The Parihaka Woman

by Ihimaera, Witi

  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.

  4 Hazel Riseborough, ‘A New Kind of Resistance’ in Kelvin Day (ed.), Contested Ground: Te Whenua i Tohea — The Taranaki Wars 1860–1881, Huia, 2010, p. 233.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Prophet’s Teachings

  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.’

&
nbsp; ‘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.