Into the River (6 page)

“We had come this close to becoming extinct, boy.” Ra’s eyes gleamed as he showed the small gap between finger and thumb.

“Like the moa and the huia … all the other manu that one never sees these days. The ones who live on only as bones or fading memories.”

There was a sadness in these words that made him pause a moment before continuing.

“Within a year, Ngahuia was carrying a baby, one who was very important to you and me. It was my father. By this time,
Diego
had begun to draw down some of the knowledge he carried. His whakapapa went back all the way to the Carthaginians.”

Once again Ra anticipated Te Arepa’s question.

“They were the people from the top of Africa who challenged the ancient Romans for the control of Europe. The most famous was Hannibal.”

“Hannibal with the elephants?”

“Yes, he was the one who crossed the Alps, but it was his father, Hamilcar Barca, whose history Diego carried. Some say he founded the city of Barcelona, its very name recalling his, but like all old histories no one can be sure. The thing was that the old families, the ones who felt they were the aristocrats, the high born, they took the ancient Carthaginian history as their own, and Diego’s family was one of them.

“Whakapapa is full of buried treasure. Not gold and jewels or boxes under the ground, but lessons and answers to the big problems. Even problems that have never faced us before. Extraordinary problems that call for extraordinary solutions.

“This Hamilcar, before he settled in Barcelona, was the hero of his people. Like his son, he was able to save his people from obliteration because he could see further than other men. Past the limits that wall us in. He had a vision, like Te Kooti, strong enough to unite his people. It is a talent, this vision. Something that can’t be taught, only recognised and fostered.

“Everyone knows the story of Hannibal and the elephants, but it was his father, Hamilcar, who set him on his way, by luring the fearsome Roman legions into a bog where they could be slaughtered like cattle.”

“Not a fair fight!” Te Arepa scowled.

“War is not fair. All through history, from the Trojan horse onwards, the really important battles have not been won by numbers or force of arms, but by intelligence, by strategy, by surprise.”

Te Arepa sat back, arms tightly folded.

“Soon after Ngahuia became hapu with my father, the word
came that once again the Ngapuhi were on their way down from Te Rerenga o Whangarei, the meeting place of the whales.”

“Whangarei?”

“Yes, the place that is called Whangarei today. They came in mighty waka taua, keeping close to the coast, decimating all who stood before them. They had given up some of their most precious land to the settlers to get muskets: fire sticks. These brought a new level of bloodshed to the land. The old grudges used to be settled by testing the other’s strength: man to man, eye to eye. Now armed with these muskets, the Ngaphui saw that all of Te Ika o Maui was up for the taking.

“Now Diego quickly made his mark amongst our people. Although he knew nothing about us, about food gathering, or even this country, he had an intelligence that was different from ours. He saw things we didn’t. At this stage our people all lived at the pa by Whakaruru Bay. There were other coastal pas we would move to when some rahui was laid down because kai was scarce, but Whakaruru was the main one. With its sheltered harbour and fertile land it had much to offer. The Ngapuhi knew of it, and our people knew it was where they would land.

“We had a few inland pas, too. Small places mostly, just camps for hunting or maybe a refuge from coastal storms. When Diego learned of these, he insisted that the old people show him. He selected one up the Kahu Valley: where your eel creek comes from, Te Arepa. The Pokaiwhenua.”

Ra lowered his voice. “It has another name, a darker one not used now. I will not say it. It means ‘Rivers of Blood’.

“News came that the Ngapuhi had passed the tip of the East Coast. They had landed at Te Araroa, and were waiting for the weather to settle. It was only a matter of days now before they descended upon us. Our hangi pits were gaping reminders of what would happen next.

“It takes a desperate people to throw in their lot with a man
who has floated ashore from a passing ship. To trust this … alien … to be their deliverer was a great risk, but our iwi had reached such a point of depletion and defeat that it seemed there was no one else.

“When the Ngapuhi made landfall, it was not at night or at a safe distance up the coast. So confident were they of their power and of our submission, that their canoes nudged the beach just below the pa while the sun was shining directly overhead. Their rangatira, Te Manukawa, stood on our sand and called out a challenge to the palisades of our pa, saying, ‘Are you not men? Show yourselves!’

