Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Revenge: A Love Tale of the Mount Eden Tribe

Chapter Eight: The Story Told by Maro's Mother

page breakBlack and white fascimile page image

Chapter Eight: The Story Told by Maro's Mother

Maro repeats what his mother has told him. Mihi and Niho come to Mount Eden to live. Kapu spends one day with Tutu and then returns to Mount Eden. Tata and Popo talk of the future.

"Now you will remember," said Maro as he changed his position and stretched his cramped limbs, "that all I have said about Popo and his love up to the time of the pakuha was told to me by my mother. Then the events of that night and succeeding days I told you from my own memory, for I was there, and it was then I saw Rehu and loved her. I had seen Popo when I was a very little boy when I did not know how to remember. I could not hold in memory what was passing round me till the time I saw Rehu, and then was the first day of remembrance when I looked at people and listened to what they said, and kept in my head what I saw and heard.

"Now I must continue the story of Popo as it was told to me by my mother, for I was not at this time at Mount Eden."

The Story of Popo as Told to Maro by His Mother

The tangi for old Rahi was over, and all the hapu had gone to their own homes. Mihi had come back to page 146Black and white fascimile page image this pa at Maunga-whau, and Niho was with her. They could not remain at Otahuhu lest Niho should be killed by some of the people of that pa, as all chiefs of rank leave a poroaki to be fulfilled, and he did not know what old Rahi might not have enjoined on his tribe. So Niho and Mihi lived at Mount Eden with our people.

Kapu, the sister of Popo's mother, had returned to her pa at Wai-raka with Tutu, so that her promise given to the chief might be ratified by her presence one day in the pa. Then she left Tutu and his people and returned here on the same day.

Tihe did not remain with us but went back with the people of Taka-runga on their return. She had lived here for many summers, even from the time that Popo had become a young man, but though she was of our tribe, she was not of our hapu. Tihe had left her relations for many summers and had become as one of our hapu, but now that she had taken Tohi as her husband, she did not stay here. We could all see that for many moons she had been in love with Popo, but that he had not loved her.

The mat which had been used as a charm in her attempt to bewitch and kill Popo, which had been taken from him by Tata the priest and given to Tihe, had been taken by her with her other taunga 1 to the pa Taka-runga. Popo had done nothing about this mat, but he had thought about it a great deal.

One evening when the moon was full and everything lay calm and peaceful in the moonlight, Popo came out of his house and ascended the bank to the south. He went to the eastern part of the pa to the north of the rua kumara (which was kept sacred, and page 147Black and white fascimile page image in which food was stored for strangers who might visit the pa), and having gained the most northerly bank of that outpost, he sat down and looked towards the pa Taka-runga. For some time he sat in silence until a young woman issued from a house nearby. He gave a slight cough, and she knew his voice and came towards him. Calling her by name, he said, "Go to the house of Tata and say you saw me sitting here looking towards the sea over which Tainui came here with our ancestors, and say I wish to talk with him."

He had not long to wait before Tata, clothed in one of his best new mats, came and sat down by his side. "I am here," said Tata. "I know that you wish to speak of our sacred things, so I have come in a mat which has not been in a house with cooked food, nor has it been worn by any human being before.2 Speak, my child, and I will also talk."

"Yes," said Popo, "I have long been ill. I did not want food; I did not want kind words; I did not wish for sunshine; I did not want your love. All these things I have had from our own people. I had all your love —yes, more love than I can repay. My body was not ill but my head was sick. I had a great fear, and it is this which has for so long made me look like a dead man. I could walk with your assistance; I could look with my eyes; but the power to walk and to look were not of me. My soul was dark, but it was not on my own account. I felt sorry for one I could not love, and I was afraid her love would make her whakamomori. 3 This, O Tata, was the root and sole cause of my being so ill. I feel now that I can live, since that one whose love I could not return has taken Tohi as her husband;

page 148Black and white fascimile page image

but, O Tata, I want to know why the mat used by her to makutu 4 me was taken by you and placed in her keeping. Did Tainui come by way of Otahuhu? And did our female ancestor Mahora cause the canoe to be held by her sacred incantations whilst crossing the portage, so that all the warrior sailors of that day could not move the canoe till she again repeated her sacred incantations and thus allowed the canoe to be dragged across the land?5 What am I that a woman should repeat her incantations over me, so that I, like the canoe Tainui, should be held half-way between life and death? When I had the mat again I became well. Now that you have again given it to her, I am again held in the space between sea and sea; I do not see life; I do not see death; but I am held by a spell between the two, neither seeing, hearing nor feeling them. I do not like to be in this life as I am. I have no power to go and see the one I love. I have no promptings of heart to make me perform the deeds of a brave man in love— one who will dare the whole world and live or die to obtain the one who is loved by him. I love my people —I love each one, and for fear lest Tihe should kill herself I have not gone again to Awhitu to see Rehia. Why am I thus kept, half dead and half alive?"

