Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

The angel roared with laughter. ‘I accept your challenge,’ he said.

‘The best of three falls?’ Tamihana asked.

‘Yup,’ the angel answered, spitting on his hands.

‘So it was,’ Aunt Ruth said, ‘that in the middle of the day your grandfather Tamihana wrestled with the golden angel —’

‘Wingless like a crispy chicken,’ I interpolated.

‘But an angel all the same,’ Aunt Ruth continued, swatting at me with her hand. ‘They wrestled all that afternoon and soon Grandfather realised he had met his match and that this indeed was an angel. He hoped that Maggie wasn’t looking out her window to see him getting beaten.’

Then the angel executed some pretty unorthodox moves. With horror, Tamihana felt his strength suddenly leave him. He fell to the ground. Once. Twice.

‘Oh my God,’ Tamihana said, stunned. He went down on a bended knee.

The angel was panting. ‘No, I am not God,’ the angel said, ‘but I have been sent by Him. Will you now agree to undertake your part of our bargain?’

Tamihana hesitated. He was humiliated by his defeat.

‘I ask again,’ the angel said, ‘will you agree to our bargain?’

‘Yes,’ Tamihana said.

The angel put his hands on Tamihana’s head and Tamihana felt the strength pouring back into him. It was a new kind of strength, godliness was in it, and he felt like crying for joy.

‘You will be blessed, as Abraham was blessed,’ the angel said, ‘and so will your children and your children’s children for ever. And you yourself will prosper from this day forth just as your family prospers. So, Tamihana, thou servant of God, do as the Lord has commanded.’

The angel let Tamihana see his brilliant golden wings, so glorious that they filled the sky with their radiance.

‘So the angel did have wings,’ Glory said.

‘Did I say it didn’t?’ Aunt Ruth sighed.

Tamihana became a Samson all right. The trouble was, the angel wasn’t a Ringatu angel. He was a Mormon angel.

Within the space of two decades Tamihana converted all the Ringatu members of the Mahana family, with the exception of his father, Riripeti herself and his brother Ihaka — though Ihaka began to weaken in the 1950s.

However, the conversion of part of the Waituhi Valley began a great Ringatu — Mormon conflict. Huge splits appeared between the four sections of Waituhi itself, and the Pakowhai, Rongopai, Takitimu and Pere families involved; Nani Mini Tupara was so angry about it. I even used to think that this same conversion was the cause of the trouble between our family of Waituhi and the Poata family of Hukareka. There, the Ringatu religion remained powerful. Was I ever wrong?

My Grandfather Tamihana was at his physical peak in 1918 when he met the angel. There was no task that he could not accomplish. However, God had now set Grandfather a task — to raise his family so that it was an exemplar to others. God had also promised him that he would prosper. But how?

These were the great questions which Grandfather set about to answer. It was his twelve days in the wilderness.

The prospects for young Maori men living in rural areas were not promising. Much of the Patutahi block had been confiscated by the Pakeha, and by 1918 many communities had had their lands alienated because of their inability to pay the rates. Riripeti had been one of the lucky ones in that her ancestor Wi Pere had maintained an estate for her family. The Mahana clan, however, were only one of a number of dirt farmers eking out a subsistence living on small patches of land alongside the Waipaoa River. All around him Tamihana could see the results of Maori poverty. The Great War had claimed some lives, the 1918 flu epidemic had just ravaged the district and people were saying that a world depression was on the way. Although his sporting reputation had kept him regularly at work as stockman, scrubcutter, forestry worker, fencer, orchardist — as labourer for the Pakeha — even those sources of income were diminishing. Land development had virtually come to a standstill. Drink, debauchery and dissolution were all around the newly converted Tamihana. How was he to prosper so that he would become a model of God’s word? What did God want him to do?

For the second time in his life, Grandfather Tamihana decided to pray. He went down on his bended knees before God.

‘Where’s my miracle?’ he asked.

The Lord sent Apirana Ngata.

At that time Ngata, the Maori member of parliament for the East Coast, was in Tikitiki, at the dedication of an Anglican church commemorating the Maori soldiers of the First World War. Ngata had encouraged his Ngati Porou people into dairying. Land development had remained his main preoccupation.

‘I must go to Tikitiki,’ Tamihana said to Ramona. ‘If I can talk to Ta Api, perhaps his administration will agree to lend us the money so that we also can go into dairying.’

Tamihana walked and hitched his way to Tikitiki. The trip took him three days. Apirana Ngata saw Tamihana striding into the township and was taken by Grandfather’s strength and purpose. Tamihana asked Ngata for a loan to get him going.

‘I will see to it,’ Apirana Ngata said, ‘but only if you will agree to one matter.’

‘He aha?’ Tamihana asked.

‘I will give you the money but I want you to go into the sheep industry. Wool prices will go up soon and you will be well placed to take advantage of that.’

‘Ta Api,’ Tamihana said, ‘I do not have the wisdom to be a sheep farmer. Let me make you a counter offer.’

Apirana Ngata laughed. ‘He aha?’

‘If you give me the money, I will build up a shearing gang. Let the Pakeha be the farmer and let me shear his sheep.’

‘So that you can fleece him?’ Apirana Ngata asked, his eyes twinkling.

‘Ae, Ta Api.’

So it was agreed. The story of the Mahana shearing saga began.

‘So you see,’ Aunt Ruth said, finally, ‘our family shearing business has been blessed by God from the very beginning.’

Glory clapped her hands. ‘And we’ve lived happily ever after!’ She was always a sucker for happy endings.

‘Well —’ Aunt Ruth looked doubtful.

Glory’s eyebrows furrowed.

‘Yes,’ Aunt Ruth said hastily.

Andrew and Haromi were waiting at the corner for the school bus, standing as far away from the small kids as possible. Andrew saw me and waved. ‘Did you bring any matches?’ he asked.

I nodded. We had about five minutes before the bus arrived. Quickly we went into the flax where Andrew pulled out some tobacco and Haromi some De Reszke cigarette paper. Haromi was the expert in making roll-your-owns and, in a trice, one cigarette was lit and being passed around for a puff.

‘The place is fucking deserted,’ Haromi said.

Haromi always looked so angry at the world, so angry at being stuck with awful parents and being a goddam Mahana. When she was younger she actually went through a phase when she would whisper darkly, ‘I’m not really a Mahana, you know. Somebody made a mistake up in Heaven and mixed me up with the babies destined for Los Angeles.’ Today she looked even angrier. She had eyeliner around her eyes and had hitched her skirt up around her knees. Rebellion, rebellion.

She stood up and yelled, ‘I wish I could tell you all to go to Hell but we’re already here!’

The kids further up the road stopped, bewildered. Then, Oh it’s just Haromi again.

‘Guess who’s in charge of the women?’ I asked, puffing coolly on the cigarette she handed me.

‘Not you too?’ Andrew answered in mock surprise. ‘Pity they’re either older or our sisters. But there’s always —’ He winked at Haromi and she punched him.

‘I’m grounded as well,’ Haromi said, ‘though for different reasons, obviously. Mum thinks I’m too dangerous to be around the shearers. As if I’m interested in them . The only boy I want,’ she sighed, ‘is James.’ She had seen Rebel Without a Cause four times and knew some of the lines off by heart.