Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Plume of the Arawas

IV. The Rock Shelter

page 220

IV. The Rock Shelter

How can I stop or deaden now
The love which comes with power untold
And dares my strength to strangle it?

For the Ngatihotu maiden the first night at the rock shelter was one of anxiety and bitter sorrow.

As the night wore on, the condition of the wounded man grew steadily worse, and, try as she would, the maiden could do nothing to allay the fever mounting in his blood. Yet her presence seemed to soothe him, and for a time his periods of delirium were mild and brief.

More than once he muttered the words “Taupo- Te Arawa,” but each time his lips closed tightly again as if some hidden power barred further speech. Several times he spoke softly, affectionately, of the maidens Marama and Rerémoa, repeating their names together, and even asking them to be friendly with each other for his sake. Then his thoughts wandered, and he smiled as he spoke of some incidents of his youth.

Presently, however, the intervals of rest became more brief and the periods of delirium more violent.

Time after time he shouted commands to the warriors in some shadowy canoe, and the note of authority in his voice filled the mind of Rerémoa with a vague dread.

Towards midnight, with the fever rising to its height, an invisible barrier gave way, and in a moment Tuwharétoa was disclosing his inmost thoughts about Taupo:

page 221

“Ha! The unworthy, the unworthy Ngatihotu! They shall be destroyed-or driven out. They lack in spirit. Unworthy of the Lake-not strong enough to hold it! They shall be destroyed-or driven out. Yes! Taupo shall be for Te Arawa!”

The suddenness of his outburst came to Rerémoa as a mental shock, but it was the utter finality of his tone that horrified her. She seemed to feel that he spoke of something which his spirit knew would come to pass. She sought to calm him, but to no avail. He went on:

“The canoes of Ngatihotu were small canoes, waka-moki, bulrush canoes, unworthy of notice. How could they expect to stop Te Arawa? They were destroyed-or swept aside. Bulrush canoes! Ha!”

Bitter thoughts assailed the mind of the Ngatihotu maiden. To hear her tribe condemned, its power scorned, by the man she loved! All the passionate feeling of a chieftainess for land and tribe rose in revolt as she listened, but the voice of the Arawa proceeded as if he were discussing the matter with some friend:

“ How long will burn the fires of Ngatihotu ere they be extinguished for ever? How long? Not long!” He broke into a chant:

“Taupo will soon be sounded high in fame
And spoken of as home where warriors live.”

Then his voice softened again: “But what of the maiden Rerémoa? Ah! Now am I caught in a snare. My heart is hers. She is for me, yet I must not nurse my love! No, not even for her sake will her tribe be spared. Kua ringa mau, é! Alas! My hands are bound. I am betrothed-to Taupo.”

The unhappy maiden could but call to him and try page 222 to soothe him with her voice and name. He only tossed and moaned the more as the raging fever pursued its course. It was with difficulty that she kept him to his couch of fern.

Then suddenly, unmercifully, the blow fell. In a warning voice the stricken man cried out:

“Tell it not to Rerémoa! She must not know! To her let me still be Manaia! But alas, my father was right, for Manaia the youth is dead, and in his place stands the man Tuwharétoa, Ariki of Te Arawa. Ha! Tuwharétoa, the Slayer of Tuhoe, the Terror of Ngatihotu, the Man - Destroying Hawk of Taupo Lake! Aué! She must not know! She must not know!”

………..

Throughout the remainder of that terrible night, with Tuwharétoa hovering between life and death, and helpless before her, the Ngatihotu maiden was tormented with the knowledge that she ought to slay this Arawa while yet there was time; or failing that, that she should let him die so that he would trouble her people no more. Persistently the thought came to her that she, a chieftainess of the Maori, ought to sacrifice herself and her love if thereby she might save her tribe.

But ever the remembrance of his sacrifice for her, his gentleness to her, made her spurn the hateful thought. She could not turn on him or fail him in his time of need. But again and again in justification of her weakness she had to whisper to herself the ancient saying:

“Aroha mai-aroha atu.
Love received, demands love returned.
Aroha mai-aroha atu.”

page 223

………..

Day came, with Tuwharétoa still unconscious, and with the exhausted maiden still sitting by his side.

At first she dared not leave him lest, in his twist-ings and turnings, he should open up his wounds or tear the bandages from his arm. But gradually he quietened down and then for long periods he lay as if asleep.

The maiden scarcely noticed the singing of the birds at dawn. To think that her Manaia was that feared chief, that desolating chief, the Ariki Tuwharétoa of Te Arawa! Aué! A cruel blow, a crushing blow to her sensitive mind and to the dreams of happiness built up! A bitterness worse than death!

She tried to thrust away her love for him, but in vain.

