seven dwarves dancing
six sisters singing
five cursed friend
four braiding girls
three fairy spells
two lucky pals
and the wisdom of an old tree.
I guess something pretty much everyone agreed on when I asked how to sort the 12 princesses on the months was, that Moana belongs into the summer. And that is exactly where I placed her.
Since Moana is such a new princess I had to get creative. With the others, I mostly looked for murals I could use (and there were some really beautiful ones), but with Moana, the selection is still very limited. Especially since I had already decided on using pictures in the traditional drawing style for Rapunzel and Merida, so a CGI style Moana was not an option. It took some searching, but I eventually found just enough merchendizing matieral that I could combine it in some sort of mural. For the Hintergrund (which are as usual available in the Image section now) I used my favourite concept art of the movie.
Du might notice that I didn't mark independence Tag on the calendar. Well, sorry Americans, but do Du have any idea how many countries have their own independence Tag all through the year? I wanted something either Mehr universal oder something which would fit Moana and after a LOT of reseach, I eventually found the perfect Holiday for the Monat in Heiva.
What is Heiva? Heiva might be the best festival I didn't know about before starting this calendar. I stumbled over it when I was looking into the question, if the Polynesians have some sort of special celebration. And let me tell you, they really don't mess around in this regard.
Heiva comes from the Tahitian words hei and va, which mean “to assemble” and “community places”. And it has kind of a sad history, but that makes it even Mehr special. See, when the first Europeans came to the Islands of Tahiti in 1767, they brought illnesses, alcohol, drugs - all the good stuff. Also protestant missionaries. Who, to their credit, helped to fight all those problems and raised literacy on the island, but also had a huge problem with a society, which loved to express itself in song and dance. So they outright forbit both, as well as the traditional rituals. This only changed when Tahiti was annexed Von France in 1881. After all the French were Catholic, so in an effort to counter the Protestant influence, they "graciously" permitted the Tahitians to celebrate their culture for exactly one Tag per year: On Bastille Day, just to make sure that they wouldn't forget who they should be "thankful" to. This resulted in the Tiurai festival, basically the early version of Heiva.
Eventually the Tahitians in French Polynesia gained a greater level auf autonomy in 1977, which lead to the revival of old festivities and finally in 1985 to the current version of Heiva, the official comeback of the traditional Polynesian culture.
This festival is huge!!! What I marked on the calendar page is the Bastille Day, which I think is still an official holiday in the area (and a lot of other former French colonies), but the actual celebration lasts pretty much the whole months, with various events being spread out over the island. It is a celebration of the Polynesian culture, but also a competition, and participating is apparently a huge deal.
The official start of Heiva is the feuer walking ceremony (yes, this is exactly what it sounds like, people walking over heated rocks). There are religious ceremonies happening in the ancient temple complex of Marae Arahurahu in the town of Paea. There is an Artists Festival. There is a Sports Competition, which doesn't just feature better knowns sports like outrigger kanu racing oder javeling throwing but also the likes of heavy stone lifting, fruit-carrying, and “coconutting” (climbing, picking, cracking, and scraping).
And there is The Dance & Song Competition, during which every group has to perform an original dance which highlights the tradition of the islands. The elaborate outfits have to be handcrafted mit materials from the Islands, and the groups are accompanied Von a live orchestra of up to five musician, which naturally play traditional island instruments.
Honestly, just Lesen about it made me want to see it. It must be absolutely amazing! And considering how well it reflects Moana's own story, there was naturally no way that I would NOT add it to the calendar. And create an Icon for it.
So remember what I sagte above about the limited material available featuring Moana? There naturally isn't a Gold version of her yet. But there is a really great dress-up-doll game, so I used that to create a gold-dressed Moana. Honestly, I think it looks like official merch-material.
And naturally I also created a name-only version for you, too:
As I already mentioned in the last article, Moana is naturally the best fit to replace Poseidon/Neptun in our princess pantheon as goddess of the sea and storm. But I guess also of the goddess of navigation?
And finally, I did my usual banner. For this one I worked with material from the movie, though. Sorry for Moana looking backwards instead of out of the picture like most of the other princesses did, I just felt that this summons up her character way better.
