Once Were Warriors

by Alan Duff

  Now he speaks of an ancestor who was a great poet as well a great warrior … of the great poems he composed for his loved ones lost in a great storm whilst at sea, fishing. Now, Beth, it is a master carver he speaks of. Ah, and this time — Matawai chuckling — it is of a great lover ancestor who had many many wives.

  And as he spoke, so too did Beth pick up that his voice was rising. Nothing loud, emotional; just a gradual increase in intensity. (I know: it is confidence his voice rings with.) Then out from the row of seated men he came.

  One minute an ebb and flow of tidal verbal force, next a rapid-fire ejection of emotionally choked formalised fury. Then he’d shuffle forward several steps in dancing warrior fashion. Bring to a halt. (Alright, so he’s interesting, Beth conceding.) An arm sweeping theatrically before him. His movements dance-like: a hand slicing the air; a hand fluttering like a butterfly in motion; a hand shaped like a bird beak; both hands quivering rapidly and rolling back and forth across his suited chest. And so dignified.

  He’d come to abrupt halts of voice or posture: eyes fixed intently on some unknown point, perhaps a place in the mystical universe of his mind, or it might be a mentioned enemy from the historical past, perhaps a sight of visual wonder, or a recalled historical incident requiring fixed attention; his head might cock to one side like an alert bird, which’d suddenly launch into symbolic flight with an outspread of dark pinstriped arms, and a flash of gold cufflink. Yet he didn’t seem to belong to this century, nor of the culture whose attire he’d assumed.

  Talking, rapid-fire then cut — shock-still. No voice. Not even a breath from him. Completely motionless. Only the breathing of the people in awe of him. Then on he’d go, in that lilting rhythmic speech, the Maori tongue, with its every word ending a vowel, aiding the flow; a hand on a hip affecting a casual pose which’d dramatically switch to a fighting posture of legs apart, hands at the ready, jaw thrust beligerently forward. Then he could just as easily turn, walk away, muttering. Plainly this was the stage he’d been reared for.

  From out of nowhere a handclub. A mere. White. Whalebone. A reincarnation of murderous days gone by. (Who says they’re gone?) Te Tupaea using the weapon with delicate skill, subtlety. A swishing, slicing, thrusting, (throat) cutting aid to the speaking voice. And Auntie Matawai resuming her translation for her niece’s benefit …

  He is speaking of life … how precious it is, how sad to see the young tree cut down before its prime. His weapon quivered out in front of him, went behind his back, still quivering, he still talking — speeching; the mere returned to his front; it twirled, it thrust out and danced threateningly for a while, came quiveringly back. And he came back with it: dancing on back-heeling highly polished feet. He stopped. The weapon froze. He resumed moving. The weapon resumed its threatening. Whatever he commanded, his weapon and his body did.

  Now Beth no longer trying to kid herself with token looks of disinterest elsewhere; eyes only for the man in the pinstripe suit and the dark skin and the gold cufflinks and the gold pocketwatch that danced and jumped whenever he did, yet stayed secured by flashing gold chain.

  Now his words alight with passion and flying spittle. Drops flew from his teeth-bared mouth, flashed briefly and frequently in the naked bulb light. And the whalebone flashed white as it arced this way and that through the air; you could feel the wind of it, imagine the finality of it bringing your life to an end.

  It went up over his head, tipped blade downwards, shook rapidly in quivering hand; his tongue stabbed and emerged a purple and red swelling of meat, wet glistening meat thrusting out of a salivating sheath. He came stomping forward … two … three … four … five big steps he took toward the coffin — came to a halt.

  He went up on one set of toes, the other leg bent behind him, weapon held high above his head, a stream of utterances coming from him — suddenly he faced the other, in a deft movement of swivel on the back heel. Down on the front knee, weapon quivering, always quivering, its threat. And face a picture of absolute warriorhood. Had applause been permissible he’d’ve brought the house down.

  Up on his feet he did a slow turn back towards the coffin. He began speeching. Matawai followed in whispered translation … an ancestor whose child was accidentally drowned … blamed his wife, was going to kill her for her neglect … the tribe with him … wanting to kill her. But not so the great chief … he told them no, they must wait … discuss it first, your anger, and let the fire die down before you start talking of shedding your clothing. They did talk. For many days they talked. They decided it was all their fault … since the child belonged to the whanau, them as a whole, it was all their responsibility. So the chief asking them: Now tell me who dies?

