny Cash. He always picked my sister up more—a small, human detail of favoritism that the narrator notes without bitterness. At his funeral, the family's grief is raw and unpolished: the singing is painful and flat and sounded like coughing, and Nana's cigarette in the soil is the most articulate expression of loss.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Nana's decision to let the family smoke inside creates the poem's central image of domestic warmth and permissiveness. The consequence is a space where the narrator feels glamorous and included—a small but significant gift of belonging.

Her decision to marry the cowboy in the late sixties places her within a generation of Māori women who navigated urban life and assimilation. The 1960s chapter depicts these women's quiet struggles: buying makeup too pale for their skin, hiding vodka in a basement fridge, considering drowning in the bathtub before resurfacing and repeating the routine. These are the pressures Nana's generation faced, and the collection suggests that Nana's warmth and resilience emerged from within that context.

Theme/Symbol Connections

Nana connects to several of the collection's central themes:

Indigenous hair politics and colonial beauty standards: The narrator uses Nana's iron to straighten her hair—a secret act that links Nana's domestic tools to the narrator's internalized colonial standards. Nana's own beauty (dark hair, high cheekbones) is celebrated, yet the narrator still reaches for the straightening iron. This tension speaks to the complex inheritance of hair politics in Māori communities.

Intergenerational trauma and ancestral grief: The funeral scene, with its cigarettes and flat singing, depicts grief that is passed down and shared. The 1960s chapter's depiction of Māori women considering drowning in the bathtub is a stark image of the trauma that underlies the generation Nana belongs to, connecting to the collection's exploration of intergenerational trauma and ancestral grief.

Assimilation and cultural erasure: Nana's generation moved to cities, bought makeup too pale for their skin, and hid their vodka—small acts of concealment that speak to the pressures of assimilation and cultural erasure. Nana's wishbone-drying and pāua shell ashtray are counterpoints: small acts of Māori cultural practice within the domestic sphere.

The male gaze and objectification: Nana's beauty causing men to crash cars is an early instance of the collection's exploration of how Māori women are seen and desired. The narrator inherits this awareness, and the collection traces how the male gaze shapes Māori women's lives.

Identity performance and self-mythology: The narrator's wish that Nana were her real nan is a form of self-mythology—choosing one's own ancestors, claiming a lineage that feels more true than biology.

Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator wish Nana were her real nan?

The narrator explicitly states, She's not my real nan / but I have always wished she was. The wish is tied to specific physical and cultural traits: Nana's dark Waikato DNA, high cheekbones and heavy wet eyes, which the narrator's sister has but the narrator does not. The wish is for a particular kind of Māori inheritance—a lineage that feels more authentically connected to Māori identity and beauty.

2. What does Nana's habit of drying wishbones reveal about her character?

Nana dries wishbones from chicken carcasses in an empty margarine container on top of the fridge. This small domestic ritual suggests a woman who holds onto hope and possibility—wishbones are saved for future wishes. It also reveals her resourcefulness and her tendency to preserve small things of value, a quality that resonates with the collection's broader themes of cultural preservation and continuity.

3. How does Nana's beauty function in the collection?

Chapter 1 describes Nana's beauty as causing men to crash cars. This hyperbolic image links Nana to the collection's exploration of the male gaze and the objectification of Indigenous women. Her beauty is both a gift and a burden, and the narrator's awareness of it shapes her own relationship with her appearance and with how she is seen.

4. What role does Nana play in the narrator's relationship with her own hair?

In Chapter 1, the narrator recalls that at thirteen she began secretly straightening her hair with her nana's iron. Nana's domestic object becomes the tool of the narrator's private struggle with colonial beauty standards. Nana's own hair—dark, flipped in a mod style in the late sixties—represents a beauty the narrator admires, yet the narrator still reaches for the straightening iron, suggesting the complexity of inheriting both beauty standards and resistance to them.

5. How does the funeral scene illuminate Nana's relationship with grief?

At her husband's burial, Nana ashes out a half-sucked cigarette in the fresh sour soil. This gesture is unsentimental and almost defiant—a small act of mourning that refuses conventional expressions of grief. The family's singing is painful and flat and sounded like coughing, and afterward they smoked back tears with another cigarette pacifier. Nana's grief is expressed through ritual and shared habit rather than words, and the cigarette in the soil becomes a powerful symbol of loss grounded in the earth.

For further exploration of Nana's role and the collection's broader themes, see the ending explained and questions and answers pages.