The Parihaka Woman

1

This is not a history of the Taranaki Wars. After all, I’m only a retired teacher who obtained my qualifications from Ardmore Teachers’ Training College, Auckland, in the 1960s. I will there-fore leave it to you to read the accounts of university-trained historians on the subject.

When I was younger, my elders would often talk on the marae about what happened to Maori way back then, but I really wasn’t interested. I had a well-paid job, Pakeha friends — and a Pakeha girlfriend that Josie doesn’t know about. Although I copped the occasional Maori slur or racist remark — ‘Hori’ or ‘Blacky’, you know the sort of thing — I generally laughed it off. If it got a bit too out of hand, as in, ‘Hey, you black bastard, can’t you find a girlfriend among your own kind?’ I was handy with my fists. On the whole, however, Pakeha and Maori got along pretty well really.

I think my tau’eke and kuia were affronted that I was teaching our kids about the kings and queens of England when there was all our own Maori history around us. In my own defence, I guess it was easier for me to look somewhere else, where history belonged to the victor and happened to other people, rather than locally, where we were the vanquished and it was a bloody mess. ‘Why bring up all that old stuff?’ I’d say to my elders. ‘We’re all one people now.’

It took the 1970s, when Whina Cooper led the land march from Te Hapua at the top of the North Island all the way down the spine to Parliament in Wellington, for me to confront the fact of ‘that old stuff’ and that, actually, we weren’t one people at all: history’s fatal impact had also happened here, in my own land.

I joined the march because my Auntie Rose came around to pick me up, no buts or maybes. She said to Josie, ‘I’m borrowing my nephew for a while.’

Josie answered, ‘Good, don’t return him if you don’t want to.’

The protesters carried banners proclaiming Honour the Treaty and Not One More Acre of Maori Land; while some of the stuff they spouted was pretty offensive, there I was, right in the middle of it all, and it started to rub off on me. It wasn’t long before I looked around and realised: Hey, where was our land, here in the Taranaki? What had happened to us? My eyes were opened.

They stayed opened.

But this isn’t my story; it is Erenora’s.

I’ve done my best in telling it because, of course, Erenora wrote it originally in Maori. When the family gave me the task of translating the manuscript into English, I must say I found it daunting. A lot of her handwriting had faded, making it difficult to read. And some of her phrasing — well, I’ve had to explain it a bit for the modern reader. But I’ve tried to ensure at all times that it’s my ancestor’s voice, not mine, in the translation.

Better a family member to do the job than a stranger, eh?

2

‘Mine were not the only parents who were killed by the Niger’s shells. All of us who were orphans were taken in by other families at Warea. In my case a couple by the name of Huhana and Wiremu took a shine to me. Even so, I felt I owed it to Enoka and Miriam to remember them as long as I could. As old as I am now, I have never forgotten their a’ua, their appearance. I know they loved me.

‘Following the attack, I returned to the mission’s classroom, my Bible and my books. After all, I was a little Christian girl, somewhat serious, and although I was puzzled that my parents were dead, I knew they would be together in heaven. But I did begin to wonder why, when the Pakeha professed Christian love, they would fight on Sundays, destroy the very churches we worshipped in and burn our prayer books. And why did they want to take land they did not own?

‘There was also the matter of Rimene. He had left Warea before the Niger’s shelling, and some people even said that he had probably given the Crown details that enabled them to target the community. Although, under Te Whiti and Tohu’s guidance, we rebuilt Warea, especially the mill, the people were suspicious of him. Whose side was he really on? He made several attempts to convince us that he loved us but, clearly, the assault on Taranaki placed all missionaries in a difficult position: they were shepherds with Maori flocks, but their masters were Pakeha. This was why, I think, many Taranaki tribes turned against the missionaries and also rejected the baptismal English names that had been given them.

‘Notwithstanding the suspicions about what Rimene did, or might have done, I will always remember him for a particular kindness. He must have had a soft spot for me. On the last occasion I saw him, he gave me a gift, a book of German phrases, and he stroked my chin. “Leb wohl, mein Herz,” he said. “Go well, sweetheart.”

‘I never forgot the words or him. But when Rimene abandoned us, we had already learnt to fend for ourselves.’

3

The situation between Maori and Pakeha escalated to full-scale war, and the Pakeha soon discovered that the love of Taranaki iwi for the land was greater than their own desire to steal it.

In 1860 Maori fought battles at Puketakauere and Omukukaitari and faced bombardment at Orongomaihangi. In 1861 they faced off troops under Major-General Thomas Simson Pratt for almost three months as he advanced by a series of trenches and redoubts.

Facing strong Maori resistance, however, and the huge costs of maintaining his troops, in May 1863, Governor George Grey declared the abandonment of the Waitara purchase and renounced all claims to it. At the time, Grey was in control of all military operations in New Zealand; he was in his second term as governor.

The troops may have retreated from the Waitara but they appeared within weeks to occupy the Tataraimaka Block and were closing in on Warea again.

Erenora was seven years old by then, and Te Whiti and Tohu had stepped into the gap left by Rimene’s desertion and become the people’s leaders.

4

‘We had already faced bombardment three years earlier by the Niger. This time, under supporting naval fire from the Eclipse, forty of our warriors died at the outer trenches of our pa. They had been protecting the rest of us; as was our practice we were sheltering within.

‘Te Whiti and Tohu kept us at prayer in the darkness but I saw Huhana stealthily leave our huddled congregation. “Where are you going?” I asked her. She replied, weeping, “You stay here, Erenora. I have to see what has happened to my husband. If Wiremu is dead, I must find out what the soldiers have done with his body or where they have taken him.” Even though Huhana told me to remain, I followed her. When she saw me dogging her footsteps she said, “’aere atu, go back, you’ll only get in the way.” But I wouldn’t listen to her.

‘The bodies had been laid out in a long row in front of the trenches and rifle positions where they had fought. Two important-looking men came to inspect them. I didn’t know it at the time but I later found out that one of them was Governor Grey. He seemed like a king on his white horse; it was such a pretty horse, stepping lightly along the trenches as, from his saddle, Grey inspected the dead warriors. Then he nodded to the soldiers and left.

‘Poor Huhana was distraught when she saw Wiremu’s body being dumped into a pit with all the others; some of the warriors were still alive, and one arm appeared to reach up before the dirt covered it. Our hearts were thudding as we waited for the soldiers to leave. Some of the bluecoat sailors stayed to have a smoke; how I wished they would just go. But once they had departed, Huhana called to me, “Kia tere, Erenora, quickly!” We ran to the pit to dig the men up. From all around, other villagers, having ceased their praying, were also running to dig, dig and dig with their hands. Huhana began to wail loudly when she found Wiremu; she hugged him close to her chest.

‘Among those who were kua mate, gone, I saw a twelve-year-old boy; his was not the only young body among the warriors. I recognised him as the same one who, three years earlier, had soothed my fears. I had come to know him as Horitana and had grown accustomed to seeing him from the schoolroom window, sometimes waving to me as he worked in the potato plantations.’

Erenora cleared the earth from Horitana’s face. He was still and wan with the waxen pallor of death.

‘When we first met,’ she said to him, ‘my heart opened to your aro’a, your love, but now you are dead. And every now and then I have seen you watching me in Warea to see if I am all right. How will I live without you?’ She lowered her face to his and wept and wept.

All of a sudden, Horitana coughed dirt from his mouth … then more dirt. He was alive! He began to take deep breaths and, once he had recovered, looked into her eyes and smiled weakly. ‘God has saved me for some purpose,’ he said. ‘He took me down into death so that I would get the taste of the land in my mouth and, behold, I am resurrected. Now that I have savoured our sweet earth, I will always serve it.’

Erenora cried out to Huhana, ‘Kui! Help me!’

Other women hurried to her side. They lifted Horitana from the earth. ‘We must keep digging out our other men, Erenora,’ Huhana said. ‘You take Horitana to the stream and wash the dirt from him.’

Erenora led him away but, when they reached the waterway, Horitana was embarrassed. ‘No, I can wash myself,’ he said.

Afterwards, when he was huddled in blankets, Erenora sat with him as he ate bread and drank some water.

5

The following days were a blur of men digging graves for those who had died and women wailing at tangi’anga, the burial rites. In the aftermath, Horitana stayed with Huhana and Erenora, chopping wood, gathering potatoes and catching fish for the cooking fires of other villagers. Huhana may have hoped that, now that she was a widow, Horitana would stay and become as a son to her. Every now and then, however, she saw him looking at the faraway hills; she knew he was restless.

A few days later, Erenora saw Horitana talking to Huhana. Then he knelt before the old woman. ‘What’s going on?’ Erenora asked.

‘Horitana has asked my blessing,’ Huhana answered. ‘Maori chiefs are fighting to the south, and he wishes to join them.’

‘What about us?’ Erenora was panicking.

‘Erenora!’ Huhana reprimanded her. ‘We can look after ourselves.’ Ignoring the young girl, she began a prayer for Horitana’s safety.

At the end of the karakia, Horitana saw that Erenora was still disconsolate. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back,’ he assured her.

That evening, he said his goodbyes to Te Whiti, Tohu and the villagers. He asked Erenora to walk with him to the perimeter of Warea. Although he was tall, he was still a boy and not yet a man.

They stood watching the moon, and then Horitana turned to Erenora with his shining eyes. ‘Will you wait for me?’ he asked.

Erenora was much too young even to know what he was talking about. She knew, however, that she couldn’t say no.

‘If you want me to,’ she answered.

She watched with sadness as he melted into the bush and headed north.

Not long after that, Te Whiti and Tohu decided to take leave of Warea. They called upon those who had always followed them, and any others who wished to join them, to trust in another journey.

‘When I brought you here from Waikanae,’ Te Whiti said, ‘I thought we would be safe. But we have already been attacked twice. What happens if the soldiers come again? We have lost enough of our people. It is time to leave.’

At his words, the followers began to weep. Abandon the village they loved? But Te Whiti was adamant. He had already begun to fashion a remarkable new fellowship in God, a Maori brotherhood of man. After all, while the beliefs taught him by Minarapa at Waikanae and Riemenschneider at Warea had been based on Christian brotherhood, the offer of true fellowship to Maori was often lacking. But did not Christ also love the Maori? If He did, better to interpret the Bible and its many promises to the Chosen People from a Maori, not Pakeha, point of view. Better to act for themselves.

‘We are the more’u,’ Te Whiti continued, ‘the survivors, and God will succour us as we continue our travels. Although we may die many times, we will rise again in the face of adversity. Let us leave Warea for another sanctuary, another haven, our own Canaan land. Therefore gather our belongings, our children and our livestock, all that we can carry.’

He led the people swiftly away, and their pilgrimage in the wilderness began.

‘Me ’aere tatou,’ he said. ‘Let us go.’