“Now Diego had told us that in his country there is a particular kind of bird. When some danger, a prowling cat perhaps, gets too close to her nest, she will land heavily on the ground nearby and appear to have injured herself. As the animal pounces, she flutters and flops away some little distance, not far, just far enough. Gradually she leads the predator away, until it is far from her nest. Finally, she flies back.”

Te Arepa gave a ‘so what’ expression.

“It shows the triumph of intelligence over force. This was the strategy that Diego chose.

“When Te Manukawa’s men walked into the pa they found only one person: a young boy. And his name was —”

“Te Arepa!” the children chorused.

“That’s right, and he was not much older than you are today, Te Arepa.”

“And he saved the tribe.”

“Slow down, we aren’t there yet. When I say ‘found him’ what I mean is that they saw him squeezing between the tightly lashed manuka poles which made the rear wall. He appeared to be stuck. The men rushed towards him, hungry for the first kill, the mana of first blood.”

Ra licked his lips and his eyes bulged. For a moment he was terrifying but the look disappeared so quickly that neither child
was certain it had been there.

“When they were almost upon him, Te Arepa squeezed free of the poles, and limped off down the path, as though he had injured himself getting through.

“He was that fluttering bird. The one the Spanish call ‘pajara’. Easy prey: but there was another reason to chase him. He was carrying something that may have explained why he was there, all alone. It was a korowai, a cloak made from the feathers of the brown kiwi and the kereru. A prize of great value.

“At this stage there was huge excitement. The Ngapuhi could smell victory. They poured over the palisade fence because none of them were small enough to fit through the gaps.

“Now Te Arepa had been chosen for the task because he was the fastest, the nimblest. He was also a fearless boy. He had to be: one slip, one tiny mistake and that would be the end of him. A fate too terrible to think about.

“At first it was easy. The ground was familiar, and apart from the korowai he had nothing to carry. Te Arepa was able to fake a few falls to encourage the warriors on, deeper and deeper into the ngahere.

“Soon, though, his pursuers became impatient. What they thought would be a short run, an easy capture, was beginning to torment them. They couldn’t outrun the boy, so they tried to shoot him. Musket balls ripped through the leaves just above the head of the terrified Te Arepa.

“Te Arepa took off. His pursuers were now some distance from the coast and they waited for everyone to regroup. The fatter members had been left far behind in the chase. They bathed themselves in the water of the Pokaiwhenua just where it enters the tight little canyon that marks the beginning of Hikurangi, our maunga.

“Less than a hundred feet from where they sat, our people waited. They could hear their enemies’ voices, smell their sweat. The Ngapuhi were angry, frustrated by the chase. When they had all caught up, and rested, almost as if they knew they were being
watched, they gathered together for an earsplitting haka. The narrow gorge echoed with the sound of their voices and the thunder of their stamping feet.

“When our people heard the power of that haka, sensed the numbers and the strength of those who had come to kill them, even the bravest now feared that they were near death.

“But there was one who didn’t.

“One whose face was the mask of calmness.

“One unworried by the challenges that rang out or the fate that now seemed inevitable.

“It was Diego.

“There was an enormous rock that overlooked the mouth of the valley. It was known as ‘Te ngutu o kaka’, the beak of the kaka, because of its shape. It was a local landmark and meeting place. Beyond this, the valley became so narrow that it was single file from there on.

“For days Diego and others had been digging away at the earth the rock sat on, until it was precariously perched. A small earth tremor, rain, a strong wind perhaps, could bring it crashing down. Diego had built up pillars to support it: flat boulders from the stream below stacked one on top of the other. It had been a slow and exhausting business. Now only these stone pillars supported the great weight, as with the ancient temples in Diego’s part of the world.

“As the Ngapuhi picked their way carefully up the valley, cautious now, ready for attack, they heard a strange call ring out high above them. It was in a language the Ngapuhi, seasoned though they were with European contact, had never heard before. There must have been a moment of doubt for them. A moment when they wondered what they had stumbled into.

