Daughter flees narcissistic mother: a Polynesian tale of pathological narcissism

Rona's hiding place was in that hole through the cliff at Taharaa, the path which people use at low tide to avoid the climb. She waited there and caught men as they passed, and ate them. Therefore people became scarce in that district; there were houses without people, and there were bones in Rona's Cave.

One young man escaped that woman's teeth., Monoihere was his name, and he desired her daughter. He was handsome, and Hina desired him also, therefore they used to meet at Orofara, in a shady place near where the spring flows into Hina's Pool. That cave in the rock-face there was only known to them. For others it was quite closed up in former times, hut it opened and closed as they-two wished, and hid Monoi.

The time for their being together was when Rona had gone out on the reef for crabs. She was expert at this and was often to be seen far out off Matavai, bending over the reef to collect food for her daughter. Then it was safe for Hina and Monoi. Then Hina took a basket of food and went up to Orofara, and she said these words:

Monoihere is the man,
Hina is the woman.
Come out from there!

and from inside the rock the man replied:

Where is your mother with the long teeth?
Where is Rona?

and Hina answered him:

She is on the long reef,
She is on the short reef,
She is catching food for us,
O my lover!

Then Hina said:

O rock-foundation-
Break you open!

These words split the rock and let Monoi out and they-two had their custom in that shady place. Then Hina returned to her home and left Monoi closed up in the rock.

After a certain time Rona noticed that the food she caught was quickly gone. 'This daughter of mine eats much,' that mother said. One day therefore, when she had cooked the usual quantity for keeping, she said that she felt unwell, and lay down on her sleeping-mat, and snored.

And Hina, believing that her mother was asleep, took out some food and crept away; and Rona followed her. When she saw where Nina was going that woman took a short cut by enchantments, and she concealed herself at Orofara in a pua tree.

And Rona saw what happened in that place. She heard the words that Hina spoke, and she watched her daughter with the man: and she desired his flesh, that vahine kaitangata. Therefore she returned to her house, and snored on her mat when Hina came.

On the next day that eater-of-men said to Hina, "Tonight I go fishing by torchlight, so I will go now to collect dry leaves. Stay here, for I shall not he long."

But Rona went inland to Orofara; by enchantment she made the distance short and soon she stood before the rock, and she pretended to be Hina, saying:

Monoihere te tane,
O Hina te vahine.
A puta mai i vaho.

But Monoi knew the voice of that vahine kaitangata and he answered:

You are not Hina, you are Rona.
You are Rona of the Long Teeth.

She therefore knew that he was in that place and she said the words that are for splitting rock:

Te tumu o te papa e, vahia!

And the rock split open. Rona rushed in, she caught Monoi in the cave, and made a meal of him.

She ate the best parts first, she ate his fingertips and toes; she scooped his brains and ate them, she swallowed his liver, and she found out his kidneys and ate them also. She also ate his cock and the two that hang; but Monoi's heart that woman could not find. His heart concealed itself, it remained still beating in the mess of guts, and therefore Rona did not eat Monoi's heart.

When she had finished her meal she closed the cave behind her. Then she gathered up dry fronds to make her torches, and went home to Hina.

So soon as the moon came up that woman got her crab spear, and taking a young person to carry her torches, she went out wading on the reef. Then Hina filled a basket, and went inland to have enjoyment with Monoi. She stood before that rock and softly called:

Monoihere te tane,
O Hina te vahine.
A puta mai vaho.

But the rock was silent. Therefore Hina said the rest; she said:

Te tumu o te papa e, vahia!

and the rock split open, and she saw her lover's bones and guts. She spoke no word, that girl who loved, but straightway took her lover's heart, it was beating yet, and placed it by her own. Then she returned to her home to act.

Sad Hina cut the man-long stem of one banana tree, and laid it on her sleeping-mat, and she covered it with her sheet of soft white tapa. Then at the head she placed a drinking-nut; and she hurried from that place.

Well guided by her lover’s heart, she ran to Uporu, to the house of that hairy chief whose name was No'a huruhuru. No'a received her with kindness, and she remained at his house.

Now in the middle of that night when all her torches had been burnt, that woman Rona came home with her catch, and she called to her daughter in the house:

Here's food!

But the house remained silent. And Rona cried:

E Hina!
If you don't answer, you will be eaten by me!

But there came no answer from the house. Therefore Rona rushed to where her daughter was sleeping, she seized her body in the sheet and sliced it with a single bite.