1

As for Horitana, he was soon in the midst of the fighting.

Like many young boys of the time, he was simply a foot soldier. His young mind scarcely comprehended the traumatic machinations of the Pakeha as they established their settler society in Aotearoa. All he knew was that, although he was only thirteen, he was needed in the fight against them.

Alas, the Maori throughout Aotearoa found themselves facing increasing odds: government forces, local militia and, propelling it all, more and more Pakeha wishing to settle in New Zealand. They also faced an arch manipulator in Governor Grey, who, with one piece of legislation, achieved two goals: punishing Maori for fighting against Pakeha; and obtaining more land for Pakeha settlement. Thus his New Zealand Settlements Act enabled him to confiscate land from Maori because they had rebelled against what he considered to be his legitimate government.

Here’s how historian Dick Scott describes what took place:

In 1863 all of Taranaki except the uninhabited hinterland was proclaimed a confiscation area. From Wanganui to the White Cliffs this involved a million acres and with that bonanza, fortune hunters, younger sons without prospects and Old World failures of all kinds need moulder no longer in the colonial dustbin to which they had been relegated.[1]

What else could Maori do except continue to defend the land?

We know from eyewitness accounts that Horitana fought with such defenders, led by Te Ua Haumene, the founder of the Pai Marire religion, at the battle of Kaitake Pa in 1864. Te Whiti and Tohu acknowledged Te Ua who, two years earlier, had been visited by the Angel Gabriel, bringing a message from God. The angel, whose Maori name was Tamarura, told Te Ua to battle the Pakeha and cast their yoke from the Maori people. Some say that Te Whiti and Tohu inherited the mantle of Te Ua as a cloak, which combined with theirs in creating Parihaka.

Let’s imagine Horitana running, with other boys — bearers — along the trenches: older warriors are firing at the government troops and calling urgently for more ammunition. The battle is not going well for the Pai Marire; the ground shakes with the sounds of exploding shells and gunfire.

Horitana is passing one warrior to supply another with bullets when the man slumps down, a bullet through his head. Horitana picks up the dead man’s tupara — his double-barrelled shotgun — loads and, sighting above the trench, fires. What are his thoughts as he watches a fresh-faced young soldier fall, his chest blossoming red?

The record shows that 420 redcoats and eighty military settlers, together with supporting bombardments and devastating artillery fire, finally triumphed over the Maori defenders. ‘Come, boy, time to go,’ one of the warriors tells Horitana. ‘You’ve earned the shotgun, bring it with you. Live to fight another day.’

Blooded in the battle, Horitana flees. On the way he stumbles over a dead warrior with a tattoo on his buttocks — a spiral rapa motif. Later it would catch the eye of one of the redcoats; sliced from the body it was made into a tobacco pouch.

Once, Horitana had been a boy. Now, before his time, he is a man. Fighting a desperate rearguard action through the enemy lines, he goes on to further guerrilla action against the Pakeha soldiers at Te Morere, Nukumaru and Kakaramea.

2

You know, a lot of people are unaware that at one time there were more British troops in New Zealand than in any other country in the world; that’s how great the odds were against Maori.

Michael King offers some details:

In 1863 Grey used the opportunity provided by the second outbreak of fighting in Taranaki to prise further troops from the British Government. By early 1864 he had as many as 20,000 men at his disposal — imperial troops, sailors, marines, two units of regular colonial troops (the Colonial Defence Force and the Forest Rangers), Auckland and Waikato militia (the latter to be rewarded with confiscated land after the fighting), some Waikato hapu loyal to the Crown and a larger number of Maori from Te Arawa.[2]

The Taranaki Military Settlers were also formed, in 1865. Many were recruited from Australia, attracted by the prospect that they would be settled on the land, once they had gained it.

Under the command of Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron, an imperial field force of some 3,700 men descended in what we Maori call the murderous Te Karopotinga o Taranaki, the slaughtering of the people and the encirclement of Taranaki. Yes, 3,700.

Imagine Horitana again, now a fully fledged warrior. War had made a hardened killer of him. Whenever he pressed the trigger of the tupara, he no longer wondered about the soldier or settler caught in his sights.

As for the people of Warea, they were on the run, trusting completely in their two prophet leaders.

3

‘You want a description of Te Whiti?

‘Aue! Well, he was the son of Honi Kaakahi, a chief of Te Ati Awa. His mother, Rangikawa, also came from a rangatira line and was the daughter of a Taranaki chief. His height was similar to Horitana’s as an adult, so that must mean he was around 5' 10''. His forehead was narrow and his face was marked by piercing eyes. He had a strong build and his movements were always dynamic, agile and spirited. I can remember that one of his fingers was missing; I think he had an accident at the mill at Warea. In all his life he was humble and gentle and, you know, he lived as part of the people and not apart from them. His wife was Hikurangi, a lovely woman. Actually, it was her sister, Wairangi, who was the wife of Tohu Kaakahi. Although he was Te Whiti’s uncle, Tohu was only three years older than him.

‘Our patriarchs likened our situation to that of the descendants of Joseph, the same Hohepa of the Old Testament who was sold into Egypt by his brethren. In some respects Te Whiti and Tohu saw in Joseph’s story a parallel with what the Treaty of Waitangi had done: some “brothers” signed it and others, like Taranaki, did not. They were thus enslaved by Pharaoh without their consent but, just as Hohepa and his descendants had done, the two prophets and their followers kept strongly to the belief that, one day, would come their deliverance from the Pakeha.’

Te Whiti and Tohu took the more’u along the coast.

There were around 200 of them, a rag-tag bunch of pilgrims: old men — the young having gone to fight — women and children. Te Whiti and Tohu and some of the men scouted ahead, carrying the very few arms they possessed. The main party was in the middle, the old women on horses, but the others on foot pushing handcarts or shepherding a few milking cows, bullocks, horses, pigs and hens before them. The rest of the men brought up the rear.

They were spied by a gunship at sea, probably the Eclipse, which was still in the vicinity. Next moment there was a small puff of smoke from the ship and its first shell exploded close to them.

‘We are too exposed,’ Te Whiti yelled. ‘Quickly, strike inland.’ The sound of cavalry pursuit followed them as, crying with alarm, they ran into the bush and climbed to higher ground where the cavalry’s horses couldn’t go and where they wouldn’t be easy targets for rifle fire.

They were all exhausted by the time they came to Nga Kumikumi, where Te Whiti thought they would be safe from the dogs of war. There they raised a kainga. Well, it was more like a camp really, with the scouts patrolling the perimeter, ready to tell the people to go to ground whenever soldiers were nearby.

The more’u didn’t stay there very long. A small band of other Maori trying to flee a pincer movement of the field forces came across their camp, and it was clear to Te Whiti that the soldiers would not be far behind. ‘Time for us to move again,’ he said.

Huhana woke Erenora. ‘Quickly, rouse the tataraki’i.’ Women were helping the men on sentry duty, and Huhana had a rifle in her hands. ‘We must leave before dawn.’ Her eyes were full of fear.

The word tataraki’i referred to the many orphan children in their ranks. It was the word for the cicada, which rubbed its legs together and made a chirruping noise. The great chief Wiremu Kingi Te Matakatea was credited with the symbolism surrounding the tataraki’i. ‘Watch the cicada,’ he said, ‘which disappears into its hiding places during winter but reappears in the summer.’

The children were the embodiment of Matakatea’s concept, always reminding the people to look beyond their current troubles to when the sun comes out. There must have been about seventy tataraki’i in the pilgrim band.

As the more’u departed Nga Kumikumi, Erenora was given a special job: Huhana told her to take charge of the young ones. ‘If we are attacked,’ Huhana said, ‘take them into the bush, and don’t come out with them until everything is clear.’

Erenora nodded, and crept around the tataraki’i, waking them and warning them. ‘Not a sound, all right?’ She even cocked her head at the dogs. ‘That goes for you too! No barking from any of you either, you hear me?’

Those dogs were good; they obeyed her.

With smoke rising behind them as the cavalry torched the camp, the survivors embarked again on their pilgrimage. This time their convoy included horse-drawn wagons as well as bullock sleds. They set down their belongings at Waikoukou, where they made another kainga, another makeshift camp; this was in 1866. However, their cooking fires gave their position away and when they were attacked there — Major-General Trevor Chute had taken over from Lieutenant-General Cameron in this, the last campaign of the Imperial forces in New Zealand — the running battle through the bush forced them to leave the protective embrace of Mount Taranaki and move to the foothills beside the Waitotoroa Stream.

‘I have a half-brother, Taikomako, living on a block of land there,’ Te Whiti said. ‘He will take us in.’

Erenora never knew how they managed to get away. All she recalled was the pell-mell flight, the sound of rifle fire, and her shame about one incident: she was with other children, herding the bullocks, when two beasts took flight and there was no time to go back for them. The villagers had to keep on going because if they were caught, what would Major-General Chute do to them? Finally evading the troops, they burst out of the bush. Lungs burning, they flung themselves down to rest in an area sheltered by small hillocks. It was there that Te Whiti and Tohu walked among the people. They could see how tired and distressed everyone was.

Huhana asked them, ‘Will there ever be an end to our running?’

Te Whiti hesitated … and then he looked up at Mount Taranaki, arrowing into the sky, and posed the question to the mountain. The mounga began to shine, and it answered him.

The prophet raised his hand for the attention of the people. ‘Put down your weapons,’ he began. ‘From this time forward, we live without them.’

There was a murmur of anxiety, but the mountain nodded and blessed his words.

‘Enough is enough,’ Te Whiti continued. ‘We will run no longer.’ He bent down and took some earth in his hands. ‘In peace shall we settle here, for good and forever, and we will call our new kainga Parihaka.’

1

By musket, sword and cannon, Major-General Chute cut a murderous swathe from Whanganui to the Taranaki Bight.

Just in case he missed Maori standing in his path — whether or not they were warriors or civilians didn’t matter — he smote them down when he turned back to Whanganui. He destroyed seven pa and twenty-one kainga. He also burned crops and slaughtered livestock; if he couldn’t kill Maori, he would starve them to death. ‘There were no prisoners made in these late engagements,’ the Nelson Examiner reported, somewhat chillingly, ‘as General Chute … does not care to encumber himself with such costly luxuries.’

Astonishingly, although the Angel of Death flew over Taranaki, Parihaka escaped in what some people called the Passover. Instead, as the trumpets and bugles of war faded, a sanctuary was born beneath unfolding clouds and, with the mountain looking on, the pilgrims built a citadel.

2

‘It was winter and bitterly cold, the wind coming off the flanks of Taranaki, when our prophets put an end to our pilgrimage. The peak was wearing a coronet of snow and the landscape all around was fringed with ice and snow drifts.