  Then the chief in the suit ended his speech. Left a mother a little less of her grieving, a little more of her respect for a people she did not really know. Then Te Tupaea began a waiata tangi: lament for the dead.

  The elders rose as one, came forward to join their chief. Their great chief (who’d inherited his title). Then several women (they knew who they were; who was permitted, who wasn’t) also stood from their floor-seated positions and joined their men. And their chief. He who had greatness expected of him. He who thus delivered.

  The air resonated, thrummed with the song of thirty and more voices: … As I slept I was walking in the underworld with plumes in my hair. The tokens, ee, of my gannet feather that I allowed to leave me. My heart string is quite cold — she is taken from me!

  Aee, Beth, my niece. I cannot keep up with it; my heart it fills too quickly with, you know, emotion.

  Beth nodding across the face, the perfectly still face of her child, at her aunt: It’s alright, Auntie. It’s alright. (I feel so much more at peace now.)

  Verse after verse. Legend after legendary ancestor they did recall on the roll, the incantation of chanting cry … Raangaitia atu to noho (Arise from your rest …) Kia whakamau koe ki nga whetu o te rangi (And take your place amongst the stars of the sky …) (Oh yes, look! The stars, girl. The Milky Way.) (Hey, bro? See them stars up there? Well, our ancestors, boy, they came to this land by the lights of them stars.)

  Now they were sending one of their number back via the same stars.

  The women gave it higher-noted poignancy, more emphasis on the emotional inflexions; though their men had a distinct tonal sadness their own in the way they sucked in breath and quickly resumed the waiata tangi, as though afraid of not contributing, or as if the emotion got checked partway through.

  Ah, would ya look atem: raptures. They’re in raptures. Half ofem with their eyes closed. In joy, pure joy at being Maori. Oh aren’t (they) we a together race when (they) we’re like this? History, thas what they are. They are history and therefore so are we, and who needs anything else when you got the strength of history supporting ya? I mean to say.

  On and on and on, a reincarnation of what was, a resurgence of fierce pride, a come-again of a people who once were warriors.

  Then it ended. What was the last line, Auntie Matawai? Why you ask for that line? I dunno. But tell me what it was. Well, it was … it — well, first they asked what does it really matter this lament, and then they said because our Grace’d never return.

  The cultural journey was not finished: all hell broke loose as the thirty and more men and women launched into a haka, or peruperu, as it was properly known and informed by Matawai to her niece.

  A roar from the chief began it: Aa, toi-a mai! And thirty voices answered: TE WAKA! they were crying to their chief, urging, haul up! The vessel on which their ancestors had once sped to war; the blood still running strong with those ferocious genes.

  Thirty and more right legs rising as one then down they came to the floor, shuddering the very building. Uuup again, down in a one-note thud of shoed and stockinged and bare feet on bare floorboard. Arms going out, feet coming down, arms coming in, legs raising. On and on this beat. Hands ringing slappingly on elbows, on chests and unflinching breasts, on thighs, in great muscle flexing movements of self
-induced fury. Words exploded forth: KAMATE! KAMATE! each line, every encrazed utterance a spit-laced outpouring of WAR! WAR! WAR! And inwritten with this (atavistic) beat, this terrible animal rhythm of yet the highest order. Man, it was a beautiful, crazy war-dance; like a mad fuckin ballet, man; like they were risen from a swamp. (A primeval swamp.)

  And the sweat dripped — it flew — from them, men and equally encrazed women. And still their fury unleashed itself: RISE UP! RISE UP AND FIGHT! AND FIGHT!! Arms thrusting in striking unison. Thirty and more sets of hands slapping on unfeeling bare skin. Thirty and more tongues spewed forth in maddened defiance of this imagined enemy. Gone they were. Quite gone of this century and much of the last. Oh man. And a woman feeling, you know, her heart just racing, and proud. (I feel warrior too.) Inspired. (I feel as my ancestors must’ve felt.) Skin alive with power, stomach on fire with jolts of electric excitement. At the sight. This sight of what (she) they all must have been. Her mind no longer able to think — not in words. Filled that she was with this, this sense of … STRENGTH. (Strong. I am made strong again.)