And when she saw how she was tricked she was enraged, and cried out: "Aue! My food has escaped!" All through that night she was enraged.

So soon as the cocks were crowing in the valley and the first men were astir, Rona rushed out to look for Hina. She asked for her at every house and they told her which way that girl had gone.

That woman therefore hurried to the house of No'a huruhuru, and when she saw her daughter there she became all teeth. There were teeth on Rona's chin, teeth on her elbows, teeth on her belly.

But No'a huruhuru raised his spear, he cried out in a loud strong voice:

This spear, Tane te rau aitu,
has dealt with Te Ahua and Hine te aku tama!

Then he thrust that spear down Rona's throat, right down through all her teeth, She writhed and died.

Thus perished Rona niho niho roroa, the vahine kaitangata of Taharaa, the ancestor of Tahaki of the red skin. Her daughter Hina was the grandmother of that red chief.

(Tahiki was well known to a Polynesian audience. It is told that he made the island of Tahiti by cutting the sinews of a fish. And that Lightening came out his armpits. He achieved much while doing everything correctly, as a Polynesian aristocrat should. He was handsome to perfection. Everyone admired him, especially the women.)

Interpretation

Well, this is a strange story. What is it trying to tell us? It seems like a map which would lead to hidden treasure if we could decipher it.

Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz have shown that we can interpret fairytales at the subjective level: That is, we can understand this story as an account of different forces within the personality: how they conflict, possible resolutions, possible progressions.

When I understand the story at this level, then it 'clicks', as though I had suddenly understood the enigmatic symbols on the treasure map. Then everything falls into place, and the story speaks with authority. Of course, the interpretation you are about to hear is not the only one possible. You must judge whether this interpretation rings true for you.

In order to interpret the tale, we have to explore the symbolic meaning of each image. This means that we first examine an image on its own terms, then ask what it may mean psychologically. This is a creative process that requires both logic and intuition. You'll see what I mean as we go along.

But first we have to understand the overall structure of the story. There are no men at the beginning of the story. But then three men appear in sequence: first Monoi, then No'a, then Tahiki. So the male figure seems to evolve. In the beginning there is an imbalance, a mother and daughter, but no husband. At the end there is more balance: the chief acts correctly and is admired by the women. This structure provides the framework for our interpretation.

Yin

The story begins with the feminine side. Before we go any further we must ask, what does the feminine represent? I might forget to ask that question. I think I already know. But then my interpretation is incomplete, it's just words: 'The feminine does this, the feminine does that'. I tend to stay with the jargon, and to resist spelling out the meaning.

Reading a myth is like reading the diagnostic manual for mental disease. If I am not too defended, then I recognize that I have all the symptoms, hopefully in mild form! No-one is fully formed: we are all formed in some areas and unformed in others. If I am open to the story of Rona, then it makes me unpleasantly aware of the areas that are still unformed. So I defend against that with jargon.

As Whitmont pointed out, the feminine represents what Chinese philosophy calls 'Yin'. Yin is the natural, unconscious cycle of life. It is devouring, and death, and darkness, but it is also holding, gestating, and indiscriminate creative abundance. (like the earth, or a cave, or the womb )

And Yin is whatever entangles things and connects them together (like sexuality, and emotion, and intuition).

Rona is an archaic manifestation of Yin, akin to what Neuman called the 'Uroboric Mother', who contains the germ of everything that will later evolve.

Rona catches men and eats them. She is not Yin in relationship to an opposing agency, But archaic Yin whose unbridled power consumes any other agency. So Rona symbolizes the unconscious, which both nurtures consciousness and threatens it, seeking to swallow it up again. I’ll say more about this later.

Though Rona has no husband, she has a daughter. This suggests that the principle of Yin is beginning to differentiate: I talked about the symbolism of the daughter in the previous lecture. Here I will only say that Rona's daughter suggests the connecting, entangling aspect of Yin. That is, Yin which has the potential to be in relationship with an opposite force.

Yang

What about Hina's lover, Monoi? Monoi is of the opposite sex. Just as Rona and Hina represent Yin, Monoi represents the principle of Yang.

In Chinese philosophy Yang is: Assertion, movement, and stimulus, Whatever penetrates (like a phallus) Whatever separates things and discriminates them (like a knife). At the mental level, discrimination includes logic and objectivity and the law.

So Yang is light and consciousness, whereas Yin, remember, is darkness and the unconscious. So the meeting of Hina and Monoi represents the meeting of opposite principles, of Yin and Yang, and the story shows how the personality develops as a result of that meeting.