‘In the beginning, the only cover to be had from the driving rain was provided by the bullocks. The old people herded them to form a circle and then commanded them to lie down. Then they said to us, “Tataraki’i, huddle close to our beloved companions.” Oh, I will never forget the heat coming from those noble animals as they pillowed our heads and blew their steaming warmth over us.

‘When the weather was really stormy, the adults had to provide extra shelter by standing and becoming the roofs above us; they were like sentinels, and they sang to each other to keep themselves awake until the storm passed. Why did they do that? Well, as Huhana told me one morning, “Our children are our future. Without you, why keep going?”

‘Eventually we erected makeshift tents like the camp we had at Nga Kumikumi, but we couldn’t start raising our kainga quite yet, oh no. From my recollection it was 1867 and the spring tides, nga tai o Makiri, were especially high and strong. At those times when the moon switched from full to new, our people gathered kai moana, our staple diet. You can’t tell the spring tides, “Wait, we’re not ready!” or the fish to stop rising at the most propitious time of all for fishing! We were soon busy harvesting both shellfish and sea fish, like shark, and also trapping eels when they swirled upwards to suck at the surface of the water.

‘At the same time as this was happening, Te Whiti and Tohu were also concerned to get some seeds into the ground. If we missed the planting time, there would be no food in the coming year. Not until we had some cultivations under way were the two prophets satisfied. “Now we raise Parihaka,” Te Whiti said. And so we began the work of clearing the site. We were so happy to start building the kainga. Even the tataraki’i, how they chirruped!

‘Meanwhile, Huhana had fully taken me to her breast as my mother. She also took in two other orphans, Ripeka and Meri, as w’angai or adopted daughters. She said to Te Whiti, “If I have to take in one it might as well be three”, which was her way of saying that she had an embrace that could accommodate us all.

‘I can remember only hard-working but happy times through that warming weather. Ripeka and Meri and I helped the adults smooth down the earth and take the stones away so that the houses could be built. Ripeka was the pretty one, with her lovely face and shapely limbs. As for Meri, she always tried to please, and that endeared her to everyone.

‘Both my sisters were older than me but somehow they were followers rather than leaders. For instance, we had a small sled on which Ripeka and Meri would pile the stones, but I was the one who pulled the sled from the construction sites. Even in those days, although I was always slim, I was strong. Ripeka would follow my instructions but Meri was often disobedient. One time she thought she would give me a rest and pull the sled while I wasn’t looking, but she took it to the wrong place and unloaded it there. “I was only trying to help,” she said to me plaintively as I reloaded the sled. “Please, Meri, don’t try,” I answered.

‘It took us the best part of the season and then the summer to raise Parihaka. I think one of the reasons why it happened so quickly was that Te Whiti discouraged the carving of meeting houses or any such adornment on other w’are. He was more concerned with us concentrating on food-gathering and sustaining ourselves. He also wanted to discourage any competition between the various tribal peoples who came to live with us.

‘The days turned hot, and we sweated under the burning sun. Te Whiti ordered the men to build the houses in rows and very close together. Those men were out day and night selecting good trees to cut down for all the w’are. They sawed the trunks into slabs of wood, two-handed saws they used in those days, one man at each end. When a w’are’s roof was raised, we would cheer, sing and dance in celebration!

‘My sisters and I graduated to helping the women thatch the roofs with raupo, which the men brought from the bush. Huhana was always yelling to me, “Erenora, hop onto the roof.” Men mostly did the thatching but, sometimes, they were busy on other heavier work — and Huhana knew I had good balance and was not afraid of heights. The women threw the thatch up to me and I laid it in place. After that, my sisters and I helped the women as they made the tukutuku panels for the walls of the houses: I sat on one side pushing the reeds through the panels to my sisters on the other side; they would push the reeds back and, of course, Meri’s reed kept coming through at the wrong place. Why was she so hopeless?

‘Everybody was vigorous with the work. Later, my sisters helped to make blankets, pillows and clothing, but I had no patience with such feminine tasks and preferred to work outside with the men. Te Whiti and Tohu had marked out the surrounding country for cultivations and there were a lot of fences to construct, and small roadways and pathways between them. As we worked, we sang to each other and praised God for bringing us here. There could have been no better place really. The Waitotoroa Stream was ideal as a water supply, and it would have been almost impossible to sustain ourselves without it.’

‘It must have been around this time, as autumn descended and the leaves began to fall, that Te Whiti had word from the South Island that the Reverend Johann Riemenschneider had died. Apparently, after he and his wife had left Warea in 1860, Rimene had spent two years in Nelson. Then he accepted an invitation from a society in Dunedin to do mission work among the Maori people in the city. He lived four years there, and his body was committed to the earth in Port Chalmers.

‘Te Whiti mourned the German missionary, telling us, “Rimene did not achieve great victories but he sowed the seed of God so that the harvest was sure. What more can you ask from a servant of Christ?”

‘We all said a prayer for him. Now he was forever with the Lord. And I found my own karakia for him from the German phrasebook:

‘“Selig sind die Toten. Blessed are the dead.”’

3

The next few years flew by. Sometimes when Erenora looked back on them, it was as if the raising of Parihaka, so that it would stand triumphant in the sun, had taken place on one long day. Of course it hadn’t, but certainly Parihaka grew as Maori fled from the British soldiers in Taranaki.

‘From 200 people we increased to 500. Word got around, you see, that Te Whiti and Tohu were building a city, a kainga like the Biblical city of Jerusalem. We therefore mushroomed to over 1,000 as refugees poured in, driven by the encirclement of Taranaki. They were all hungry and thirsty, and some were grievously wounded. Once they had been fed and recovered, however, they had to pitch in straight away — no mucking around and having a rest! The consequence was that we were building all the time, and Parihaka was quickly forced to become a large kainga.

‘Still the refugees sought us out. Sometimes we would see a cloud of dust and know they were painfully making their way to salvation. Or the rain would part like a curtain and there they were, ghost-thin, crying out to us from the space between. At night, we lit a bonfire so that the flames would show those who were searching for us. During the day, a pillar of smoke, like the sword of an angel, revealed the gateway to Eden:

‘“Here be Parihaka.”

‘And when the pilgrims arrived, nobody was turned away.’

‘Depending on our skills, Te Whiti organised the iwi into working groups to ensure a continuous food supply. Farmers tilled the cultivations mainly of potato, pumpkin, maize and taro to the north and between us and the sea. The sea, of course, remained the source of our primary sustenance; whenever nga tai o Makiri came, down we would go to harvest the kai moana as it rose to the surface of the sea. Some men even ventured in waka out to the deep water to fish, but usually we kept close to shore. You could drown so easily in those dangerous seas; the weather could change even as you were watching it.

‘At the beginning Te Whiti didn’t like us to eat meat but, rather, to use our oxen and cattle as our beasts of burden. He wanted us to be self-sufficient but later we began to run sheep, pigs and poultry.’

‘One day the villagers were all busy storing kumara and kamokamo carefully away for the winter. Huhana happened to notice that some tataraki’i, bored with helping us, were baiting each other. She gave me a shrewd look and said, “Erenora, the children have stopped chirruping and are pulling each other’s wings off. Go and teach them something.”

‘I was astonished! After all, I must have been only eleven. Te Whiti was passing by and he said, “Yes, you go, Erenora. Plenty of others can store food but not many have your brains.” My sisters were affronted by Huhana’s remark that I was “too clever” and even more by Te Whiti’s acknowledgement of it. They were practising a poi dance, their poi going tap tap tap, tap tap tap. Ripeka sniffed and said, “You may have the brains but we have the beauty.” And Meri said, “I can do anything that Erenora can do,” which was true, but she always did it wrong.

‘Now, about Te Whiti, don’t forget that he himself was not without Pakeha education and knew the value of such learning. He was a scholar, had been a church acolyte at Waikanae and Warea; later he became a teacher, and he even managed the flour mill. Both he and Tohu were good organisers too. As Parihaka grew even larger, they were the ones who promulgated the regulations every person had to comply with; we all knew our civic duties. As well, they organised the daily and weekly timetables by which we conducted our work.’

‘Parihaka continued to grow and I grew up with it, leaving childhood behind. Apart from farm, forest and fishing teams we also had village officials, kitchen workers and maintenance staff. Teams regularly swept the pathways, collected the rubbish every day, kept the drains clear and cleaned the latrines. We still had scouts patrolling our perimeters but, now, we also had our own police! They were on duty day and night ensuring law and order. You don’t think that Parihaka became a great citadel by accident, do you?

‘I was so proud of Huhana. She was appointed the kai karanga, the strong-voiced woman, who would call us all awake before first light. She would call again at the end of the day to finish our labours.

‘Meanwhile, the refugees always brought news of what was happening in the rest of Taranaki. One of them sought me out.

‘“Are you Erenora? I have a message for you from Horitana.”

‘My heart skipped a beat. “How is he?”

‘“He is alive and still fighting,” was the answer.

‘“Where is he?” I asked.

‘“He is now defending the land with Titokowaru’s guerrilla army.”’

4

Ah, Titokowaru.

All you have to do is mention the name and Maori throughout Aotearoa will recognise it as belonging to one of the greatest warrior prophets our world has ever known. He was perhaps seven or eight years older than Te Whiti and, like him, as a young man had become a Christian of the Methodist persuasion. The four prophets — Te Whiti, Tohu, Titokowaru and Te Ua Haumene — created an astounding Old Testament framework for Maori in Taranaki.

Titokowaru’s warrior ways began when, along with everyone else, he took up the fight against the Pakeha’s continuing predations upon our land. Under military provocation, he led a raiding party near New Plymouth in protest. From that time onward, he became a dreaded presence, waging an increasing number of attacks against the Pakeha in the lands south-west of Parihaka.

You can’t pinpoint Titokowaru. He was both civilised and savage, peacemaker and rebel. He bestrode both the spiritual and temporal worlds. He was a man about whom Maori wove legends, but he was not invincible. At his army’s assault on Sentry Hill in April 1864, a Pakeha bullet took the sight from the old leader’s right eye. It was Horitana who, along with Titokowaru’s lieutenants, treated the wound. From that moment, the young man became like a favoured son to the great chief.

While Te Whiti was raising Parihaka, Titokowaru was rebuilding Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, just north of the Waingongoro River. Sixty houses were centred on an imposing marae in front of the awe-inspiring meeting house called Wharekura. Like Te Whiti, Titokowaru wanted to live in peace. The trouble was that his lands, too, continued to be encroached upon by Pakeha and, in 1868, his defining moment arrived.

And all his previous military actions paled against what was to come: the campaign known in history as Titokowaru’s War.

For two years, Pakeha New Zealand trembled before Titokowaru’s military genius and brilliance. The narrative of his army’s astonishing field tactics, fought with a blend of intelligence and savagery, makes the hair stand on end; and Horitana fought with him in five do-or-die campaigns.

