Potiki

by Patricia Grace

  As a young woman she had been robbed and mistreated by those whose floors she had scrubbed. And as a young woman she had seen her children go hungry and cold, because although there had been government payments for others during the bad times after the first war, there had not been such benefits for people of our race. She had watched her children die.

  She had been barred from places where those not of our race had been allowed to go freely, the landscape about her had continually changed, the sounds about her had changed – and now the sacred house, built not long after she was born, had gone in fire.

  I really understood for the first time that to Granny, loss and grief were ordinary and expected. I saw that pain was so ordinary, and sorrow so ordinary, that they were close, so close, to being almost joy – a kind of silent, shouting, gruelling ecstasy, as opposites turn near to each other on the many-stranded circle. She had known for eighty years that kicking the casket does not jolt the dead brother back to life.

  So it was she who led us to do the usual things of making tea, putting the cups out, bringing those who were outside in, pouring the tea from the big teapots, and then gradually to discuss what had happened, telling what we knew to those who had come.

  The remainder of that day was taken up with people coming, and us telling what we knew, telling what we did. The next day we began to talk to each other about what should be done, and then we went to begin the cleaning up. My sister Tangimoana had not yet come to the ordinary things. She was quiet, as yet unable to help with the ordinary things.

  Hoani began our day with karakia to put evil away and rightness before us. ‘We must have rightness with us,’ he said. ‘We must look after our good health, which is a health of spirit and a health of people. The life spirit of each one of us must be cared for – the people looking after the one. And the life spirit of the people must be cared for, the one supporting the whole.

  ‘We must have a clear mind and a right way,’ he said. ‘Because wrongness comes back to the wrongmaker. I believe it. It’s something to remember.’

  My sister who was standing by me did not look up when he spoke the words, but turned and walked away. Before we could begin work we stood about the gutted house to poroporoaki – farewelling all that it had housed, and all that it had meant to all of us.

  We began then to sort through the burnt timbers, but I could not help, could only watch, there was little that I could do. There was nothing that could be saved apart from the partially burnt poupou that my birth mother Mary had pulled from the rubble the day before, and which she had kept by her since.

  We did not remove the debris from the site but instead made a trench and buried it there, so that the new could spring from the old which is the natural way of things. That’s what old Hoani said.

  It was hard work and took all day to complete, and when it was finished everyone went down to the lagoon to wash the fire-black from bodies and clothes. I had not been able to work much, but I joined them in the water which was cool and salt.

  Tangimoana joined us too, even though she had not worked, had not been with us all day, and had not come yet to the ordinary things. But she came down and lay on the sea, which stings the wound but at the same time heals.

  It was while we were in the sea that we saw a vanload of people arrive. The van was followed by a truck with a load on the tray. The two vehicles stopped by the marae entrance, and the people waited there until we could be ready to receive them. We knew that it was Reuben and Hiria, and others from Te Ope.

  We put our towels about us and went to our houses for clean clothes, then went on to our marae ground to call our visitors to us. It was a sad thing to stand in the place where we had so often stood when welcoming our manuhiri, and not to feel our wharenui standing strongly behind us.

  The visitors came to us, standing for a long time at the centre of the marae to tangi with us over those who had died in the past and what had been lost now.

  Then the speeches of welcome began, speeches during which our visitors were told of all that had happened, and what we believed were the reasons for what had happened. We told them what we had done that day so that the new could grow from the old in the natural way of things.

  In their replies they told us that they were there to help and support us as we had helped and supported them in the past. They were there to help rebuild, and to work for as long as we needed them.

  ‘We have brought our tents with us,’ Reuben said. ‘Tents are now a part of our history and part of our lives. They are part of the identity of Te Ope, part of our pride.’

  There had been such silence up until then, a moving from one ordinary thing to another, but now, suddenly, there was singing again, and talking, and noise in the wharekai, and laughter too.

  We helped the visitors to put up the tents which had become part of their identity and pride. The next day a workshop was constructed and planning for the new house began.

  And from then on many people came. Some stayed a day, some a week, others stayed days, or weeks. Each one brought gifts – of food or equipment, or materials. Tradespeople and craftspeople came with their various skills. Money arrived, along with letters of encouragement and support from maraes all round the country. There were people all over the country who understood what those undertaking the investigation did not understand. They understood that the house of the people is a great taonga and a great strength. They understood that the little money that was finally awarded to us could not give back the life and love that go into the making of a place, could not give back the life of trees. They understood, no matter what the reports had said, or left unsaid, that a deliberate act would have been the same as turning one’s hand against oneself.

  There were enough people amongst us who were experienced planners and builders, and construction of the new house was soon underway. However there were new skills to be learned, or skills that were new to us, skills that had not been used in our area since Granny was young. We had never had to collect pingao before, and never had to seek out, and use, the black mud dye. But our Granny Tamihana has a memory for places and a knowledge of what grows and what the uses are of the various plants. Also, our visitors had more recently been involved in the building of a house and could show us what to do.