“The call was followed by a deep rumble of this kind that signalled an earthquake. The mighty rock where they had rested minutes before crashed into the canyon, completely blocking their retreat. It was followed by other rocks, some rolled, some hurled
straight from the walls of the canyon. There was no shelter, no retreat. All they could do was rush up the valley.

“In the turmoil that followed, their discipline vanished. The fighting force that had terrorised the top half of the country became a white-eyed rabble. They must have thought Papatuanuku herself had awoken and was about to swallow them up where they stood.

“But their troubles were only just beginning. Up ahead, the walls of the canyon became so steep that the only way forward was by a narrow ledge around a sheer face. As each man carefully picked his way around the rock, there was a thump or a muffled scream and he fell into the rocky stream forty or fifty feet below. Suddenly, moving forward was no longer an option either. They were trapped. Death came at them from every direction.

“One by one, the Ngapuhi were obliterated. By the end of the day, they were all dead. Those who hadn’t been knocked into the river bed were killed when they tried to surrender.”

Te Arepa gave his grandfather a fleeting look.

“It was not our way, but Diego demanded that not a single Ngapuhi should live to speak of it.

“It is said that the Pokaiwhenua ran blood that day all the way to the sea and it was many years before any of our people would take eels from it for fear of utu from the spirit world.

“There were two things left to achieve.

“These were the capture of the Ngapuhi’s two waka taua and the defeat of those waiting at the pa.

“Not a word was spoken on the long walk back to our pa. All the elation of our victory had to be contained and all talk was in sign language. So sure were the Ngapuhi of victory that they had left only two old men and a boy to look after the canoes. When our people came over the last hill and saw their beloved bay with two huge war canoes pulled up high on the sand, they could be contained no longer. They ran screaming down the slope and overwhelmed the three Ngapuhi as they struggled to launch one of the
waka.”

“What happened to them?” asked Te Arepa.

“You know what happened to them.”

“Killed and used for fish bait?”

Ra smiled. “Oh no. Nothing that ordinary.” He slipped back into the past again.

“Their hearts were ripped out. Minutes later the smell of burning flesh and manuka smoke hung low over the beach. The rest of their battered carcases? They would have lined the hangi that night and our bellies later on. It was a sweet victory. It was the story of Diego. It was where the strands of his whakapapa join our own, how his blood came to mingle with ours, in your bodies and in my own.”

Ra sat back now for a long time, resting. The effort of telling this tale had drained him. He seemed for the moment pale and weak. Then in a little while the colour returned to his cheeks, and Te Arepa asked, “What happened to the waka?”

“Diego wanted to burn them on the beach. This was the protocol of his people, but it was not our way. We took them out to the reef, just beyond the place people call Shag Point, made holes in the bottoms, and sank them. I have been told that the prow carvings of one is still there but I don’t believe it. The fierce storms we get here would have smashed it to pieces long ago.”

At this point Ra slowly eased himself out of his chair and moved through to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Te Arepa was not to be fobbed off this easily.

“And Diego? Did anything else happen to him?” Te Arepa could not bear the thought of the story ending.

Ra laughed. “A whole life happened to him. Where do you think my uncles and aunts came from?”

“But did he do any other famous things?”

“My word, yes. He received a moko. Became a famous Pakeha-Maori. A land court judge. Returned to Spain too, as an old man.”

“Why did he do that after everything that had happened to him? After his brothers had betrayed him and his fortune had gone?”

“That was the reason. Some small part of him had to know. Had to be sure that what he thought had happened to him was the truth. It had been the great turning point in his life and after years of land court hearings he had come to know a little about property, treachery and lies. He had to know.”

“So he just sailed off and left your grandmother?”

“She had died some years earlier. He was an old man by then. But there was a restlessness in him that had never gone away. He knew the only way to get rid of it, the only way to find any peace, was to return to Barcelona and confront his brothers. This time he had no desire for their property or wealth: he wanted something else. Something hard to pin down. Justice, maybe.”