Historian James Belich describes the encounters in this way:

At the outset, the odds against Titokowaru were immense, twelve to one in fighting men, and the chances of victory minuscule. Yet Titokowaru and his people destroyed one colonist army (at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu on 7 September 1868); comprehensively defeated another (at Moturoa on 7 November 1868); and scored several lesser victories (including Turuturumokai on 12 June 1868, and Te Karaka and Otautu on 3 February and 13 March 1869). Their least successful tactical performance was a drawn out battle at Te Ngutu-ote-manu on 21 August 1868, and it could be argued that even this was a strategic success.[3]

Belich goes on to point out that at Turuturumokai, on 7 September 1868, Titokowaru deployed his fearless lieutenants against the best that the Pakeha military could offer; it was at this same battle that the great Prussian general, Gustavus von Tempsky, fell.

What a life von Tempsky had lived. Adventurer, artist and newspaper correspondent, he had fought twice in Central America, mined gold in California and Australia and, in New Zealand, his name was attached to the Forest Rangers. So great was his mana that when he was killed both Pakeha and Maori honoured him.

Titokowaru’s victories ‘brought the colony to its knees’, Belich says. However, inexplicably, the tide turned against the warrior prophet. At Tauranga-ika he built a fortress — but his own army abandoned it before any attack by colonial troops. Some people say that he fell out of favour with whatever gods supported him; as easily offended as any of the Greek deities of Olympus, they lightly tapped his knees and his stride began to falter. What was the reason? Nobody knows. But soon, with £1,000 on his head, Titokowaru was on the run. His followers melted away from him and by the time he returned to his homelands in 1871, he was a different man. He was older and less turbulent in his ways. With his own dream fading, he established a close liaison with Te Whiti and Tohu and their dreams at Parihaka.

Meantime, Parihaka had, indeed, become a sanctuary. And Erenora was a young woman now, certainly no longer a girl.

5

‘As young as I was, I had become a good teacher. I loved the children and enjoyed teaching them the English language, knowing it would enable them to converse with Pakeha and understand European ways.

‘My greatest thrill, however, was taking time off from my teaching duties to help the men break in the bullocks so that they would accept the yoke of the plough and pull the scythe cleanly through the dirt. With so much acreage to plough, the village needed good teams of strong, obedient beasts and, for some reason, I was able to calm their fears. I would stroke them, saying, “Thank you for being our beloved companions on our journey through the vale of the world. Will you not continue to be partners with us as we go further together?” Then I would introduce them to the yoke and command them, “Pull now.”

‘Huhana wasn’t too sure how to take my masculine habits. “Oh, Erenora!” she would sigh, “I don’t know what to make of you! And if I feel this way, you must be a puzzle to the young men too!” I think that was why she began to get a bit more persistent in pushing me, and, to a lesser extent, Ripeka and Meri, towards attachments with suitable male candidates. “We need men in our family,” she would chastise me, “and babies for the future.”

‘My sisters were not backward in taking up our mother’s prodding, especially Ripeka, who loved flirting. I might not have been as pretty as them but I wasn’t without suitors. None of the boys, however, like one called Te Whao, were at all desirable to me — and some of them couldn’t even plough a straight line.’

Then, in the summer of 1873, when Erenora was seventeen, while she and her sisters were carrying calabashes of water from the stream they heard someone coming towards them. As the stranger drew nearer, they saw that it was a young man. Around him a few excited tataraki’i were buzzing.

He happened upon Ripeka first, no doubt because she had seen him approaching and wanted to flirt accidentally on purpose. But she wasn’t fast enough in pretending to slip and fall at his feet because Erenora felt his shadow cutting the sunlight across her path. One moment the sun had been hot and spinning, the next, Erenora was shivering, not because of the sudden eclipse of the light but because she knew her destiny had arrived.

‘May I have some of the cool, sweet water that you carry from the stream?’ the young man asked.

Erenora could not look up at first; she knew immediately that the stranger was Horitana, and her heart leapt because he was still alive and had finally returned home. Thank goodness, as he had a price on his head for fighting with Titokowaru. However, when she appraised Horitana her heart sank. Although there was some sadness about him, he still had his shining eyes and he was so handsome now, and, well, her sisters had always been the attractive ones — surely he’d be more interested in them. His hair was thick, long and matted, and he looked as if he’d been walking for years. Across his back was a haversack and slung in a pouch across his chest was an Enfield rifle; it was a sharpshooter’s weapon, now his favoured gun, which he had looted from a dead British soldier.

Heartsick, she nodded. ‘Yes, you may have some water.’ She didn’t even bother to try to push her hair back or wipe the sweat from her brow. What would be the use? She gave him the dried pumpkin shell.

The tataraki’i pressed closer, wanting to look at Horitana’s rifle. ‘’aere atu,’ Erenora said to them. She began to motion them away and would have followed except that Horitana reached out a hand and stopped her.

‘No, don’t go,’ he said. Despite his war-weary appearance, he was attentive and polite. ‘It would be even nicer if your lovely hands would tip the calabash so that the sweet water can pour between my waiting and eager lips.’ His voice was low, thrilling and slightly teasing.

Erenora had never liked being addressed in such a familiar manner, so she said petulantly, ‘I do no man’s bidding! Tip the shell yourself or ask one of the other women to do it for you!’ Ripeka would have loved to do that.

Horitana didn’t take offence. Instead he laughed, ‘Don’t be angry with me.’ In a softer tone he said, ‘I haven’t had the opportunity in my life to know what is appropriate to say to women, and what is not.’

Erenora gave him a look of acceptance. She watched as he lifted his face, opened his mouth and held the calabash above it. Some of the water splashed down his neck. If he only knew how she wanted to lick the water. And the masculine smell of him: it was like the musk of the bullocks.

For a while, there was silence. Then Horitana coughed. ‘You waited for me?’

‘For someone who has a reward posted for him?’ Erenora retorted, her usual sense of independence returning. ‘Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. And you should know better than to bring a rifle into Parihaka.’

His eyes clouded, as if the memories of the wars were painful to him. Then he looked her up and down. ‘You’ve grown as tall as me,’ he said, as if that were a problem, ‘and you sound very proud. Perhaps I should reconsider the plans that have always been in my heart to make you mine.’

He had the gall to wink at Ripeka in Erenora’s presence. Ripeka was lapping it up.

‘Alas,’ he sighed, ‘I am a man of honour …’

‘You had better be!’ Erenora said. Was he deaf? Could he not hear the loud beating of her heart: ka patupatu tana manawa? ‘As for my height,’ she continued, ‘the problem is easily solved … you must get used to it.’

Of course Ripeka was jealous but, really, she was never in the running.

Erenora was finally reunited with the orphan boy she had always loved, but she wasn’t an apple that fell too readily off a tree. Yes, she was proud and she knew her own worth. Horitana would have to do much more than simply profess his love to win her.

After a suitable time of wooing, throughout which Huhana was a vigilant duenna, Erenora and Horitana finally tied the knot. Although it was difficult to retain her virgin status in the face of Horitana’s persistent ardour, she was a virgin when she married him; he was twenty-two.

Te Whiti himself presided over their wedding and led them to their marriage bed.

‘My love for you is like a cloak of many feathers,’ Erenora said to Horitana. ‘Let me throw it around your shoulders.’

His voice was full of gratitude. ‘Erenora …’

‘And now, let me plait and weave the flax of our desire into each other’s heart and tighten the tukutuku so that it will never break apart.’

This time, Horitana’s voice flooded with urgency. ‘Erenora.’

1

PARIHAKA.

Taranaki Prov. Locality in Egmont County. Farming. Twenty-six miles south-westward by road from New Plymouth. Access by side road from a turn-off three-quarters of a mile below Pungarehu. About two miles eastward from the main highway between Pungarehu and Rahotu. This village, now a curious mixture of the ancient and modern, was once a celebrated Maori centre, but is chiefly remembered as being the headquarters of Te Whiti and Tohu, who taught the doctrine that the Maoris were Israel and that the British were Pharaoh and the Egyptians who enslaved Israel … Name means, perhaps, ‘Dancing on the cliff ’.

I quote from The New Zealand Guide, published by H. Wise, noting the date: 1962. Up to the mid-1960s, when I was studying at training college, there was very little mention of Parihaka at all: G.W. Rusden’s History of New Zealand (1883), James Cowan’s The New Zealand Wars (1923) and then thirty years of virtual silence until Dick Scott’s booklet, The Parihaka Story (1954), and Bernard Gadd’s 1966 article on Te Whiti in the Journal of the Polynesian Society.

Erasure from the official histories and memories seems to have been the order of the day. With some disgust I record that the first edition of the New Zealand government’s Descriptive Atlas of New Zealand, published in 1959, went as far as to expunge Parihaka entirely and overprint it with a Pakeha name.

2

I wouldn’t be surprised, therefore, if you haven’t heard of Parihaka or its remarkable history. From the very beginning, Te Whiti and Tohu practised conciliation, and in Parihaka they set up a kainga on land which they truly believed the government had acknowledged as theirs. They also went one step further and set themselves up as negotiators for the return of other lands in Taranaki that had been confiscated without proper legal basis.

This is my interpretation, of course, and the situation on the ground is murky only because the Pakeha made it so. For instance, despite the New Zealand Settlements Act, the Crown didn’t exercise ownership over the great tract of land that amounted to almost half of the Taranaki Bight.

Let’s look at a map of the time as that might show more easily what Pakeha occupied as Te Karopotinga o Taranaki continued, and what, for want of a better description, was still Maori territory. This is the Taranaki Bight, ne? Josie will dislike my comparison with a woman’s breast but think of the top side of the right breast at the armpit as the location for the Stoney River. Now draw a line across the breast, across the top part of the nipple, Mount Taranaki, like so, and continue it down to the centre of the chest to this place, the Waingongoro River: all the land to the north-east of the line was in the process of being taken by the Pakeha. But all the w’enua, the land to the south-west, was still ours! Indeed, ex-rebels had been allowed to return to it, and an area of 70,000 acres given back. Surely this was a sign that the government was honouring the prior ownership of this territory by Maori?

And here, immediately west of the mounga, was Parihaka and the land that became known as the Parihaka Block. Within, as it were, a demilitarised Maori zone. Indeed, some people say that Te Whiti actually told Robert Reid Parris, the government’s land purchasing agent, in words that brooked no argument, ‘You stay behind.’

Do you get the picture now?

Thus, with the Pakeha wars — at least the effective fighting — to all intents and purposes over in the Taranaki, Te Whiti and Tohu moved swiftly. They formally established themselves as the owners of ‘Maori territory’ and facilitators for the return of disputed Maori land.

Why did they take up this leadership role?