Unconscious yang

If we look carefully at the image of Monoi, we see that he is a bit peculiar. He exists closed up inside a rock and is only let out when Hina or Rona calls for him. A rock is part of the earth, and the earth belongs to the Great mother. And in the end Monoi is eaten by Rona. What does this suggest?

It suggests that Monoi has not yet emerged from the belly of the mother, just as Hina has not fully emerged from Rona's belly. (This is confirmed when Rona calls Hina 'My food' - we see that Hina is being fattened up for slaughter.)

Remember that Rona has long teeth. Teeth are phallic, so Rona has a mouthful of phalluses. So Monoi symbolizes a primitive form of Yang. Yang which is not differentiated from the original mother. She still uses it to feed herself.

The story is subtly inconsistent about Monoi. First it seems that he and Hina simply use the cave as a meeting place. Then it seems that Monoi is imprisoned inside the cave (or is it inside the rock?), and is only released when Hina or Rona recite the magic chant. The inconsistency shows the unconscious at work; the story-teller doesn't notice that the unconscious is modifying a realistic image in order to better express a symbolic meaning.

For Yang to be contained within archaic Yin is commonplace. We see it in a mother who belittles her husband and is the sole power in the household. Her husband and her children do not thrive because Yin and Yang are all mixed up in her unconscious. Although she may be an attentive mother, she is secretly gobbling up her family. She uses her food and her house (like Rona's cave) to dominate.

What I have just said illustrates something that is central to analytic work: The Yang of such a mother tends to be destructive because it is unconscious. If she became more conscious of her Yang, then it would be more constructive. The same is true for any psychological potential.

Here 'destructive' is that which thwarts the personality, while 'constructive' is that which helps it to unfold, to progress through its life cycle.

Its easy to say the words 'become more conscious of Yang', but to become conscious is not easy. I have to know Yang with all my faculties, not just with my intellect, but also with my senses, and my imagination, and my feeling. And I have to behave differently in the world. I have to live Yang consciously in my outer life. And so I have also to analyze the complexes which prevent me from doing all that.

Let's look at another example of Yang contained within archaic Yin. A man has a succession of wives but is still devoted to his mother. When he takes a vacation with his wife, he invites his mother too. He is connected to Yang, because he keeps on being a lover. But he begins to feel towards his wife as though she were his mother, so he loses his attraction for his current wife, and goes off after the next one. This can go on indefinitely, but the man is not growing psychologically.

This is mostly how it is for people. When I am passive and unassertive then I’m caught by the mother. When I use alcohol, or any drug. Or when I overeat, or diet compulsively, or watch TV, or play computer games.

When I am caught up in materialism (from the Latin 'mater' which means mother), that’s the mother too. To be obsessed with the stock-market, is to be caught in the mother.

When I am caught up in power struggles, whether it be international real-politic like Kissinger, or power struggles with individuals, then I am caught in the unconscious.

When I am macho - exaggeratedly masculine - like Ernest Hemingway or Norman Mailer, or John Wayne, or Rambo, I am secretly immersed in the mother. A clue to this is the compulsive drinking, or womanizing, or compulsive proving of strength which is associated with macho. So much for James Bond!

As for physical macho, so for intellectual macho. The phallic power of the mind is also unconscious if it is one-sided. When I live too much in the mind I am caught by the mother.

This means that science, though it may be objectively factual, is psychologically distorted. Science is preoccupied with material explanations, and material belongs to the mother. This is consistent with the destructive consequences of science and technology, which are so great that the ecology of the planet itself is endangered. That danger is hinted at in the fairytale. Rona distorts the ecology of her island with her unbalanced appetite.

So much of what passes for strength and assertion in our culture is actually phallic power trapped in the unconscious. Rona long-teeth is everywhere, threatening to gobble up everyone, and it is helpful to have a vivid image of her. This myth is both a diagnostic manual and a treatment for the disease.

What I have just said about Monoi shows why we must look closely at the image on its own terms; we must see how it works objectively. This guards against the danger of projecting preconceived ideas. I might have missed Monoi's peculiarity. I might have seen only that he represents phallic energy. When I project onto an image I don't learn anything from it. It is like using jargon: my projection tends to be defensive.

When Rona eats Monoi and tries to eat Hina, she does not relate to them as people, but as objects for her use. I'll come back to this later.

Feeling

But Monoi's heart hides itself from Rona. The heart represents feeling, and in particular love, and the context confirms that it is love that is meant here. Monoi and Hina are lovers, and then sad Hina, 'that girl who loved', holds Monoi's beating heart close to her own. So Hina and Monoi's love for each other is contrasted with Rona's objectification.