  (And why, perhaps, the boy Nig — Nig Heke, eldest son of Jake the Muss — was right then asurge with the flexing of his own muscles as he prepared to do fistic combat with another. Just another prospect Brown Fist hopeful being pitted against his own kind to do battle until one was no longer able to lift a fist in defence, and even then it might continue, if leader Jimmy Bad Horse said, Carry on, kick the muthafucka’s head in.)

  As his blood relations, his kaumatua, his kuia, were joined as one in dance of war; and their spit flew (as the boy smacked a left into the other dude’s face) and the sinews on their necks stuck out like picket fences (a right, another left) and tongues jabbed from maddened wet lips (and blood belched from the other prospect’s nose) and the war encrazed people roared words of urging, verses of inducement (and the Browns with membership roared with delight) this formal expression of war (a rumble) expressing itself (doin it, man, doin it!). Then it was over. (Ovah. Man, that dint take long. This Nig, man, he c’n motor.)

  And The People sat stunned. Stunned beyond all comprehension. You know, knowing they’d witnessed the profound, and knowing it was, you know, it was somehow emselves they’d witnessed. Emselves but with a different force behind em. History? Man, sumpthin like that, I juss dunno.

  Two hundred and more chests heaving with getting breaths back. And when, eventually, they had, you coulda heard a pin drop, eh. And just the wind, moaning up there like a distant dog howling. Up in the ceiling, eh, the rafters, or up there somewhere. Kinda spooky too, eh? Like your ancestors’d sent a sign, eh? A sign to you, those of you who don’t know your own culture, you better get your black arses into gear do sumpthin about it. Before it’s too late.

  And Grace’s face there the picture of death. Death absolutely not moving. Whilst life — Life, man — it was seething the opposite in the two hundred and more inspired living around her.

  And the rain then: running all over the roof like ten thousand mice goin pitterpatter faster’n you could say. All day they’d been going like that.

  Wasn’t a person in the bar hadn’t gone ovah to Jake Heke, expressed sympathy, deep condolences, the loss of his daughter.

  They’d shook his hand: Man, dunno what to say, eh. I’m sorry to hear the news, Jake. You know how they are these bar people, awkward till they’re fulla piss. Some were pissed, so they’d come to him bawling, weepin, carryin on (ya’d think it was me who fuckin died) makin fools of emselves and him, because he was never at ease in anything but a scrap, a good rumble, or the promise of it.

  They’d embraced him, kissed him, slobbered all ovah a man; said stupid things (inept), stood before him like a kid before the headmaster or sumpthin, shufflin about and not knowin what to say (don’t care what ya say, just wish you’d fuck off, leave a man in peace, to have his beer in peace, keep to his own circle.) Though the real genuine ones made a man feel really bad like he could just bawl his eyes out — cept he couldn’t. Not Jake, the Muss, Heke. So any wonder a man just wanted to get drunk.

  All the day they made the beeline for his table where he always drank at. Always. Trekkin over to a man to pay their respects (man, funeral’s juss up the fuckin road. Why can’t they go there and pay their respects to her. She’s the one dead. I ain’t.) Jake only too aware that they were honouring him first; him, the fighter, before it was the father of the suicide girl. Yeah, leavin their cards of sympathy with a man, it’s not really her, Grace (poor Grace, Jesus Christ, but why?), they’ve never even met her, most ofem.

  And he had his understandings, Jake, that this was another event in their lives, just another thing they could fix emselves to till they’d sucked it dry, then it’d be on to the next thing. He saw it brought em all closer together, as if by sharing each other’s miseries, tragedies, it sorta made their own less. Sumpthin like that; Jake didn’t exactly string his perceptions together in one long, reasonably articulated sentence. Just that he did recognise when grief was drama, and what drama was for.

  Only one’d made Jake really cry was Mavis when she’d only found out the news when she came in: the look she’d given Jake, of — (I dunno, a sympathy that was sorta pure.) Then she burst into tears. And even Jake’d started then. Holding each other. Man. She got a taxi went straight to the funeral at Beth’s home village. A man hadn’t seen her since.