The answer was that the wars in the Taranaki had taken a huge toll on Maori tribal leadership. This may sound cynical, but there was a reason why European generals sat on their white horses and sent younger soldiers onto the battlefield: if they became cannon fodder or fell to withering enemy fire, the generals could carry on, no matter how bad they were as leaders. Not so Maori chiefs.

Thirty Maori leaders were killed in one battle alone, at Waireka in 1860, and Te Karopotinga o Taranaki harvested many others. But Te Whiti and Tohu’s strategy was not to continue leading by the sword. In 1869, therefore, they summoned all Taranaki tribes to meet at Parihaka and, there, they unfolded a new plan.

The proposition was unveiled on the day that we call ‘the first Ra’. It was the day of prophecy, the Takahanga, marking the occasion when the two prophets stepped up to the plate and took upon themselves the roles as leaders of our eventual resurrection as tangata w’enua, the original people of the land. On that day the world held its breath as the prophet Te Whiti proclaimed Maori freedom from Pakeha authority.

‘This land is ours,’ he said.

Clouds had gathered above Taranaki and from the guts of the earth came a sudden quake — a quivering of anticipation. Birds arrowed sharply through the air and the bullocks were bellowing.

Then Te Whiti made an astounding proclamation. Certainly there would continue to be struggles with the Pakeha, but Maori would participate unarmed.

‘We will hold the land by passive resistance,’ he said.

Te Whiti and Tohu’s positions may have been firm, but the government had given itself wriggle room.

Hazel Riseborough cleverly puts it this way:

The Government had confiscated the land on paper, but it did not have the means to enforce confiscation on the ground, and for the time being the people at Parihaka were left in peace to cultivate their land.[4]

I don’t like the sound of that ‘for the time being’, do you?

3

Yes, for the time being.

During that peaceful interval, Erenora and Horitana settled into married life. He was astounded at the growth of Parihaka and the great leadership skills of Te Whiti and Tohu.

‘When I left you,’ he said to Erenora, ‘I was just a young boy and you were still at Warea.’ He was sitting with her, watching the tataraki’i as they sent kites dancing into the air. ‘And now, from out of the ground where once there was nothing, has arisen Parihaka.’

Horitana was welcomed into the village with open arms. From the very moment he returned, Te Whiti sought him out too, even though the prophet was, initially, cautious. ‘You have been fighting so long with Titokowaru,’ he began. ‘Parihaka might not be for you.’

‘Rangatira,’ Horitana answered, his eyes haunted, ‘I have witnessed many dreadful things and I myself have killed men in the name of war, I acknowledge that. I have shot them and seen them fall in the battlefield without knowing who they were. And yes, I admit that the bloodlust has come upon me when I have witnessed terrible acts of butchery: soldiers taking heads from our warriors because of the beauty of their moko. That has only made me rage all the more, and to fight at close quarters with them, kano’i ki te kano’i, face to face.

‘But always, when I have slid my bayonet into their hearts and their blue eyes have gone white, I have realised just what it means to take the life of another. How I have clasped them to my breast and grieved for them.’

‘Are you therefore able to put that life behind you and ascend the whirlwind path of Enoch?’ Te Whiti asked.

Horitana swayed, cried out in great pain and nodded. ‘I am still a young man. If God will forgive me, I will work for Him.’ He kissed Te Whiti’s hands. ‘Let me serve Him here in Parihaka and ensure that the kainga truly becomes the citadel where peace can reign.’

So it was that, one bright morning, Te Whiti took Horitana to the stream. Erenora, Huhana and other villagers stood on the banks to watch the baptism.

‘Look!’ Huhana gasped pointing. Eels were swirling around the two men.

Dressed in white, Te Whiti baptised Horitana, submerging him in the water. ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ he intoned, ‘arise from the water washed of your sins.’

When Horitana came out of the stream he sat on the bank, weeping. Then, crying out with passion, he walked swiftly to his and Erenora’s house, where the Enfield rifle was hanging in its pouch. He took it out into the front yard and swung it by the barrel against a fencepost, slamming it until the stock splintered and broke.

‘Husband, calm yourself,’ Erenora said to him as he stood, panting.

‘How was I to know, Erenora?’ he asked, grief-stricken. ‘Nobody as young as I was should ever go to war.’

She cradled him in her arms, soothing him.

Let me show you a photograph of Erenora and Horitana.

I’m not sure what year it was taken — it must have been after their marriage — and it gives a good indication of what they looked like when they were young.

The photographer is anonymous, but he could have been one of the Burton brothers, though if that were the case, why is the photograph not listed in their collection at Te Papa Tongarewa? That question aside, the photographer was like many others of his profession, compelled to capture pictures of the bold villagers who would eventually stand against the might of the Pakeha world.

The subject of the photograph is actually Parihaka itself, but the photographer has managed to inveigle a large group of villagers to pose for him just outside the settlement. It looks like he has found a rise outside the village — or he’s taken the photograph while standing on a tall ladder — on the outer side of the road leading to Parihaka. From this vantage point, the photograph shows the fence perimeter of the village, broken by a large gap that was one of the entrances to Parihaka. It’s not a gateway — there’s no gate — but I’ll call it a gateway anyhow, and the villagers are standing in front of it: eighteen of them in the foreground, six men and twelve women, three holding babies in their arms. There are eight more villagers in the middle distance, standing in a thoroughfare that runs between thatched houses, and way at the back are two men.

Most of the subjects in the photograph are women. The two in the front are Erenora’s sisters, Ripeka and Meri. You can tell, by her overflowing beauty, that the one on the left is Ripeka; on the right, looking at her sister for reassurance, is Meri, always a little uncertain of herself, holding poi in her hands, tap tap tap, tap tap tap.

All the villagers, with the exception of Meri, are looking into the camera. They appear to be saying, ‘Tenei matou, this is us.’ They aren’t taciturn and they don’t look belligerent. Most of the men are wearing light-coloured trousers and shirts or jerkins, dark jackets, and all have hats. The women wear blouses and long, full skirts to their ankles. It must be cold as a few have wrapped blankets around their shoulders — and the babies have shawls to protect them from the wind. Like the men, some of the women wear hats too.

Of course the photograph doesn’t show the entire village, only nine good-sized sleeping w’are. It presents a very tidy appearance indeed. Look: down one of the thoroughfares is a streetlamp. Beyond, there’s scrub and a few tall trees. The rest is sky, so the photographer must be looking westward to the sea. Note the village is unfortified.

Now look at the two men at the very back of the photograph. They too stare boldly at the camera, but one stands on the balls of his feet, ready to defend. Horitana, you think?

No, it’s Erenora.

‘I remember the day the photographer took that picture. It was the beginning of winter and on the air was the acrid smell of many cooking fires; the smoke wreathed the sky.

‘I was not surprised at what I looked like in the photograph. It only confirmed what I always saw in the mirror. All my life I was built like a man: tall, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped and strong-legged. Not for me the ample breasts and thighs and other telltale signs of womanhood.

‘In the photograph I’m wearing a plaid shirt and trousers — yes, trousers — cinched at the waist with a wide belt. I wasn’t above scandalising other villagers, especially my mother Huhana — or even my husband, who sometimes was grumpy that I dressed like a boy. And the illusion that I am a man comes from the fact that my hair is pinned up, whereas Horitana — who also had long hair but wore it, as all the men did, in a topknot — has his long hair down! When that photograph was taken, however, I could sit on my hair.

‘You see, Horitana had got over his shyness of that day when, as a child, I had rescued him from death and tried to wash off his dirt in the stream. Now he enjoyed my bathing him in an old tin tub, and sometimes I would get one ready for him on his return from whatever work Te Whiti had assigned him to do. It might be riding with a squad around the perimeter of Parihaka to ensure that our borders were safe and protected. At other times it might be to keep guard on the fishermen as they went to the sea.

‘I would hurry to get the bath ready, taking my bucket to the well and, one bucketload after the other, fill the copper. Ripeka and Meri sometimes liked to watch me and say to themselves, “Huh! She can’t fool us! Pretending that she wants to wash Horitana’s dust off or get the warmth back into him after a cold day, when we know that what she really desires is to admire his handsome and naked body!”

‘My sisters were still unmarried, though on Ripeka’s part it was not for want of trying, and they were still living with Huhana, whereas Horitana and I had the w’are next door. Ripeka was always the cheeky one, saying to our mother, “Can we go somewhere else to sleep tonight? All the noise as Erenora bathes Horitana, the splashing and the sighing. What can they be doing?” Ripeka’s thoughts were so salacious.

‘Once I filled the copper I lit the fire beneath it and heated the water. Then, bucket by bucket, I filled the bath … and waited … and when Horitana arrived home, I would put a candle on the rim of the tub and invite him to clean himself. “Oh, wife,” he would shiver in anticipation. The tub wasn’t very big, but I loved bending his limbs so that he could fit into it. He was tall and lean-muscled and, yes, I will admit that I got much pleasure in looking upon him.

‘“Is the water hot enough?” I would ask. I washed and soaped him and asked him to let down his hair so I could wash that too. Sometimes I sang to him, to tell him why I loved him: “Softly, you awoke my heart, you put your arms around me and sheltered me from sorrows deep and asked the mountain me to keep! Since that day I have loved you so, wherever you go I go too!”

‘I will admit that often I wished the tub was big enough for both of us.

‘And sometimes Horitana would responded to my song with his own: “From the moment I first saw you, dearest wife, I carried your face in my heart! The thought of you sustained me even though we were far apart! Respond to me, my Erenora, respond again, Erenora …”

‘We loved those times together, Horitana and I, except that finally that impudent sister of mine, Ripeka, would shout from next door, “Oh, hurry up you two and get on with it!”’

Look at the photograph again. In my opinion, Horitana has indeed just come from a bath, so the photograph must have been taken in the late afternoon; the photographer would have been anxious to capture the image while he still had enough light.

Horitana may even have come from lovemaking. His skin glows, don’t you think? Everything about him glows, his eyes, his hair, even his chest, over which he has hastily thrown a blanket.

And Erenora definitely looks like someone to be reckoned with, eh? Even though it’s only a photograph that’s being taken, she has flung her arms around Horitana’s shoulders as if he is imperilled in some way.

1

On what principles did Te Whiti base his creed?

Bernard Gadd has written about this in his article which covers the teachings of Te Whiti better than I ever could. He says that ‘Te Whiti did not carefully systematize his theology, but the principal strands in his thinking stand out clearly.’

