I thought Mick might return when she died, at least to pay his respects, but he didn’t.
It was after Polly died that I decided to sell the house. Michael and Kate were eighteen by then, both in their second year at university but not wanting to continue there. They are alike to look at, both tall with dark hair and dark eyes, but with a paleness of skin that always reminds me of Kui Hinemate. They are different in what they want from life. Kate has always wanted to travel, Michael to go back home and become a proficient speaker of our language. So they have gone their own ways. I receive letters from Kate from different parts of the world, and letters from home from Michael. He is living with Missy until I arrive, and is spending as much time as possible with the elders. Also he is working very hard at a hydroponics project that he and Manny have set up there. It’s an effort to make employment, to help us be in charge of ourselves and what we do, because it is an age of unemployment, and in this, our people, as always, are the ones hit hardest.
At first I did not intend leaving the city, despite messages from Missy that I was needed at home. I only wanted to sell the house and buy a smaller place. People are on the move these days and it is easier to keep a finger on the pulse living here. There are meetings all over the country as Maori people attempt to take their lives into their own hands, shape their own destinies. Brave people are demanding of government departments and through the media that our culture and language have recognition in the various institutions, even though it is an injustice, an absurdity, for a language and culture to be pleading its worth in the place that is its home.
There is work in the city that is important — information that needs disseminating to help people understand their history and their lives, help them to know that the position of powerlessness they find themselves in is not through any fault of theirs, because they, and those before them, have fought bravely throughout many years. They need to know that. They need to know that our truth does not appear on pages of books unless it is there between the lines. Our truths need to be revealed. But on the faces the truth is written, on the scarred and broken faces, in the sick, disabled bodies, in the dreamless, frightened eyes.
People need to know that there has been a massive robbery. There’s been treachery, and they, the victims, are receiving the punishment day by day. Loser pays. If they have not fought bravely, or at all, it is because theft has been complete and includes theft of will to fight, theft of will to survive.
Survival, for those who could still will it, has been a groping in the dark. It has meant a dulling of memory, of the senses, of thought, of emotion, a loss of identity, as people sat at conveyer belts labelling tins, at machines fitting pockets into trousers, as they shovelled coal, rolled roads, cleaned sewers, washed floors, wet-mopped plazas, buffed corridors, carried wood and water, day after day and year after year until there was little left of themselves, little left for the children. Yet it was all meant to be for the children.
Or there was only anger or sorrow left, which became drunkenness or insanity. The lullabies were lost because lullabies take a long time to sing and there has been no time.
There is work to be done because people need to know of the tactics that were used to destroy the economic base of the people, of the weight of legislation by which land and resources passed from their control. They need to know what the yardstick is that they have been measured by in schools and workplaces, which found them always wanting. They need to know there is a health system that endangers them, sometimes puts them in risk of their lives, an education system that withholds knowledge, blunts understanding, erodes self-esteem and confidence. They need to know that people have fought bravely in the past and that they can fight bravely too.
Also it is time to revive the song, written by one of our most-loved composers, that tells us to beware of government welfare, which will control and enslave us and which will quiet our voices.
Yet it is difficult. What is there to live on now, for many, if it is not welfare? How do people become self-reliant when the wherewithal to do it has been robbed from them piece by piece. Should people struggle on and on blindly, each generation emptying itself out more and more, sacrificing their children? Because it is not as though there is nothing owed — yet it is more than money that is owed. I was brought up by my old people to be a keeper of the culture and a holder of the land. I could look upon that as a privilege. On the other hand, I could look upon it not as a privilege but a right — a right that others, through circumstances, have been denied.
My work around the city, around the country, is not always with Maori people. It is concerned with explaining to others, teaching, negotiating — though I’ve come to see now that my energies must go to my own. There is no time for everything. I love the work that I do, but I am tired.
The Treaty of Waitangi is a covenant that must reside as the base on which our society builds if there is to be a just society. I heard about the Treaty as a child, and knew it to be a treasured thing in the minds of those who spoke of it, an agreement on which the people, in spite of treachery, still based their hopes. Now the Treaty, and all the issues surrounding it, is being discussed in Parliament, in government departments, in schools, but when you look at what the discussions lead to, you find no significant shift, no real change. You find instead deceit and procrastination as the different authorities pay lip-service while awaiting a change in emphasis, a change in government perhaps, a declining of the curve.
Yet some Pakeha people, those with pride, are genuinely seeking. These few are coming to understand that what they can do in the interest of justice is to know themselves, to understand their own true history, which also does not appear truthfully on pages of books, to understand the promises made on their behalf, to break their own silences, to search out the true meaning of racism and injustice, for which they are responsible only if they are inert. The seekers, the honest seekers, those taking measures, working out what can be done, are proud people who act from a base of self-worth, humility and dignity. They do not feel threatened, but challenged. They know they need not feel ashamed or guilty, because they are claiming their own, true heritage and their lives are honourable.