The story portrays two distinct phases in Hina's love. At first Hina and Monoi love each other in unconscious bliss. This means that the couple is enclosed in mutual projection. The connection is arousing deep feelings in each, but this is a collective state, not an individual one. In this state, I don't know the person that I love. What I most want to know is that the other’s feelings are the same as mine! I am 'blinded by love' or 'a fool for love'.

And here Rona's role is paradoxical. She tries to hold Monoi and Hina captive but, in spite of herself, she drives them forward. It is Rona's long teeth which discriminate Monoi, eliminating his penis and the rest of his body, and leaving only his heart.

Like Monoi himself, Monoi's heart represents Yang, here as feeling that discriminates. It loves Hina specially, distinguishing her from other women. Then it distinguishes the path she must take to escape. So feeling leads her out of unconscious possession.

In analysis it is often feelings which lead the way. When my patient learns to discriminate his feelings, to recognize, for example, that his sleepiness is really anger, then an unconscious possession is broken and the work can progress.

Feeling leads to relatedness, both with the other, and with oneself. If I am sensitive to the nuances of the other’s feelings then I must also understand my own feelings better. If I am discriminating with the other, sometimes agreeing, sometimes opposing, then I must also be discriminating with myself.

You see this in marriage. At first a marriage rests on mutual projection. Later, if it is to survive, a marriage demands feeling relatedness.

The biblical version of this myth is the story of Adam and Eve. There it is not the heart, but the knowledge of good and evil which breaks the spell and leads Adam and Eve out of the unconscious. But we discriminate good from evil through feeling. (We ask ourselves, 'does it feel right?'). So the underlying idea is the same. Feeling leads the way.

The serpent in the garden is phallic, like Rona's teeth. The serpent is the Great Mother’s Yang which begins the action.

The clever chief

Hina flees to the chief No'a huruhuru. of whom we are told that he is kind and hairy. What might this mean symbolically?

Kindness suggests feeling relatedness, so this reinforces our interpretation of Monoi’s heart: feeling relatedness liberates Hina.

Hair is mostly on the head, so it is what comes out of the mind, that is, knowledge and ideas. No'a seems to be clever. This is confirmed by his illustrious spear, and by his chant, both of which are cultural products, things honed by the mind. Like feeling, No'a's cleverness discriminates, so it is part of Yang.

When Rona sees her daughter in No'a's house she becomes all teeth. There were teeth on her chin, her elbows, and her belly. What does that suggest?

There are echos here of other stories: Rona, who would eat everyone, is like the cyclops who devoured men. No'a, the clever warrior, is like Odyseus, whom Homer called the strategist, or the crafty one. Odyseus speared the cyclops through his one eye which was like a mouth.

There are also echos of Beowulf who killed devouring Grendle, then killed Grendle’s devouring mother, and then killed the devouring dragon.

So No'a and Rona are a universal image of the skilled hero and the dragon. As I said earlier, though the need to slay the dragon is universal, it is not universally dealt with. The normal state is for the dragon to be in control, that is, for unconsciousness to prevail.

Pathological narcissism

So far we have understood Rona as devouring unconsciousness, or Yin, in a broad sense. But the details of her image add something more. Her all-over-the-body teeth suggest narcissistic rage. This is the all-devouring rage an infant may feel if it is frustrated. We also call it oral rage, so Rona's teeth are apt.

When Hina doesn’t answer Rona, Rona tries to bite her in half. Rona does not respect the other’s integrity, that the other is a person in their own right. Instead she makes the other a component of her own body, a part-object for her use. She violates the other’s boundaries. She accepts no limits, no limits to her hunger.

So Rona represents a narcissistic phase of development. This phase is normal in infancy: an infant feels that he or she is the center of everything. Everyone else is just an extension of the infant’s being. In the narcissistic phase, the infant still lives in the belly of the mother.

Narcissistic rage is global, it extends everywhere: Not only feelings, but also perceptions, are all-or-nothing. (If you frustrate me, then you are my enemy, and I want to destroy you.)

Up to this point, Rona had been good to Hina. But only while she saw Hina as a gratifying extension of herself. A narcissistic parent does best when the child is very young. The gratifying bubble tends to break when the child rebels.