His fundamental conviction was that God was sovereign in His universe and that nothing existed or occurred but by His will. Te Whiti said in October, 1880 that all things were ordained at the beginning of the world … namely wars and dissensions … We could not have altered anything hoewever we might strive.[5]

In Gadd’s words, ‘the heart of Te Whiti’s creed and that which drew people to him was his confident reaffirmation that the Maori “had not been lost sight of by the Great Ruler, who kept all things in good order”’:

‘God has protected us and will protect the land and the people … You are a chosen people and none shall harm you.’[6]

Aren’t Te Whiti’s utterances inspiring? I particularly like this one: ‘The ark by which we are to be saved today is stout-heartedness, and flight is death.’ No wonder Parihaka became a symbol of hope and an emblem of Maori sovereignty, not only to Taranaki tribes but also other iwi in Aotearoa. You have to shake your head, though, and wonder why did the prophet choose such open ground to build Parihaka on, and with no defensive walls and ramparts? What was Te Whiti thinking?

Well, first he was proclaiming pride in ownership. Perhaps he was also sending a message to Pakeha that he was not afraid of them.

He was certainly sending a message to Maori that he and the people of Parihaka were not in hiding. When you think of it, his full name, meaning ‘The shining path of the comet’, couldn’t be more apt. It shouldn’t be surprising that Maori were drawn to that flightpath, to follow in its glowing wake to Parihaka, as the three wise men did to Bethlehem.

Maybe Te Whiti was also sending a message to God:

‘Just in case you can’t find us, here we are.’

2

‘The main tribal meetings,’ Erenora wrote, ‘took place on the 18th of each month, Te Whiti’s special Sabbath — actually the 17th by calendar date, because Te Whiti argued that Pakeha had left out the day the “Sun stood still”.

‘Visitors arrived from all over Aotearoa to pray and to korero. They came from the Waikato, Wairarapa and the King Country and as far away as Otago and the Chatham Islands. Scouts watched from the hilltops for them and came running to tell us so that we would be waiting with our welcoming party. I could never detain the tataraki’i in the classroom on those days. I had still kept up learning German from my phrasebook — I don’t know why, perhaps it was a sentimental link to the missionaries at my place of birth, Warea — and I liked to farewell the first girl or boy out the door with the same German phrase that Rimene had addressed to me when I was a little girl. “Leb wohl, mein Herz,” I would say to the child, “Go well, sweetheart.”

‘The children liked to dress up for the visitors. They wore ceremonial shoulder cloaks and feathers, and would welcome the arrivals with song and skipping ropes. Sometimes, the boys whipped their tops among the manu’iri and ran after them. At other times, up would go their kites to dance and soar in the capricious wind. We always said that if the children liked you and made a noise, they were happy. But if they sensed anything about you that was menacing, and they started to buzz or go silent, watch out.’

‘In those days, the visitors were always greeted on Toroanui, Tohu Kaakahi’s marae. It was the men who were prominent, welcoming the manu’iri with Tohu Kaakahi’s foot-pounding, breast-slapping and vigorous ’aka:

‘“E pari koe te tai, w’akaki ana mai nga ngutuawa o Waitotoroa kei Toroanui, i aa ’a ’a! ’aere ake aku waka e rua, ’ei! Ko te w’iu poi, ko te ringaringa w’iua! Taia!”

‘Titokowaru was a frequent visitor, leaning on his sacred staff Te Porohanga. Whenever Horitana saw him, he leapt to the front of the men and urged them to greater ferocity. “Ringa pakia!’ he would lead them. ‘Flow in the tide, filling the mouth of the river up the Waitotoroa to Toroanui. Behold the prophet’s two canoes to launch his message! The twirling poi! The action of the ’aka! Taia! Aue!”

‘Horitana never ceased to acknowledge his great friendship with the old fighting chief. “This is the man who could stop bullets,” he would tell me. “Even the winds of Heaven were his.” How thrilling it was to see the way my husband’s muscles bulged as he performed the ’aka.

‘Other dances and songs of welcome greeted the many manu’iri who visited us. I was not very good at poi dancing, so I left that to my sisters and the other women. I envied Ripeka and Meri their dexterity and the ways in which they could make their poi whirr, whirr, whirr in the sparkling sunlight. My sisters were so pretty, especially Ripeka, who would shove herself to the front, twirling her poi for all they were worth. Meri liked composing her own poi songs:

‘“Titiro taku poi! Rere atu, rere mai, taku poi! Look at my poi! It goes up it goes down, it flies around our sacred mountain Taranaki, which is the centre of our lives!”

‘Sometimes, however, she would try too hard in the dance and lose one of her poi. Off it would go, flying like a bird into the crowd.’

‘Such great rangatira came to Parihaka. Surely their coming only confirmed the growing greatness of our citadel. Among the chiefs were Wiremu Parata, Winiata Naera, Whakawhiria and, as always, the great Wiremu Kingi Te Matakatea. Despite a promise by George Grey, Matakatea’s land had been confiscated and he smouldered, still awaiting its restitution. Te Kooti Arikirangi came from Poverty Bay and Raniera Erihana was a regular visitor from the South Island.

‘Europeans were also welcomed, even government officials, like Robert Reid Parris and James Mackay, land purchase agents, who came to spy on us. They tried to bribe Te Whiti and Tohu or even speak against them on our own marae! We were scornful of their attempts to spread dissent among us and cast doubt on our leaders. They were like the money-lenders in the temple, moving among the people, asking, “Have you got land to sell?”

‘There were also journalists and always the handful of curious sightseers. I liked to engage them in conversation about the world outside Parihaka. I think a few were surprised that I could read and write. I wasn’t offended by their presumption that Maori were ignorant and uncivilised; it wasn’t their fault that their newspapers portrayed us in this way. A few generously left me books to read, one of which was a tattered but soon revered copy of Shakespeare’s plays.

‘By that time, Te Whiti was around fifty and Tohu just a few years older. Although Tohu had the seniority, Te Whiti was the statesman, the one who always spoke first. He had his grey beard by then and his eyes were always alert. He was reserved and dignified and some Pakeha, forgetting about his education, were disappointed that, well, he was an equal to them. The mi’i over, Te Whiti would open his arms in greeting:

‘“The twelve tribes of Israel are amongst you. Great are you amongst people! You are as a heavy stone not to be moved.”’

3

Of course, the many visitors to the tribal meetings had to be fed and housed. Although some brought supplies with them, the village men were kept busy cooking the kai: Parihaka now boasted a large granary and associated bakery, and the land and sea were bountiful with fish, beef, poultry, vegetables and other foods. The only drink served was water; Te Whiti frowned on the wai pirau, the Pakeha alcohol.

The visitors loved to wander down Parihaka’s thoroughfares and, sometimes, indulge in inter-tribal games and competitions. They particularly enjoyed the sport of pitting the strength of one bullock team against another. By that time Parihaka had over 100 bullocks in the kainga’s bellowing herd; you could tell by their vanity that even the beloved companions themselves enjoyed showing off their muscles, bellowing and straining to pull the rival teams across a line marked in the earth.

Ripeka and Meri graduated to being handmaidens, helping to serve the kai to the visitors.

‘Anei!’ the young men yelled as they moved among them, ‘Nga putiputi!’

Erenora’s sisters loved the many ’ui because they were able to meet eligible men; they were irritated that she had married before them.

It was at one such gathering that Ripeka met her husband Paora. Really, once she had him in her sights, he didn’t stand a chance because wherever he looked she was standing there, giving him the eye. Paora was a fine young man from Whanganui, but when his companions left — hello, he did not return with them. ‘I told Paora I didn’t want to leave my sisters,’ Ripeka sobbed happily to Erenora.

Not long afterwards, Meri met Riki from the Waikato during a friendly game of cricket. Well, what really happened was that Riki invited Meri to go for a walk in the dark and, as she was trying so hard to please him, she let him go all the way. The consequence was that she became pregnant.

Huhana wasn’t having that. She bailed up Riki’s elders and harangued them. ‘This isn’t just any girl he’s had his way with! This is my Meri.’

Poor Riki found himself being told by his chiefs to do the right thing. The good part was that he truly did adore Meri and, as a token of his love, he gave her a beautiful greenstone ’eitiki, neck pendant. ‘I will wear it always,’ she said to him. But did she go back to the Waikato with him? No. She couldn’t bear to be separated from Erenora and Ripeka either. Riki had to make a choice and, like Paora, he stayed in Parihaka too.

Horitana shook his head and mused to Erenora, ‘Sometimes I suspect you sisters love each other more than you do your husbands.’

Erenora tried not to be envious of Meri’s beautiful rounded pregnant body. No matter the strength of Horitana’s and her lovemaking, sadly, she could not come to child with him.

One day she even heard other women of the village gossiping about her. ‘Why is she still barren when to even look at her husband would make any woman pregnant? Her mission education has diluted her ability to have children.’ It was spiteful talk and not to be taken seriously, but Erenora pondered her barrenness for weeks. Then she made up her mind. She prepared a good dinner for Horitana and, after that, sat him down for a talk. ‘I want you to divorce me, husband, and take another wife.’

He looked at her, puzzled. ‘What has brought this on?’

‘I have not been able to bear you a son,’ she answered.

He scratched his head, smiling. ‘It might be my problem, not yours,’ he began, ‘and anyway I love you. No other woman comes close to you. Apart from which, I would miss the clever, beautiful and sometimes puzzling things you say — and I like all our trying!’

Most of all, Horitana admired Erenora’s intelligent and questing spirit. Sometimes he would watch her on the marae without her knowing. He would see her eyes catch fire as the speakers rose, one by one, to talk about the future of Parihaka, of all Maoridom and Aotearoa. The cut and thrust of debate showed that the brightest minds were present at the many tribal meetings.

‘What is our kaupapa?’ they would ask. ‘What is our purpose? It is to protect the land and the people and maintain our way of life for future generations.’

At one such gathering, Erenora caught Horitana’s glance. She edged her way to his side and smiled at him. ‘You don’t mind my masculine interest, do you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Horitana answered, ‘I’m proud of your enquiring mind, Erenora.’

Together they watched Te Whiti take command. The prophet never moved much, and his voice was so resonant and powerful that no matter how many people were there, it was as if he were speaking to each person alone. Well versed in kawa and korero, he was able to use a simple w’akatauaki, proverb or passage from the Book of Books, and it was enough to have people laughing or weeping or nodding in agreement. Assuredly he showed his rangatiratanga when he said:

‘I do not care for the parliament that meets in Wellington, my Parliament is at Parihaka.’

Oh, the thunderous ovation that greeted his remark.

One image of Erenora on the marae imprinted itself indelibly on Horitana’s memory. The day was waning, the debates between the chiefs reaching a climax. The night was pouring into the sky but there, silhouetted against twilight’s striated pinks and reds, was Erenora. Even as the darkness deepened into purple, and other women slipped away to prepare dinner, she still stood there, listening.

This was his wife. She was holding up the sky. She turned to him and smiled and the first evening star came out.

4

Aue, always hanging over Parihaka and Taranaki was that business about the confiscations which existed on paper.