“Ah me!” she moaned. “A whirling power makes blank my mind and I lack the strength to sever from my heart the love I feel. O weak, weak Ngatihotu!”

She sought relief in work. She bathed the Arawa's wounds and dressed them with plasters of cool leaves. She adjusted the bandages around his broken arm, but still did not shift the splints. She built a fresh couch of fern for him, and then found she could not lift him to it.

She cleared the space before the shelter, and in this work at last was given comfort. A pair of fantails or tiwaiwakas became her friends.

Quite deliberately they left their insect - chasing and flew right into the shelter as if to pay the maiden a friendly call. They peered curiously at that limp form lying upon its bed of fern. Then almost within reach of Rerémoa they displayed their beautiful fan-tails, opening and shutting them at will, and crying page 224 “tei, tei, tei,” as if to tell her that they wished to be her friends. She felt less lonely with them near by, and she loved them for the aid they brought.

They fluttered about her as she moved away, and they watched her as she gathered in the ripe berries of a late-bearing hinau tree. A kaka parrot screeched at her for invading his food domain, and the fantails fled in haste before so distressing a sound. Rerémoa laughed softly, laughed-for the first time for days. The fantails returned.

She took the berries down into the gully and left them steeping in the running water to rid them of their bitter quality. And while she waited she busied herself with other matters.

She loosened and then detached a sheet of bark from a kahikatea or white pine tree that grew in a swampy part of the gully. She carried the bark to an open spot and exposed it to the heat of the midday sun. Soon it began to curl up, and presently it took the form of a hollow cylinder of bark.

Quite pleased at remembering a lesson taught to her in childhood days, she carried the cylinder to the rock shelter and set it up on end, with its base inserted deeply enough into the earth floor to keep the cylinder firmly upright. Then she filled it up with charcoal. In the evening she would kindle the charcoal upon the top, and it would burn steadily throughout the night, warming the shelter but emitting no smoke; and as the charcoal would burn away so would the self-burning fire-cylinder be gradually consumed. Ah! How she would surprise this Arawa who thought her ignorant of the forest ways! If only he would wake! But no, he still lay there unconscious, breathing quietly. Almost she felt sure that he slept.

page 225

She moved down into the gully again, attended by the friendly fantails. She collected the fallen leaves of every ti-palm she could find, and tore them into strips. Tough and long, they would make excellent material for bird-snares, but first they would be suspended over a fire to give them the old appearance that would deceive the birds.

Towards the middle of the afternoon the maiden rested. She had laid in a stock of maire wood and totara bark as an aid to the charcoal, and she had quickly prepared for herself a soft little bed of fern. She had even found time to build a “nikau” partition at the head of her couch.

Worn out, she rested, but not for long, for nourishing food would be needed by her Arawa upon his return to the world of light. She herself needed food.

She went down into the gully and secured the hinau berries which had been steeping in the stream. With the fernroot-pounder she beat the berries upon a flat rock, and separated the mealy pulp from the stones. Some of the pulp she mixed with water and kneaded into a paste, and from the paste she fashioned dark-coloured and oily cakes. But soon she would wrap these in the fragrant leaves of the rangiora shrub, and she would steam them for some time in the earth-oven. Ah! then would they become palatable and tasty, fit food even for a Puhi maiden of Ngatihotu.

The remainder of the mealy pulp Rerémoa set aside for her Arawa. He would be too ill to take solid food at first, so she would make for him a special rerépi or gruel called “wai-karo.” She would heat the water in a hué gourd to boiling-point by throwing into the water red-hot stones from the fire. Then would she Q page 226 pour in the hinau meal, and behold! there would be food fit even for the Ariki of Te Arawa!

“Taku hei piripiri,
Taku hei mokimoki,
Taku hei tawhiri,
Taku kati taramea!
My necklace of scented moss,
My necklace of fragrant fern,
My necklace of odorous shrubs,
My sweet-smelling sachet of taramea!”

As she bent over Tuwharétoa and removed the dressings from his wounds, Rerémoa chanted to him her quaint little waiata-popo or lullaby, and she smiled as she chanted.

Since his return to consciousness three days before, Tuwharétoa had rapidly gained in health and strength, and had already begun to show signs of impatience at the restrictions imposed on him for his good. Particularly had he objected to being clothed with soft garments woven by Rerémoa out of beaten flax.

He smiled with pleasure at her gentle method of reminding him that he was still as a child in strength, that he was still in need of her mothering care. He smiled back at her, and then, as she bent over him to fasten anew the bandages around his broken arm, he recognised the scent of sweet-smelling piripiri moss in a karetu-grass sachet which she wore around her neck.

“Ah!” he said. “Truly thou art the Fragrant One. Thy mind is fragrant, and thy body. I grow to feel that thy spirit is fragrant also, my Rerémoa.”