Rona's rage is the more frightening because, though it is infantile, it is wielded by an adult with adult powers. In its most overt form, pathological narcissism can make an adult person into a serial killer, like Rona. If a narcissistic adult is law-abiding, then he or she tries to obliterate the other with power plays, or with words, or with affect.

It is pathological narcissism that allows a president to see his job as a photo-opportunity. He lives inside a bubble of self-regard and may not fully understand that his actions affect other people. Narcissists are often charming.

But we all have narcissistic parts to our personality. It is only a question of degree. We should try to be conscious of our narcissism so that we are less compelled to inflict it on others.

A patient's narcissism often goes unchallenged, even in analysis, because no-one, not even an analyst, wants to face that level of rage.

When I do confront narcissism in a patient, I must be like No'a. I must invoke all my skill and all my resolve, in order to withstand the fury I unleash.

The toothed vagina

No'a's spear penetrates Rona's throat through all her teeth. There is a fearsome symmetry here: No'a penetrates Rona just as Monoi penetrated Rona's daughter with his penis. Remember that Rona has teeth all over her body. Symbolically it is Rona's vagina dentata which No'a conquers. What does this mean?

In the tale it is because No'a conquers Rona's toothed vagina, that Hina's vagina can be fruitful. It as though any vagina could potentially have teeth and No'a has to separate the teeth out.

Sexual intercourse is a symbol of relationship. It is not relationship itself, but it symbolizes it: two people become intimate but do not violate each other’s boundaries. Each person remains intact. Each continues to be separate and whole.

But, to the extent that I am narcissistic, I violate relationship by violating boundaries. I am caught up in unconscious power games. I try to injure the other’s wholeness. These power games are the teeth in the vagina.

No'a's spear discriminates the confusion. Then Yang no longer compulsively violates boundaries. Instead, it functions consciously in the service of integrity. Thus relationship becomes possible.

In treating narcissism, I have to relate gently but persistently, choosing the right moment to discriminate out a piece of destructive aggression. Above all I have to become conscious of my own narcissism, so that I am not compelled to retaliate when my patient attacks.

Culture and conscious Yang

What enables No'a to stand firm against Rona? No'a draws upon a phallic tradition. He has a spear, and he makes a traditional speech, in which he recalls past feats with that spear.

The Polynesians prize oratory. A leader is someone who can recount the history of the tribe, someone whose speech embodies dignity and power. Yang is expressed both in the orator’s physical vigor, and in his or her linguistic vigor.

I encountered this once when I taught high-school in New Zealand. I was new to teaching and my classroom discipline was not good. A thirteen-year-old boy from a chief's family came and spoke to me after class. His name was Lenny Kai. He advised me that I had to be stronger. He paced back and forth as he spoke, making his points with rhythmic emphasis and with great dignity.

So No'a's oral tradition enables him to identify with his potent ancestors. I've tried to convey a little of this oral vigor through the Polynesian phrases in the story.

This is one reason why children need strong parents, and why they like to play sports. This is the value of Superman and of cowboy movies. If children don't have adequate models for Yang, then they will be swallowed up by Yin: their strength, independence and creativity will be compromised.

As an analyst, I have to help my patient to cultivate Yang. I have to model it in my own behavior, and I have to analyze his or her difficulties with Yang.

How Yang develops

Notice how, in the course of the story, Yang develops.

It begins as teeth, which suggest the instinctual hunger to take what is needed. Without that assertive hunger we cannot feed ourselves and we cannot live.

Then it becomes penis, or the drive to connect and to penetrate the other.

Then it appears as heart which means feeling discrimination.

Then Yang becomes mental discrimination and mental creation.

Paradoxically, it is Rona who causes this development. What does this mean? When a complex threatens to swallow me up, and I must face it, then my power of discrimination becomes more conscious. On the extraverted side, I must learn to counter another's manipulations, or bullying, or blurring of boundaries. On the introverted side, I must learn to counter my own compulsions and self destruction. Thus my Yang develops.

The story ends with Tahiki of the red skin. Tahiki made the island of Tahiti, so he created a firm stand-point. He created lightening which is piercing light. Both these images show that Tahiki created consciousness.

Remember that Tahiki achieved much while doing everything correctly, as a Polynesian aristocrat should. So Tahiki is an ego ideal. He is sensitive to the customs of his tribe. This confirms that Yang becomes related when it is differentiated from Yin. That Tahiki is handsome and admired by women confirms that Yang and Yin are now in right relationship.

In sum, the story of Rona shows the development, out of narcissism, of a new level of consciousness, consciousness which identifies with the principle of Yang.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed today's lecture.