"Speak on, my child," said Tata, "speak on, and let the moon hear your words. You know that our ancestors say that the moon never dies. Though it does appear at times and looks as though it were dead yet it comes up again as though newly born. You shall page 149Black and white fascimile page image be like the moon! Now you are not as you wish, but the time will come when you will be the balm of our people in peace and in war, when you will act as all great chiefs do. Make your name great."

"This is the seventh month of the year," Popo replied. "Tihe has gone with her husband to the pa Taka-runga, and the eighth month is the season when the karoro 6 lays its eggs on the Rangitoto reef outside Tihe's present house. In the ninth moon the kaka will come from the north and go south, alighting on the peak Ngutu-wera in their passage. In the tenth moon, when the summer fogs cover the bays and inlets at dawn of day, the kuaka 7 will pass over the Whau portage. Shall I live to see the people gather the eggs of the karoro, kill the kaka and take the kuaka? Answer me, O priest!"

"Yes," said Tata, "you will see all this and more. You will see the gods of your fathers; you will be more intimate with them than with men. You are our great bird of song; you will even speak and sing things we cannot understand."

"I am not what I am," said Popo. "There is a cloud in my eyes, my heart does not see things as it did when I was a boy. I am here with you, but I feel in another world. Why is that?"

"Men and gods are not alike in body, but in spirit," the priest replied slowly. "When the ariki is as beloved by his people as you are, the mana 8 of his people is given to him and he is more god than man. That is why you feel as you do. Live your two lives—live as our chief and be nearer to the gods than we are."

"I do not want to be idle," Popo said. "I want to page 150Black and white fascimile page image let our people see that I can work, but when I wish to work my thoughts are riven in two. I see things in two lights—part is of this world and part not. I feel as though I were two beings. My brain is filled with beings who chatter continually and I cannot drown the noise. I feel at war with myself. I want to act but cannot. I want to think, but my spirit is tossed hither and thither. I cannot even make myself believe that I am a man. Why is this ?"

"Ah, boys of your rank are not like boys of the younger branch of the family. You are of the direct line of the male ancestors of your family, and as such you are in the direct line of the gods. Tiki was a god, and your family is directly descended from Tiki. Your people acknowledge you as their supreme chief, hence your double life, that of man and that of a god. It is from this that there comes the double feeling you have in your mind. Live, O Popo, and when the time comes to act we will call all the young people together and go to the seagulls' nests, stay the kaka in their migration, and at the dawn of day take the kuaka in their flight from the western sea. Live, O my son, and we shall see the days of just men, when you are again full of life, and are able to do deeds that none can emulate. Live, and be our ariki!"

"It is now time to stop talking," said Maro. "My body is growing old and cannot do as much work as it could when I was a young man. My throat, too, is dry with telling this tale to you, so I must cease for to-day. I see our people coming from their work in the kumara plantations. Besides, the sun is beginning to sit down on the forest ranges of Titirangi, and the cold air from page 151Black and white fascimile page image the sea, blowing over Rangitoto, is making me feel chilly. I will tell you the rest of the history some other day."

Rising, he stood and looked towards Te Whau and said, "There is a people living on the west coast of the lana you see up the Waitemata, who for years past have brought the fat toheroa 9 for our people from the sea beaches, and the fat kanae we enjoy from the Kaipara river at Kau-kapakapa. Of these people I will tell you at some future time. Do not speak of what I have told you until you have heard the whole story."

He turned and went to the house of the old chiefs. At the same time, Atua, the old priest, who had been listening to the tale, also rose and followed him, leaving the young women sitting on the marae.

1 Both Williams and Tregear give taunga the meaning of a bond of affection between families. Here it would seem to mean domestic possessions. (A.G.S.)

2 Great care had to be taken not to violate tapu by contact in any way with cooked food.

3 Commit suicide.

4 Bewitch.

5 An incident during the portage of Tainui from the Waitemata to the Manukau. In 1848 Bishop G. A. Selwyn wrote: "From Onehunga the creeks of Manukau stretch eastward like the fingers of a great hand, as if feeling for the neighbouring waters of the Tamaki on the opposite side of the island. A narrow neck of less than a mile in length, and rolled into a sloping surface of smooth turf by the passage of native canoes, is the only separation between the eastern and western waters, which flow up over flats of sand and mud, to our New Zealand Isthmus of Corinth."

6 Seagull. Larus dominicanus.

7 Godwit Limosa novae zealandiae.

8 Prestige.

9 A succulent shellfish. Mesodesma ventricosum.