Module 14: Repatriating Languages

A Toy of Cultural Appropriation

By Aidan Gibbs

As a young kid, I loved toy Legos. If I still had any today, I’d probably enjoy messing with them. Other than the pain of walking on them, most people would agree that they are an enjoyable, creative, and iconic toy. Along with the blocks that everybody knows, LEGO company also has other toy lines, such as Bionicle, which debuted in 2001 when I was just five years old. Bionicle toys combine the classic building blocks of LEGO with the story of a fight between good and evil characters in a setting very reminiscent of Polynesia (Osborn). Along with traditional Legos, I also bought and played with Bionicles. What I could not have known at the time I was playing with them, however, was that the Maori tribes of New Zealand were not so thrilled with Bionicles.

They felt that LEGO was stealing and marketing their language and culture. The Bionicle fantasy world is centered around a tropical island called Mata Nui, which contains a populace that were originally named ‘Tohunga’ (Osborn). The Bionicle naming scheme contains many more Polynesian sounding words, of which a few, including ‘Tohunga’, which means ‘priest’ in Maori, were real words from Polynesian languages (Osborn). The Maori saw this, and hired a lawyer to confront LEGO. They were especially afraid that LEGO might try to trademark these words. They called LEGO’s use of these words ‘unauthorized’, ‘inappropriate’, and a ‘trivialization’ of the words (Griggs). In response, LEGO dropped the use of some of the names it had chosen and agreed to not adopt any names from native cultures without consultation of the native people (Osborn). This legally satisfied the Maori tribes. It did not halt anger, however, as a hacker disabled BZPower.com, a Bionicle news and discussion page, for more than four days in an attack against LEGO for its Maori appropriation (Griggs). The website was forced to remove its online forums completely to stop the attack (Griggs).

Since 2002, when this controversy occurred, LEGO has not had any more issues with native peoples, but the case helps to provide an understanding of why native people are not happy about just anybody using their languages and cultures. LEGO is a Danish company, and in 2000, they were doing poorly financially. Bionicle is partially credited with moving LEGO out of its financial slump (BIONICLE). A licensing director for LEGO described Bionicle as an ‘almost unbelievable’, ‘lightning success’ for LEGO company (BIONICLE). As a Polynesian, you might feel that LEGO has made that success by appropriating your culture. Regardless of LEGO’s legal freedom to make a product line like Bionicle with obvious similarities to Polynesian culture, it can be upsetting that a corporation can market or stereotype the culture as something that it is not, and that the profit from that corporation will not touch the native groups themselves. In these two ways, LEGO’s Bionicle could be viewed as another affront in the long history of abuse of native peoples.

With the LEGO controversy in mind, and the long history of destruction of native cultures, it should not be such a surprise that native people are unwilling to give out their language and cultures freely. Even when the culture or language is on the verge of disappearing, giving the language and culture to the outside might be viewed as another form of destruction. Non-native peoples, like myself, should be more careful to understand the traditions, and deep trauma, that still exists for these people.

BIONICLE Fever Heats, Blazes Into New Categories; Key Players in Five Children's Merchandise Categories Jump on BIONICLE Bandwagon. 2004. Business Wire. Business Wire Inc. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040607005672/en/BIONICLE-Fever-Heats-Blazes-Categories-Key-Players. Accessed April 26, 2017.

Griggs, Kim. 2002. Lego Site Irks Maori Sympathizer. Wired. Conde Nast. https://www.wired.com/2002/11/lego-site-irks-maori-sympathizer/. Accessed April 26, 2017.

Osborn, Andrew. 2001. Maoris win Lego Battle. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/31/andrewosborn. Accessed April 26, 2017.