  Our beach and our little piece of bush did not have the pingao and kiekie that we needed for the tukutuku work – or not, at that stage, in quantity. We had to go on several excursions to collect the materials. Shelters that were airy yet dry had to be erected so that the pingao and kiekie could be hung and allowed to dry there.

  We were all caught up in the excitement of planning, building and decorating the new house, of working out designs and patterns, and watching these grow. Some of the patterns and designs followed the old ones, these being already part of ourselves. They were etched on the memory and were patterns of the stars and the sea, of the fish and birds and plants, and also of learning and relationships, conflict, sorrow and joy. But there were new patterns too, of flooding and fire, roads and machines, oneness and strength, and work and growth.

  We were caught up, both in the excitement, and in the exhaustion of working from daybreak until dark, and then after dark. Because there were still the gardens to work during daylight hours and still the fishing to be done, although I could not, by then, go fishing or work on the land, and was not allowed to exhaust myself the way that others did.

  ‘Build something, and it builds you,’ was what Hoani said, and I thought of a long time ago when the old lady had said to me, ‘You know what I do, I make myself.’ And she had given me the little kit which I have still. ‘It’s myself, to give,’ she’d said. ‘And your big fish, it’s yourself, to give.’

  I could sit comfortably in my chair close to the tukutuku frames, often with my sister Tangimoana on the opposite side, and taking the strips of pingao or kiekie, crosswork the half-round sticks to the backboard. As the strands worked to and fro so did our stories, so did what we had in our hearts and min
ds. We sang to and fro, latticing down and along the strips of black, red, white and gold, which had become the strands of life and self.

  Among those who had come from Te Ope, along with his tools and his skills, was their carver, an old man who had taught what he knew to others of his whanau, as well as to my brother James. Carving was not work that I could do but two of my cousins took it up. Also, young carvers from other areas joined us too, people with a keenness to learn and a willingness to give their time towards helping replace what had been destroyed.

  Gradually the new figures emerged from wood, and these figures were not new in name because ancestry remains, but they were new in appearance. What was brought forward this time, from trees, came forward under different eyes and from under different hands.

  There was hardship greater than we had known it before as we shared what we had with those who had come to our assistance. There was exhaustion as the family went about the daily work in the gardens or kitchen, as they caught the fish and collected the seafood needed for all of the people. And often there was not enough. Then after the day’s work people returned from the gardens and came from the kitchens to Join the builders, carvers, weavers, painters and pattern-makers, who had also been working at their tasks since early morning.

  Our work occupied us so intensely that we could try not to be distracted by the blasting of the hills and the shore rock, and could turn away from the walling and confining and spoiling of the sea. We could easily ignore the further requests that we sell our land, or lease it, or site our new house differently, or centrally, so that the new would not have sprung from the old in the proper way of things.

  Everything we need is here, but for some years we had had little contact with other people as we struggled for our lives and our land. It was good now to know new people and to feel their strength. It was good to have new skills and new ideas, and to listen to all the new stories told by all the people who came. It was good to have others to tell our own stories to, and to have them there sharing our land and our lives. Good had followed what was not good, on the circle of our days.

  22

  Hemi

  The sun would not go down for another hour yet, and even after that there would still be enough light to work by for a while. It was setting further round now, getting down a lot earlier. Each year you noticed it at about this time – suddenly.

  On most days they worked until they could no longer see, but that day Hemi had told them to pack up the gear and take it to the shed. He’d told them to go and have a kai because he felt sorry for them, felt aroha for them. Not just for the ones who had been out with him from early morning, but also for those who had come for the morning, or afternoon, fitting garden work in amongst other tasks. He felt concern for them, especially for the young ones, felt concern that their young lives were being spent bent over the land.

  Like himself. At their age he’d worked like that. Had to. But it seemed he’d chosen it, or been chosen for it. And he’d always been strong, and … different. Perhaps different, he wasn’t sure. Well. He’d never had time to be young, to do things other young people did because there was always work. But on the other hand he’d always seen the gardens as his thing to know about and be good at. He’d liked it all right – the first quick shootings in the spring, and the largeness of summers filled with fat leaves and heavy fruit and creeping bees. Probably because he was a stick-in-the-mud who never looked past his nose.

  But he didn’t want to see these young ones breaking their backs, even though it was for … survival, getting enough food and a bit of money to keep them all. Then again if you looked at the other side of it, at least they could say they’d seen the fruits of their work, and that the fruit they got was their own. Different from working for a boss where you stayed poor anyway, stayed poor and made someone else rich.