The time came when the government did have the means to enforce confiscation on the ground. After all, there were already British and colonial positions along the coast from past campaigns; if you like, around the side of the breast — excuse me, Josie — from the armpit to the middle of the chest.

I’m talking about the era which began when Henry Albert Atkinson, known as Harry Atkinson, came to power as tenth Premier of New Zealand, albeit initially for only one year, from 1876 to 1877. In my opinion he was the worst of the land-grabbing leaders of our country. His curriculum vitae contained, for instance, a stint as one of the two captains of the Taranaki Rifle Volunteers formed from the settlers to defend New Plymouth when it was surrounded by Maori in the first round of the Taranaki fighting. He made no secret of the fact that he thought we were ‘savages’.

Then the period’s hostility to Taranaki Maori escalated when Sir George Grey, who had left New Zealand to serve as Governor of Cape Colony, returned and reinvented himself in New Zealand politics. He ousted Atkinson and took over as the eleventh premier, from 1877 to 1879. Under Grey, the government disclosed its hand: it rolled out its plans for the complete takeover of Taranaki, looking inward from the coast to that territory which Maori had claimed as theirs.

The moment had come for surgical removal.

You know, I think both sides were lucky that the resolution of land matters had moved from active military conflict between us. Otherwise, more blood would have been shed. One wonders why the government did not continue the conflagration?

I’ve heard that it simply couldn’t afford the cost of maintaining the British Army — the koti w’ero, redcoats, and the koti puru, bluecoats — in Aotearoa. And it has to be said that men of conscience, speaking within Parliament and without, put the brakes on any further fighting: were Maori not members of the brotherhood of man?

That, however, may have slowed Premier Grey down, but it did not stop him entirely. After all, he had the economic woes of the country to think about: 1877 was a year of depression in New Zealand, and what better way of solving some of the financial problems than by going after land that wasn’t yet in the Pakeha pocket? Like that interesting Maori territory in Taranaki. It could be worth up to half a million sterling.

And, by that time, the government had begun to institute a different kind of ‘army’: a heavily armed police force known as the Armed Constabulary, supported by settler volunteers.

The Grey Cabinet moved quickly to advocate the survey and sale of the land by force.

In July 1878 the surveyors, that perennial metaphor for provocation, were ordered in. What had once been a demilitarised zone now became active, and although the land’s ownership was still disputed, the Pakeha acted as if he owned it. Te Whiti and Tohu immediately protested, but the Crown went ahead with the surveying and then advertised 16,000 acres for sale.

Te Whiti took immediate action. After all, the ark was being assaulted.

1

By the way, do you know the European artist Gustave Doré’s 1873 engraving called The New Zealander?

It’s a somewhat surreal, dystopian illustration from London: a Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold, and it shows a black-caped man looking upon that great city in the future, a London in decay, rotting and dying.

Christopher Woodward has an interesting interpretation of Doré’s engraving:

The wizard-like figure … is a traveller from New Zealand, for to many Victorians this young colony seemed to represent the dominant civilisation of the future. He sits on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s, exactly as Victorian Englishmen sketched those of ancient Rome.[7]

I’ve often pondered Doré’s engraving and Woodward’s commentary and wondered … what, if anything, would have made New Zealand that dominant civilisation? Sometimes, in my reply, it has been difficult for me to restrain my passion as I think of those first Pakeha leaders of ours.

If only they had come not to conquer but to partner Maori in some bold and innovative experiment which built on the making of a greater Britannia or Albion — call it what you will — here, on the other side of the world. Might not fabled Erewhon, a country created out of the legacies of two proud and fierce peoples — one Pakeha and the other Polynesian — have arisen to challenge Europa’s supremacy?

Just think what might have been, had that Victorian expectation referred to by Woodward been fulfilled, eh?

2

Bloody surveyors!

You know, whenever I’m driving around Taranaki and I see any surveyors standing by the side of a road, I want to run them over. They provoked the conflict everywhere in Aotearoa. And they had no business here in Taranaki, stabbing their theodolites into the ground in the Waitara, pinning out the whole land as if it was an animal skin.

I’m sorry, I apologise … Sometimes it is difficult for me to restrain my rhetoric and passion.

The Grey administration became really worried about Te Whiti. Its concern developed because under the prophet’s leadership Parihaka was becoming the centre of a new Maori republic. It had already become the largest and most prosperous kainga in the land and its many tribal meetings were forever increasing in size, sometimes past the usual 3,000 to, at times, 5,000.

The figures won’t mean much unless I give you a couple of reference points from the 1881 census, even though it was still three years away. For instance, the census listed the total number of Pakeha in New Zealand at 489,702 and the total number of Maori at 44,099. That meant that up to 9 per cent of Maori in the country were meeting at Parihaka whenever there were significant ’ui. And if we look at the population of Taranaki, which was 14,852, any comparison with the figures of Maori living at the citadel must have made for alarming reading. After all, the population of New Plymouth itself was only 3,326.

The large gatherings could mean only one thing: Parihaka was also becoming a Maori ‘parliament’ and — the news just kept getting worse — a diplomatic precinct for Maoridom. A comparison with the Holy See of Rome wouldn’t be inappropriate. Waikato sent twelve apostles to live at the kainga. Other tribes stationed emissaries to function as ambassadors at the court of Parihaka; there were at least nine such diplomatic missions, with their own meeting houses and dwellings.

I’ll make no bones about it: merely mentioning the citadel was enough to sound loud alarm bells among the Pakeha populace. Thus Parihaka began to be demonised as the greatest threat to Pakeha progress in Aotearoa, ever. Why, it even had its own bank because, remarkably, Te Whiti had turned the citadel from a self-sustaining economy into an income-generating kainga.

The main item of trade was flax, the swamps were full of it, and gangs went daily to harvest and sell it to flax mills — in the 1870s there were over 160 mills nationwide and most in nearby Manawatu. The mills made the flax into rope and other fibre products for export to the UK and Australia; there was also huge demand from Maori tribes, who bought the flax for clothing and other domestic purposes.

Te Whiti and Tohu also built on the model of Warea by reestablishing trade in agricultural produce to both Maori and Pakeha. After all, they now had a vigorous horticultural industry centred on their plantations. Not all Pakeha were against them and, if they were, they turned a blind eye because the prices were competitive. The quality of the kainga’s agricultural produce was often better than that of other suppliers.

Further money for Parihaka’s coffers came from villagers’ contributions by way of regular tithe. March, for instance, was a month when they would work on farms outside Parihaka, and all the wages they earned were given to support the citadel.

And of course ko’a — voluntary monetary funds — from the many Maori visitors added to Parihaka’s wealth. Outside tribes like Whanganui Muaupoko raised funds for Parihaka, and among individual contributors were Taare Waitara and Raniera Erihana, from Dunedin. The latter, also known as Dan Ellison, was a cousin of Te Whiti and, unusual for the time, a wealthy Maori. He had made his money when he and Hakaraia Haeroa discovered gold on the Shotover River. Te Whiti gave Erihana a white feather, which he wore in his hat and, because he travelled so frequently on the ferry from the South Island to Taranaki and back, he became known as ‘The Man with a White Feather in his Hat’.

The press went into hysteria mode, voicing fears about ‘The Enemy Within’. Inflammatory rumours abounded that armaments, ammunition and gunpowder were being stored for the sole purpose of creating a Maori Nation within the nation. And, of course, Te Whiti and Tohu were labelled deluded fanatics; all prophets, no matter where they were in the British Empire, were dismissed in this way. After all, if they were reasonable men, surely they would embrace all the benefits of British citizenship? They were called ‘dangerous’, ‘a disturbing element’, ‘madmen’, ‘monomaniacs’.

There was no way in which Te Whiti or Tohu would have known the full extent of the Pakeha paranoia. They may have heard the disquiet and alarm but, as far as they were concerned, they were simply living on their own land. And there in that world, their followers continued to enshrine and elevate them as mangai, mouthpieces of God.

What a world it was! Ancient, temporal and spiritual, Maori and biblical and, as Rachel Buchanan has splendidly put it, ‘saturated in the divine’. She has written that there the prophets practised:

a righteous non-violence backed by divine authority and protected by a sacred emblem, the raukura or albatross feather. The albatross feather had at least two meanings. According to one account, Tohu had a vision in which Melchizedec, the biblical prince of peace, appeared before him, anointing him as leader. In other stories, many Parihaka people saw a great albatross descend on the village and when it took off, it left a feather behind.[8]

The Holy Spirit had come down from heaven and sanctioned the development of Parihaka as a citadel of peace and sacredness. As had been written in the Book of Revelation, Maori would maintain rightful occupancy of their promised land.

Was the government’s — or rather Native Affairs Minister John Bryce’s — action in sending in surveyors intentional? My oath it was!

By responding to the provocation, were Te Whiti and Tohu playing into Bryce’s hands, giving him the excuse to get rid of them?

Possibly, but what alternative was there?

3

‘I remember the evening’, Erenora wrote, ‘when Te Whiti came to our w’are to talk with Horitana about the invasion of the Pakeha surveyors.

‘It was raining softly and I was making the evening meal when he arrived. It was always an honour to have the prophet in our house. I took his coat and hat and motioned him into the warmth. “Won’t you stay and have dinner with us?” I asked him. He looked in the pot, sniffed the stew and said yes.’

Erenora ladled out the stew. Te Whiti said grace and then began to eat.

‘The Pakeha are cutting their lines in the ground,’ he said after a while, looking squarely into Horitana’s eyes. ‘If that is a challenge, I shall accept it. I want you to take a squad and stop them. Only men of mana are to go with you.’

Since his baptism, Te Whiti had elevated Horitana to a position as a protector of Parihaka. All the men in the village had rejoiced in the decision because not only could Horitana look after himself; he would look after them. And he had experience in handling dangerous situations.

‘The land is mine and I do not admit the Pakeha’s right to survey it,’ Te Whiti continued. ‘My blanket is mine! Think you it would be right for them to try to drag it from my body and clothe themselves with it?’

Listening in, Erenora could only agree with the prophet. ‘The Pakeha doesn’t care that the Maori moko has been tattooed here long before they came,’ she began, laying her spoon down. ‘We can’t let them continue to engrave their own moko over ours.’

Te Whiti was accustomed to Erenora saying her piece. He winked at Horitana, who kicked his wife under the table, but she would not heed him.

‘And it is not only the w’enua — cultivations, burial grounds, villages or grass seed crops — that’s at risk,’ she continued. ‘There’s also the danger to our w’akapapa, for it is the umbilical cord between the past and the present which is being shredded by the surveyors’ lines. If Pakeha continue to do that, the enriching blood of the pito, the afterbirth, will drain away and what therefore will give life to the generations yet to come?’

The prophet smiled at her as he finished his stew. ‘Maybe you should be the one to go out and stop the surveyors?’