  That first day, man. Heavy stuff. Cops knockin on the door, a man wondering what the fuck he’d done he didn’t remember when he was drunk, then the cops askin him did he have a daughter about thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, around that age? Jake findin out they’d gone door to door all over Pine Block tryin to find out who the kid was found hanging from a tree over at, all places, the Trambert place. Deepening the mystery to Jake. The confusion makin it worse. Beth still half drunk from the night before when everyone’d ate her picnic up and she’d got real upset at that, yet she was the one brought the damn thing in, having to get her out of bed (after checking Grace’s bed and the fright a man’d got to see her bed hadn’t been slept in) and tellin Beth what the cops wanted. Both of em going down town in the cop car (and people in Pine Block pointing at us like we’d been picked up for sumpthin) to the morgue. And … Well, it was Grace alright.

  Bringing her body back to the house in a borrowed van from a mate, and forgettin they had the rental car, and Beth (and me too) confused about it, not knowing what to do. Gettin Dooly from up the road to take it back. So confused you know. Takin the body, the coffin into the sitting room that the kids’d cleaned up from the party Jake and the boys and a few sheilas’d had after the pub (and a girl out there while we were, you know — oh Jesus, it don’t bear thinkin about — while we were havin a good time a man’s own kid was killin herself) and the neighbours arriving with flowers, which made it a bit better but not much, a man still felt as stink as he’d felt in his whole fuckin (rotten) life, but what to do but stand there as people from all ovah Pine Block came in and out, shakin a man’s hand, huggin im, havin a cry, stayin or not stayin long. Man. Man oh fuckin man.

  Then this old Maori dude comin and shakin Jake’s hand then goin over to Beth and havin a long talk with her, then goin out but back in a tick with these other fullas, not a one of whom Jake recognised; all ofem shakin his hand, tellin him they were related to Beth from her pa, Wainui, and that they were taking Grace for a proper funeral, a dignified one. Didn’t even ask a man was it alright. Not that he minded. In fact, it was a good excuse to get outta the place, go somewhere different so he wouldn’t be so reminded of himself, what he’d been doing whilst his kid was taking her own life.

  But all that culture, man, had a man feeling so outta place it was worse’n home, Rimu Street. So he hadn’t stayed long. Told Beth he was goin for a walk. That was two nights ago. (Yeah, yeah, know it’s wrong. I do.) Jake dialoguing with himself. (But I don’t like that culture shet. I mean, what’d it ever do for me? Same sorta people tole a man and his family when he was growin up they were just a bunch
a slaves. So fuckem.) So he’d filled in the time drinking. And sleeping the nights at Dool’s. Good ole Dool. What would a man do without his mates?

  Drinking with Dool, asking him, Dool, have I been a bad father? Nah, man. I don’t think so. But Dool’s tone not sounding right. Well you know. I ain’t sayin I been the father of the year, not sayin that. But … And lookin at Dool. And saying, You tell me what father in Pine Block is a, you know, like a — like a proper father. You tell me that, Dool.

  Know what ya mean, Jake. Know what ya mean. Not that any of us is great at this fatherin thing, eh bro? Both ofem chuckling at that, just a little uneasily too. But ya don’t see any other Pine Block kids goin and killin emselves, do ya? Nah, man, ya don’t. So why you think she did it? (Because honest, man, I’m so confused.) Man, I dunno. Dool liftin up his hands, Leave me on that one, Jake. It’s too heavy, man. Sorry, but it freaks me out, eh.

  So Jake having to drop the matter, leave a man in the dark without a fuckin light.

  Wakin up, Where am I? I’m at Dool’s. That’s alright then. Was having a bad dream … these dudes all kicking and punching me and I couldn’t hurt em with my punches back, like my fists were feathers. Sumpthin else too — oh shit. Grace. They’re buryin her today. Gotta get up, get myself cleaned up. Man oh fuckin man, she’s dead … one of my kids is … dead.

  Happy. I’m happy as can be expected in the circumstances, Beth looking at the big man in the suit and especially the one beside him (Oh, hasn’t he got tall in just those few months!), wanting to beam her pride, her love for him, but I can’t. Not here. But when he ghosted a smile of acknowledgment her way Beth nearly fainted with happiness (and guilt being lifted too). It hardly mattered, even, the reason he was here. (It don’t matter; he’s my son. I’m the one who borned him. I’m the one who owes him.) Mum, it’s Boogie! Mum, he looks … different. And shush! to young Huata and Polly from their Great-Aunt Matawai, Don’t you know where you are? (No, they don’t, as it happens.)