  It had been a good season. They’d had good caulis, cabbages big as wheels, beans had come wide, like straps on the plants, and there’d been large crops of potato and kumara. He’d shown them how to make a kumara pit like the old-time ones, and they’d put a good store away. The pumpkin, kamokamo and marrow had flowered early and they’d sent truckload after truckload to market. Lettuces had come quickly to crisp heads, and tomatoes had fattened and reddened on good big stalks. Then there were the rows of carrots and peppers, silverbeet, beetroot and onions. In the water channels the watercress had grown thick and tall. Then everything had slowed down a bit with summer all but gone, and now it was time to prepare the ground for the next lot.

  It had nearly busted them getting things going again after all that water. That was a hard one. But they’d had good help. People always turned up when you needed them most. They’d all wondered what would happen when the next big rain came, but it was okay, it turned out good. The job they’d done on the land had made it safe, and Timoti and Matiu had stayed on at their jobs and were keeping their eyes open. Too busy to feel resentment over it all, but dig deep enough and the resentment would be there jabbing at his liver, or somewhere, if he stopped to think.

  Especially after the next blow, which was a killer. Very hard. You had to somehow get through it. Pull others through too. You had to remember that it’s the people and the land that survive, and you had to watch the old lady carrying on with … life, so you could remember the things you’d always believed in.

  But his daughter had taken it bad, and no one blamed her either because it had shaken them all up. And she could be right, wanting to … get in. As for himself, he just couldn’t find it in himself to be destructive – against people. People were the most important thing in life, he believed. Although she reckoned it wasn’t against people. ‘Against things,’ she’d said, ‘for the sake of people. Doesn’t mean I want to kill anyone … yet. And we don’t have to expect do we? We don’t have to wait for it, think we deserve it, think it’s our lot, or think it won’t happen again. It doesn’t stop. I mean it’s all happened before, hasn’t it? It’s the same things. The same, all the time. Don’t you see?’

  Well she shook you up all right. Dearest daughter. There were some who would say she was becoming lost to them. Would say that the ways she had learned away from there were not good ways, not their own ways. They’d say she was doing the same things as those she spoke against. But he knew his daughter was no different from what she’d always been. It was curiosity that always moved her, then after that it was love, a love that was a kind of anger.

  And it was love and anger, as well as sorrow, that pulled at him, would turn him, if he let it.

  Because he who had been happy to live a life with people and just be part of them, who had found all he wanted in a time and place, and who had never doubted, now felt … a shifting, that he did not want to acknowledge. He did not want anger, or sorrow to turn him … against people. It wasn’t his way. In his whole life he had never kept anger in him, against people. Now … it was hard. Now, it was the soil that saved him, the need to feed the whanau. And there it was again. People. People needing people. Tangimoana wouldn’t agree with driving feelings into the soil, digging over the loss and hurt, just struggling day to day. ‘The minute you’re born,’ she’d said to him, ‘your nose is in the ground. But I’ll die, no sweat, if I can do it saying I’m me, and knowing that someone believes it. I’ll die without a kick if I can have a feather in my hair.’

  A feather. Well he wasn’t sure. It sounded wrong. He’d tried to say things to her, to help with … anger. Tried to dig her anger in, alongside his own. But no, Tangi had just shifted … from loud to quiet, that’s all. Then after a while she’d gone, and so far hadn’t contacted them. Pena had gone to get her but she’d sent him away.

  It was almost dark. He stopped work and began to collect the vegetables that would be needed for the next day. He worked slowly, cutting the cabbages, pulling the carrots and onions and putting them into the barrow. There he was, alone with his thoughts and dilemmas, two generations removed from the old lady on the one hand, another generation remo
ved from his kids on the other, and it was like being on a swing.

  Something to talk to Reuben about perhaps. Reuben had had his go when he was a kid sitting on the land, and he’d waited a long time before any of the older ones had gone there and supported him. They could be letting Tangimoana down trying to keep her from hurt, trying to lessen her feelings and her anger, but it just wasn’t in him to match fire with fire.

  And back to his first thoughts. Could the young ones stick it out on the land, the ones there now, because some had gone already. Come, gone. When the jobs had got tight they’d come home, a lot of them. Tried to stick with it, but they were too … broken, to make a go of it. Had already had the stuffing taken out of them, and couldn’t last out. Made him feel bad too, as though he’d let them go, made them go, expected too much. And now these ones, the stayers, he felt … sad, about their young lives. He felt aroha for them. Didn’t know if he should expect them to work the way he’d worked at that age, day after day, month after month, and probably year after year.

  He could be, in the end, driving their own young ones away. The kids too, the little ones. They had to do more in a day than he liked to see them do. Out there bending their backs for whole days at a time in some seasons, but how would they manage without? Didn’t know what they’d have done without their kids sometimes, or without the help that had come. And there you are, it all came back to people. Full circle, that was something he could believe in.

  Then again there was something else niggling at him that Tangimoana had said. ‘People?’ she’d said. ‘Yes, but some people aren’t people. They’ve forgotten how.’

  Well the real ones, then. People had come and people had sent letters and koha. They’d all pulled together and the house was being rebuilt because of that. You had to reach out for the branch you knew would hold you when you were drowning.