I’m tired. It’s burn-out time, time to go home. Perhaps I will be able to rest there for a while, but perhaps not. Our home marae have become focal points again as people attempt to return to self-sufficiency and to regain self-assurance and self-love. There is a lot of work yet to be done. Missy has told me that it’s not enough to send Michael up there with hydroponics, that I must come myself. There is knowledge I have been given that I must share in order to help people to be whole and strong.
I’m pleased to have Mata here. It means I don’t have to send for Michael to come and help me, or to bother Heni and the others who have their own work to do.
Mata packs the household things lovingly, almost as though she knows about love. She’s neat and careful and systematic in her wrapping and packing, says that wrapping and packing were the first jobs she had in the place where she has worked since she first left school. While she packs I sort and arrange my papers, see my lawyer and the land agent. Apart from that there are the many phone calls, the letters that come every day with requests for me to attend meetings, seminars, conferences. But I know I must rest for a while.
We’re gradually getting everything packed away into three different lots — one lot to go to family at the parrot house, one lot to the cat house, and one lot to be stored until my new house is ready.
Now there is Mata to consider. I want her to come home with me to her land. Aunty Gloria has said that I must persuade her, mustn’t take no for an answer. But all that she has agreed to so far is to assist me home. I cannot get her to agree to stay. She wants nothing, she says, which is what she has always had. I keep waiting for a change in her, waiting for something to happen. I don’t want her to walk away from here to walk forever. Gifts are meant to be given, and one day returned. It must be her turn, again, to hold the coloured
marble.
MISSY
Forty-two
I was sixteen when I stood in the house, a year and a half out of school and three years from barefoot. If there was a little voice that spoke to stop me, I didn’t hear. If the nudger nudged I was unaware. The girl in me was star-struck and in love with love.
Even so, when I think back to that time, I know it wasn’t the romantic heart that stood me, although it was the romantic heart that, as always, took over. If I pare away at the whole mixture of emotions of that brief time from when Makareta showed us the letter to when I stood in the house, I know that the first movement — a silent drawing-back of a bare foot in the silent house — was made in defence of Mama.
The people in the house that day waiting for the visitors, but first of all waiting for Makareta, were mainly old people. Most are dead now, but thirty years later the story is still told and the events of the day are still talked about.
The dress that Makareta gave me was full-skirted, made of yellow taffeta, and had a goldish look because of an over-layer of off-white nylon. It had been raining but the sun was beginning to shine and I stood into it as it splintered through coloured glass onto the bleached flax matting.
Well, whatever the mixture of colour and light, it is said that my aura was golden — words used as if it is a miracle being told. They say that as they watched I grew taller, that my girl’s body became the body of a woman, that as I waited the korowai came and placed itself around my shoulders, and that after a long time of standing while visitors waited at the gate, I sang an ancient peace song in the old language. One of the kuia saw a moko on my chin carved in the same pattern as the one the ancestress wore. I know that the old ones see the ancestors in different ways and in different places, and that they often see them in the young. This house is a place where the tipuna are seen by the ones who have the gift of seeing.
The woman in me knew that I could be the one, knew I could be who the people wanted me to be. If they sang for me, I belonged to them. If they sat me down, I was free to go to the world and the stars.
But I wanted them to claim me. I had no doubts at that moment. I was calm and unafraid as I was taken out onto the verandah, as I watched the feet coming through straw and as I sat through the afternoon waiting to see who it was, above the knees, being brought to me.
After that day Hamuera and I saw each other only twice before we were married. It wasn’t that the families wanted to keep us apart, just that the time went so quickly and there was so much to do.
About a month after our engagement I was taken up to meet his great-grandfather, who hadn’t been well enough to travel at the time they brought Hamu down. Before that I’d never been further than our little town, so it was a weekend of excitement for me, of trying to look right and be right, and of receiving all the advice in the world. It was a time of being with the old ones and all the sitting, waiting and listening that that involves. While Hamu and I sat holding hands, the old ones talked and laughed around us, commenting on how we looked together, teasing us one moment and in the next moment referring to us as the taonga, the treasures of the people.
At the time I waited patiently but listened with only half an ear to the old people, being aware all the time of Hamu beside me, thinking about what we might say to each other if we had a chance to be alone. Now, at this time of my life, I would give anything to listen to the stories that we were told that weekend about all the different taumau marriages that had taken place, or to remember the people who told them, but I was in love, full of love, sure I knew what it meant.
The only other time that Hamu and I saw each other was when the koroua died and we all went to his tangihanga. We were the dreamed-of couple bringing the families together at last. Eyes, all the eyes were on us, knowing everything.
It was when Hamuera first wrote to me that I began to doubt. He’s a quiet man but his letters were talkative and clever — so schooled, so spelled, so neat, I thought. They reminded me of Makareta’s beautiful schoolbooks and I began worrying that I hadn’t been to school very much, remembered that I was from the ‘C class’ and that it was really Makareta who had been brought up to be the one to marry Hamuera, not me. Makareta was beautiful too — so dark and smooth-skinned, so gentle and meant.