She turned away abruptly. For a moment, she had longed to clasp him to her trembling breast. But no, she would not weaken.

She moved down into the gully and across to where page 227 a network of nikau palms adorned one section of the forest fringe. She lay down beneath the spreading fan-roof of the palms, and there she sought once more to solve her problem.

If only she could influence this Arawa to ease his grip on Taupo, to show some mercy to her tribe! If only she could move him to stay his hand, to refrain from destroying or ejecting her people!

Clearly, quite clearly it came to her that the fate of Taupo and of all Ngatihotu lay in her hands. Should this Arawa, this Ariki of Te Arawa, return to his people in the north and his men boast of their deeds on Taupo Lake, then would the whole strength of Te Arawa be turned against Ngatihotu ere another year were out. And so—the death of a tribe!

No! He must not return to the north. In one way or in another she must keep him by her side. In his delirium he had disclosed the truth. He was the Ariki. In him alone lay the driving-power that could turn this raid on Taupo into a war of conquest and extermination of her people. Against him therefore would she battle for Taupo Lake and for the life of her tribe, holding the beauty of her face and form, and the appeal of her voice and mind, and the strength of his love for her as the weapons which she would use for her aid.

Yet she knew that something more would be required. She must move him in the spirit also. To this Arawa, Taupo had sent a call. His words still rang in her ears. Yes! His hands were bound. To Taupo he was betrothed—in the spirit.

From his couch up at the rock shelter Tuwharétoa watched her. He also was struggling with a problem, and he was finding it by no means an easy one to solve. page 228 Taupo and Rerémoa! Determined to have them both, he was now realising to the full the difficulties that lay ahead. This Ngatihotu maiden was a chief-tainess of rank, a Puhi maiden, one not to be wed without her own and her father's consent. Moreover, the elders of her tribe would demand to be heard, and they would object to her marrying an Arawa except on terms.

Again, what of the maiden herself? What would she say or think on finding out his name and rank? Sooner or later she must find out. What then? Not yet quite strong in body or mind, Tuwharétoa shrank from telling her the truth. Later he would tell her. First let them have these days of happiness together! Then surely a way out would be found. Thus he thought as he watched her.

And as he watched her, he began to wonder what her thoughts might be. Almost unconsciously he opened up her mind to his and probed, and caught what passed. She was thinking about her tribe, she was thinking about its fate. Annoyed with himself for intruding upon her mind, he hastily closed the channels of thought. Vividly the warning of Te Moana the Wise came back to him. The mind of this maiden must be kept free, for she was to be his mate—the mother of chiefs-to-be. What right had he to dominate her mind?

He called her to him, and when she came he saw that she had been weeping. He made her sit beside him, and he tried to comfort her, but she wept again. Then presently she took his hand in hers, and in appealing tones she chanted portion of an old lament:

“My strong affection asks
That thou wilt come and be
As light of day to me,
And cause my tears to cease.”

page 229

Kei whea? Whither?” asked Tuwharétoa.

“To Rotoaira Lake, to my home,” said the maiden as she pressed his hand.

Péa! Perhaps!” said Tuwharétoa as he gave the answering pressure.

………..

The days passed quickly, and happily, for who could live at the rock shelter and not share in the happiness of the birds?

One morning, as they were sitting in front of the shelter, Rerémoa asked the Arawa which bird of all that he had seen in the gully had claimed his interest the most, and at once he replied:

“It is the vitality of a bird that interests me, for size and beauty count for little. Therefore, I choose the koekoea (the long-tailed cuckoo). O Rerémoa, think of the courage shown by that land bird in its yearly flights across the Sea of Kiwa! An overcoming of obstacles! Sustained courage, like unto the courage of a sapling in dense forest struggling to reach up into the sunlight above! Yes, enduring courage, such as is needed by man in the pursuit of something that lies almost beyond reach!”

“O Manaia!” said Rerémoa quietly. “Is not the koekoea a ruthless bird that leaves its egg in another bird's nest?”

Ha! A sharp thrust! Ruthless Te Arawa forcing a way into the Ngatihotu nest! Pretending not to notice the attack, he changed the subject, and pointed across the gully.

“See that nikau palm over there, the large one that stands out in front somewhat by itself! About the same year that I entered upon the world of life, that page 230 nikau was born. Before another ring will have appeared upon its trunk, I will have taken to myself a wife.”

“Perhaps!” said Rerémoa softly, as she counted the rings that marked the nikau's age. They numbered twice ten and one.

With a calmness of manner that surprised herself she turned away from so tempting yet dangerous a subject. She placed a pepe or call-leaf of a raurekau shrub between her lips, and with its aid she gave forth a most peculiar whistle. The Arawa grew interested at once, for he too had seen a big wood-hen moving in the fern beyond the stream.

