Today, in the spirit of family, I wanna talk about Puanani Cravahlo & her character in Moana & Moana 2. <3
credited only as "villager #2", we know from interviews that she is the mother of Auli'i Cravahlo (the voice actress for moana). Her character is the briefly seen villager woman who comes up to moana and reports about the coconut blight, then tells tui and sina "She's doing great!"
but thats not the only time we see that character, whom I'll now be referring to as puanani, and calling the human Mrs. Cravahlo. (fun fact, puanani means 'beautiful flower' in hawaiian)
it seems puanani has been in moana's life since moana was very young, and seems to show up most around the coconut harvesters.
She's one of the women who help make moana's Tuiga, a special headdress reserved for the chief's heir to wear on formal occasions. in samoa, the headdress is made with feathers, shells, and dyed human hair- hair from the wearer's ancestors, bleached in seawater, added for spiritual and symbolic protection. traditionally, its thought a person's mana can be stored in their hair, (it being so close to the head, a mana source,) so only people close to the person or of high mana themselves would be the one's handling the sared material. disney's artbook says moana's tuiga is made from dyed grasses, but i don't think its too far off base to assume that the people most likely to be the ones making the headdress for their next chief are either people closely related to the chief or belonging to the Aliki (ali'i in hawaiian) aka the polynesian high class.
puanani also has a front row seat at tui's council meetings, a spot traditionally reserved for the leaders of the community. in samoa these are known as the Matai, the chiefs, and you can become one either by inheriting the title or by being nominated thru merit. a family group would have a Matai as their head, but so would many of the village industries, like the Chief farmer or the Chief fisherman. so its possible she's up there as the Chief Coconut Grower, but just as likely due to being of the right bloodline.
her final appearance in the first Moana is on moana's flagship canoe in the reprise scene of We Know the Way, and looking once again at real life history, we know that polynesian wayfarers tended to travel in family groups, the larger main family canoes supported by smaller scout crafts. The fact she's hanging out on moana, tui, and sina's boat, along with several others who show up slinging coconuts in Where You Are, cements her likely position as a close family relative.
and she shows up in moana 2! most distinctly in leading the island in song as they see moana and crew off on their journey. This time its Te vaka's Vocalists supplying her singing voice, not Mrs. Cravahlo, but the character is unmistakably the same. same face, same accessories, same dress pattern, same body shape. the only difference is the darkening of her dress color, but this also could be a trick of the lighting.
while Disney is guilty of reusing a lot of faces, dresses and accessories in it's background characters, we dont see that many women in the films wearing that plain leaf crown in their hair, and fewer with the right combination of stout, round face and flower dress with loose hair. so despite not getting a good view of her front, i do think she's also the character who hands moana a flower crown at her welcome home feast, which fits with her previous experience at helping make moana's tuiga.
so, taking all these clues, here's my take on Puanani the character:
I think it likely that she is moana's aunt, one of sina's sisters. why sina and not tui? because while she is present at tui's council meetings, she doesnt appear at tala's bedside. there are a few non-named characters hanging about the fale, and one of them does look like the other unnamed woman who helped with moana's tuiga, but not puanani. and even the other tuiga maker is off hiding in the shadows, awkwardly pacing and not coming close, unlike unnamed bun woman and the tween armband boy in the corner. its possible puanani hasnt arrived yet, but i feel that if she was meant to deliberately be tui's sister-coded she would have been there at their mother's passing.
at council we see puanani next to this strapping man, who sports tattoos and fine patterned layers of skirt, indicating he too is someone of status. Possibly her husband? They're sitting pretty close to one another in a pretty open area...
in this shot we see her without the red & white shell armbands she sports when talking to moana, but right there in frame is possibly where theyve gone to- a younger man without tattoos. Her grown son perhaps? and then is the young woman on her right a daughter? or a daughter in law?
we see the pair again, dancing through the groves (left,center) with moana and puanani (on the right).
So I think it's not unreasonable to headcanon that puanani is sina's sister, married with a grown son and daughter-in-law. lets throw in that jumping kid seen frequently running around her feet as a potential grandson. One of her jobs is to help with the coconut harvest and husk them, reporting to the chief on any problems with their vital crop. she also seems pretty skilled with her hands, enjoying wearing and making crowns, jewelry. she's generous with her gifts, adorning her family members in her handiwork. she compliments moana on a great job, albeit indirectly, and by implication sina and tui on their parenting. She leads singing and sits up front in council meetings. she's strong enough to sling around huge baskets of coconuts, but needs help with the larger hauls.
"oh no he's hot" -puanani and her friend, probably.
anyway, i just think it's neat that there's a disney animator out there who cared enough to include puanani and be pretty consistent with how and where she shows up and with who. it makes motonui feel more like a real place, to see characters repeated deliberately and with some forethought into what they're doing and who they're with.
ps. happy belated mother's day to the real Puanani Cravahlo, who gave us the treasure that is Auli'i <3