I believed in love, the song kind of love, the movie kind, where two people are meant for each other. There you are, the woman. Somewhere in the world there is a man who is meant for you. You will meet and fall in love because of fate. It is destiny that unites true love. I began to doubt that I could be the one when it was Makareta who was meant.
And I began to have dreams in which I saw myself as Makareta. I had her dark face, her round, black eyes and thick black hair, which covered my back like a blanket. But in the dream I was both Makareta, whom I could see, as well as myself, unseen. The me that I couldn’t see was in love with the me that was Makareta. I could hear the unseen self saying, ‘Makareta, I want you to come home.’
In another dream I stood naked, knowing that somewhere there were clothes for me. I looked everywhere for them but found only newspapers or torn blankets, which I wrapped about myself. Keita, in the dream, said, ‘No, no, you haven’t found them. Go back and look for your clothes.’ So I peeled the paper and cloth away, which had become like a layer of skin and saw that my legs were bleeding. They were full of holes out of which my blood was emptying. Mama was there saying, ‘I didn’t mean it, Missy. Missy, Missy, I’ll wind you.’ And she sat on the red ground and began tearing strips from her skirt, bandaging my legs and saying, ‘When you take them away all the scars will be gone.’ I would wake and think of leaving.
At first it was the letters that caused the doubts. Then it was seeing the houses go up that made me look into my heart.
After the visitors had gone Keita arranged for houses to be built on the adjacent land. It was land shared by the two families and now that the two were to be united it could be used.
It was tough land, swampy at the road’s edge, then rising to scrub and manuka. Further back were sharp, tree-covered hills and heavy bracken where wild pigs and deer had done their damage.
Keita was used to hardening her heart. Her love for Makareta, her pride in the upbringing that they’d given to their special daughter, were still strong, but because of what my cousin had done Keita put love and pride aside and hardened herself. It was easy for her to do, like knotting sixpence into the corner of a handkerchief and tucking it up a sleeve.
Keita was only a small woman but she knew how to be big. Hamuera’s family was giving a son, someone strong and good-looking, someone who had been away to school. His family had promised cows and a tractor as wedding gifts, and Keita had no doubt in her mind that our own family was being honoured by them.
Also she knew it was time to forgive. Not that our mother and father were deserving, not that they hadn’t done wrong as far as Keita was concerned, but she’d been let down by Makareta, who had been given everything. I was looked upon as the one who had saved us all from shame.
So even though I wasn’t the one who had been brought up to be the link between the families, Keita knew that the family had been pleased with me. I felt it too. She knew that Hamuera’s elders had realised I wasn’t the intended one, and knew that they would have found out that I hadn’t had much schooling and hadn’t been brought up by the old people. They would have made their own enquiries, an old cousin talking to an old cousin behind an old hand. There’d been a lot of whispering. But because they’d said nothing, hadn’t accused Keita, hadn’t taken Hamuera and gone home, my grandmother knew they had accepted me as their new daughter.
I wasn’t beautiful like Makareta. I was skinny and toothy and scarry-legged with multicoloured hair, but they saw me differently. Tall like the tipuna, with eyes like Ava Gardner, they said — ancestress and actress! And I was poked and prodded and peered at. Even so, the hardest-slitted eyes on me, then and after that, were Keita’s.
I’d saved us from shame but still Keita k
new the Te Waru family had something up their sleeves if anything went wrong — something to accuse us of. She could leave nothing undone to make sure that Hamuera’s family continued to feel that the arrangement honoured them.
Our mother needed a good house. It wouldn’t do for Hamuera’s family to see where their new daughter had been allowed to live. So there would be a new house for Mama and one for Hamuera and me. There would be room for my brothers and sisters to have houses too, as long as there was enough work nearby for them to be able to keep on living here, because even with the new land being opened up there still would not be enough for them all to make a living from it.
Keita went to town and arranged the loans, then let it be known to everyone that there was land to be cleared, a swamp to be drained, sites to be levelled and fencing to be done.
From then on the main talking point was the wedding that was to take place, the houses that were to be built, the land that was to be brought in.
We had work.
Before the end of winter everything had been planned. Gardens were extended so that extra corn, potatoes, kumara, pumpkin and cabbage could be planted. Grass seed was sown in the spring after the frosts had gone. Those who were home during the week spent what time they could cutting the scrub on the new land and taking it to stack in the paddock where the cooking fires would be, and where the marquee would be set up for the wedding. They cut posts and trimmed battens for new fences. We cleared bracken and dug out thistles.
In the weekends everyone went on to the land, taking rolls of wire, nails and staples to do the fencing, or they set about the task of removing stumps from the ground. And when the first roughness had been worked out, one of my uncles came with a tractor and discs to break the ground ready for sowing.
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