Again the maiden whistled, and this time the old weka came out into the open. His feathers were ruffled. A third time the maiden whistled, and the weka, pugnacious, eager for a fight with any feathered foe, came quickly across the gully and up the slope. Even the presence of the humans above would not deter him from accepting that challenge. But his surprise was great when the maiden whistled again and he found out where the whistle came from.

Rerémoa rewarded him with a large piece of hinau meal, and promptly, with a noisy clucking, he summoned his whole family that they also might enjoy the unexpected feast. At once from out the forest opposite there dashed the mother-weka and four sturdy young chicks. Wildly they raced across the gully, and Tuwharétoa and the maiden laughed heartily as the leading chick in its haste fell into the stream, but with a desperate effort scrambled out and still reached the top of the slope ahead of the others.

The old weka with much clucking kept guard over the piece of meal, but he fed the chicks liberally until page 231 they had had enough. Then he fed the mother-bird until she also was satisfied. And finally, with what was left, he fed himself.

“A loving parent!” said Rerémoa.

Taihoa!” said Tuwharétoa with a smile.

………..

The days passed quickly; but now in the mind of Rerémoa was a growing dread of the time when the Arawa would be strong enough to leave the shelter, strong enough to return to that hated war-canoe on Taupo Lake. Ah! If only he would stay with his Rerémoa, and go with her to Rotoaira, and see for himself the home life of her people—and have pity!

One day he caught her weeping again, and when he pressed her for the reason, she replied:

“O Manaia! Hadst thou but been of Ngatihotu, or I an Arawa, we could have loved each other then as others love. But alas! What hope have we of love? Yet come with me to my home at Rotoaira when thou art strong again, and maybe we shall find a way!”

Tuwharétoa remained silent, so she went on:

“Think not of thy welcome, O friend! Is not my father the High Chief of Ngatihotu, and am I not the Puhi maiden of the tribe? Moreover, I can go first into the pa to prepare the people for thy coming. And perhaps through us there will come peace between our tribes.”

But Tuwharétoa merely said that he would think about the matter, and the disappointed maiden turned away.

On another day, a chance came to her, and she tempted the Arawa in a subtle manner.

page 232

They were talking about her capture by the Tuhoe war-party, and Tuwharétoa asked her whether she had not abandoned hope long before her rescue.

“No,” she replied, “I did not give up hope. Continually did I repeat to myself the invocation my father taught me to use in time of extreme need.”

“What was that karakia?” asked Tuwharétoa with interest.

“Ki a koe, e Io! Mau e tiaki! To Thee, O Io! Do Thou protect me!” replied the maiden.

And when he questioned her further he found that among the Ngatihotu people, even as among the Arawas, the worship of the Supreme Being was reserved to the elect few, while the Holy Name was held in such respect as to be rarely mentioned even by those few.

“Doth thy father know much about the sacred things of life?” questioned Tuwharétoa again. And intuition told the maiden how to answer:

“He knows much, for continually and in a multitude? have the voices from the past sounded upon his ears. Indeed, he is the resting-place of knowledge.”

On still another day she tempted the Arawa again, for when he asked her if Nukutea her father knew much about the ancient homes of his people, she replied that he knew about the Great-Hawaiki, and about the Little-Hawaiki, and about the Long-Hawaiki, and about the Hawaiki-of-Great-Distance, and about many things of much interest not only to Ngatihotu but to the whole Maori race. Also, he had in his possession at Rotoaira a sacred treasure that had come from Little-Hawaiki, but what that treasure was she would not say.

Nor would she speak further about such matters, though Tuwharétoa begged her to continue.

page 233

Instead, she promised to give him some knowledge that was her own, and a little later, at dusk, she sat down with him under a tree close to the rock shelter, and asked him to keep still and remain silent.

There had been a little rain that evening, but it had cleared off, and presently, to the surprise and delight of the Arawa and to the joy of the maiden, they heard whisper-songs from bell-birds and tuis on the branches above, whisper-songs audible only at a short distance but infinitely charming and appealing and tender and pure.

And so caressing were those little songs that, unbidden, there came into the mind of the Arawa the thought that the whisper-songs of Rerémoa would be his at Rotoaira Pa, if only he would go with her to her home.

For a moment he dallied with that thought, whilst over him swept emotions strange, and strong, and tantalising. Then hastily he rose to his feet and walked away.

Ah! Now he knew with certainty that there, in the peaceful seclusion of the rock shelter of the Kaingaroa, and with the maiden of Ngatihotu not his only foe, he was fighting out the first stage of the real battle for Taupo Lake.