Erenora coloured, a little embarrassed, but Te Whiti patted her hand. ‘Kei te pai, Erenora, your words are food for thought.’ He pondered them, and then turned to Horitana again. ‘I do not want you to take weapons with you. You are not to use arms against the surveyors.’

‘How will I be able to get them to stop?’ Horitana asked. ‘What if they fire on us?’

‘Let them do what they do,’ Te Whiti answered. ‘I am telling you what we do. The land is ours and I do not admit their right to survey it. You will find a way.’

The next morning, Horitana selected his squad. The rain had stopped but the clouds were hanging heavy in the sky. The group of men was large, perhaps seventy, including Paora and Riki and others like Te Whao, Ruakere, Rangiora and Whata.

Meri was unhappy that Horitana had chosen Riki. Swollen with child, she needed him. As the men rode out, she shouted after him, ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’

Ripeka elbowed her impishly. ‘You should talk,’ she said.

Meri was still upset. ‘Horitana should never have picked Riki,’ she said to Erenora. ‘If anything happens to him, it will be your husband’s fault.’

But, as it happened, when the squad had their first encounter with the surveyors, Horitana won the day because of the intimidating number of men with him. He had also decided, in talking to the surveyors, to try not to provoke, but to use reason and be firm.

The squad rode up to one of the surveyor camps, and Horitana called for the chief surveyor, a Mr Charles Finnerty. ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘you and your men are trespassing. We have therefore come to pull up your survey pegs, take down your theodolites and …’ with a twinkle in his eye ‘… if you would be so good as to dismantle your tents, we shall escort you safely back to your land.’

The surveyors may have objected but they were also obedient. It was all very reasonable and done without incident.

Came the dusk, however, and Erenora was in such a nervous state, worrying about the men. She ran with Ripeka and Meri to the road to watch for their return. A phrase in German came to her lips.

‘Ich hab auf Gott und Recht vertrauen,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I trust in God and Right.’

The tataraki’i waited with the women, silent, but when the men appeared, oh, their commotion was deafening. Meri was so melodramatic, running towards Riki and wailing as if he had been away for years. All the women were making a fuss of their men, even Ripeka of her Paora, but Erenora held back. Even though Horitana had brought her a gift of some surveyors’ pegs she said, ‘Husband, you were only doing your job.’

As soon as she said the words, Erenora realised she should have been more forthcoming with her praise. Sometimes, however, her love for Horitana was so huge that rather than show it she limited its expression, especially in public. And Te Whiti was correct that she should have been the one to go out and lead the men: she was as good as any of them.

Later that evening, she saw that Horitana was still hurt by her slight. He excused himself after dinner, went outside with his axe and began chopping the surveyors’ pegs into kindling. Erenora followed and stood watching him. The night sky was immense and full of wheeling constellations. All there was to disturb the silence was the sound of Horitana at work, cutting through the night. After a while he looked at Erenora and smiled shyly. ‘The pegs will make a good fire,’ he said.

‘I’m so glad,’ she answered, ‘that you did your job well, husband, and that you’ve come back to me.’

‘I will always come back to you, Erenora, always,’ he said. ‘Who else do we have in our lives except each other?’

Then followed a long period when, every morning, Erenora and her sisters would farewell their men: ‘’aere ra ki runga o te kaka’u aro’a o te Atua. Go under the cloak of God’s love.’

Erenora had spoken to Horitana about Riki, and, initially, he had commanded him, ‘No, not you, e ’oa.’ But would Riki stay behind? No. ‘Men will always do what they wish,’ Erenora sighed, threading an arm through Meri’s. The women watched the men riding away through the reddening dawn.

During the day Horitana’s squad removed more parties of surveyors. Sometimes they used packhorses and drays so as to quickly and efficiently escort them out of their lands. By nightfall the womenfolk would be waiting eagerly for the men’s return. Nor was Meri’s continuing nervousness any help: ‘Maybe something has happened to them.’ But Erenora would finally see Horitana leading the party back through the twilight and, as always, she continued to try to hide her overwhelming feelings.

Nevertheless, one evening, she asked him, ‘Have you done your job today, husband?’

‘As well as I think my wife would have wanted me to,’ he said with a grin.

Although she wouldn’t admit it, Horitana was the lord of Erenora’s life. She pushed him reprovingly for teasing her, but her heart betrayed her. It thundered with love for him, ka patupatu tana manawa.

How come he could never hear it?

4

‘Parihaka’s resistance by peaceful means truly began,’ Erenora wrote.

‘During this period, however, the kainga became sanctuary to a man named Wiremu Hiroki who had killed one of the surveyors, a European named McLean.

‘The story is mangled and confused with conflicting accounts of which side was to blame. The dispute began over the killing of pigs owned by Wiremu and escalated into unreason. I will be honest: neither side was faultless. The killing, however, added to settler fears that our peaceful removal of the surveyors was only a prelude to a violent uprising. Wiremu was pursued by a number of different posses, one of them led by his own chief, to take him back to face Pakeha justice. But Te Whiti intervened and offered Wiremu haven. In doing so, however, the prophet appeared to affirm Parihaka as the centre where criminals were gathering to create a growing rebel stronghold.

‘Te Whiti instructed me and Horitana to take Wiremu into our house and, of course, as a Christian I offered him sanctuary. This, even though he was not a person I was inclined to like — but he had been pursued, shot at, and was wounded. What shocked me, however, was that soon after Wiremu’s chief departed, another posse pursuing Wiremu stormed into Parihaka. When I saw them coming I shouted to Meri, “Get into the house.” As usual she disobeyed me and barely managed to move out of the way.’

The posse was led by a fair-haired gentleman, a settler who was a cut above the others. He wore a red riding jacket and black hat and jodhpurs and looked as if he was on a fox hunt; there was a whip on his saddle.

Erenora stepped in front of the horses. ‘Stop,’ she cried. The horses wheeled and bucked, dust swirling from their hooves. The men riding them cursed her, but she stood her ground until Meri was safely to one side.

‘So this is what a Maori kainga looks like,’ the fair-haired gentleman said. ‘It is more modern than I had expected.’ He looked somewhat bored. The hunt for Hiroki had developed around him and he had agreed to lead the posse only because it would provide a diversion in his day.

Angrily, Erenora stepped up to him. ‘Where is your search warrant?’ she asked. She looked for Horitana to support her but could not see him.

The gentleman looked at Erenora, bemused. ‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ he smiled. ‘What does a Maori wahine like you know about such things?’ The lilt of his accent was playful and slightly aspirated but, beneath, his intonation was inflected with all the assumptions of his class — May-or-ree wah-hee-nee. ‘Is this where the fox has gone to ground?’ He dismounted and pushed Erenora out of the way.

Her anger mounted as he went from one w’are to the next, walking in as if he owned them, as if he had some divine right. When he tried to enter her own house, however, she stepped into his path and barred his way. ‘This is my w’are. Keep out.’

‘You are annoying me,’ he said. This time, he was not smiling.

‘I will not stand aside and let you invade it without a legal document.’

Erenora’s mission-educated accent gave him pause again, but not for long. His eyes widened at her impertinence and he tried to push past her.

Meri, trying as usual to be helpful, came to her aid. ‘No, Meri,’ Erenora cried, concerned that the settler might hit her. The tataraki’i, seeing Erenora struggling with him, tried to get in between, to protect her. At that moment Horitana spurred his horse along the thoroughfare, leapt from the saddle and joined the tussle. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

But the settler would not back away from the doorway and, with a laugh, Horitana slapped him.

The fair-haired gentleman fell backwards to the ground. When he rose, dusting himself off and rubbing his face, he had become a different person.

‘How dare you put your filthy Maori hands on me,’ he whispered, his words carefully enunciated. His growing hysteria was all the more frightening for being so contained. And then he caught a glimpse of Wiremu inside Erenora and Horitana’s house and made an assumption that was clearly motivated by the merest visible connection. ‘You were with Hiroki at the time of the murder,’ he accused Horitana.

One of the men in his posse called, ‘They both have a price on their heads for helping Titokowaru.’

The settler strode back to his horse. Erenora thought with relief, He is leaving us. But when he turned to face Erenora and Horitana, he had the whip in his hand.

‘You should never have touched me,’ he said.

The first lash of the whip was aimed at Horitana. It caught him around the legs and he cried out, ‘Aue!’ and fell to the ground. The second lash had an altogether different target, snaking towards Erenora. Had she known, she would have put up her hands to protect herself. And even when she saw the lash approaching she thought, Surely a gentleman would not do that to a woman, even if she were a Maori. But then the whip wrapped itself around her neck and tightened, taking the breath from her. Eyes wide with fear, she backed away but that only made the situation worse, and she was coughing and choking.

She saw Horitana picking himself up and though close to blacking out, retained enough presence of mind to wind herself even tighter into the whip so that the fair-haired gentleman could not use it again. A tug of war began that was somewhat comedic. The settler began to snarl, alarmed that Erenora appeared to possess the greater strength. ‘Let it go, damn you, let it go.’

Horitana realised what Erenora was doing, and he sprang at the Pakeha. ‘You, a man, would whip a woman?’ His neck tendons were popping as he tackled the Pakeha to the dust — and the whip lost its master.

That’s when Erenora unloosed herself from it. Her throat felt on fire as she stumbled away, gasping for air.

Horitana, seeing the settler trying to stand, picked the whip up and used it against its owner. ‘As you do to my wife, I do unto you,’ he cried. No, he had not yet been able to ascend the whirlwind path of Enoch.

One of the lashes caught the settler across the eyes and he called to his men, ‘For God’s sake, help me!’ before falling again to the ground. Another stroke whipped across the planes of his face, the blood beading the skin like moko. But the men were cowards, standing off as Horitana continued to flay their leader, shredding his red riding jacket to the skin beneath. Even when the man attempted to writhe away, Horitana followed, lashing him again and again.

Erenora tried to stop him. She thought, with fear, So this is what it is like when the blood-lust comes upon you. She rushed up to him, grabbing at the whip, her voice hoarse and rasping, ‘Horitana! No …’

Then another voice commanded loudly, ‘Kati. Enough.’

It was Te Whiti. He wrested the whip from Horitana and stopped the song of the lash. For a moment there was silence, except for the groaning of the fair-haired gentleman.

Horitana reached for Erenora, then collapsed at Te Whiti’s feet. ‘Aue, te mamae,’ he sobbed. ‘I am so sorry, rangatira.’

That day marked all three men:

Wiremu would never escape implacable and vengeful justice.

Te Whiti was also marked, for in harbouring Wiremu he gave John Bryce justification for closing Parihaka down.

And Horitana had just made an enemy.

As Erenora watched the fair-haired Pakeha being helped away by his men, she began to feel very afraid. Such men did not like to be humiliated in front of their fellows, least of all by a native.

At some point she knew Horitana would be made to pay.