Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

Aunt Ruth helped Aunt Esther up. We were all wondering what she would do — take The Brute on herself or order a free-for-all. Aunt Ruth did neither. She smiled at the ref and smiled at The Brute and indicated that the game should continue. Her killer instinct, however, was aroused, and from the side of her mouth came the words, ‘Okay girls, kill .’

Oh they were angry! The ref ordered a free hit for Mahana. Aunt Sephora tapped the ball gently to Aunt Miriam. Adrenalin pumping, the Mahana women began to move like a juggernaut down the field. Even Auntie Molly left her goal, twirling her stick like a taiaha. She followed Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah as they moved out of the Mahana circle.

‘Fall back!’ The Brute screamed to her women. ‘Fall back!’

Mahana made an awesome sight as they came silently sweeping through the rain. They dribbled the ball amongst themselves. They were like Zulu warriors executing a pincer movement into enemy territory.

‘Watch out, girls!’ The Brute cried.

Mahana crossed over into Hukareka’s half. Never mind about being on the defensive. Mahana women were going to war. Where was the ball? The rain was falling so heavily you could hardly see it. Ah, there it was –

‘Gloria!’ The Brute commanded.

Uttering a banshee cry, Gloria Poata ran at the wall of Mahana women. Silently a gap opened, and Gloria hurled herself in. It closed behind her. When the juggernaut moved on, there was Gloria Poata, dazed, going round and round in circles without her hockey stick and wondering what had happened to it.

‘Helen!’ The Brute squawked.

Helen rushed at the Mahana women. A flurry of sticks followed and there was Helen Poata cartwheeling head over heels out of the pack.

Meantime, Aunt Sarah somehow staggered against the referee, knocked off his glasses and trod on them. Good, he was out of the way.

‘Back to the circle!’ The Brute ordered. She still couldn’t see the ball — only those huge solid Mahana legs like Burnham Wood come to Dunsinane.

Then Aunt Ruth let out the order, ‘In you go, sis!’ She flicked the ball to Aunt Sarah.

The game literally exploded.

‘Keep out of the way, girls,’ Aunt Sarah roared. She took the ball through the Hukareka defences. The referee still hadn’t found his glasses.

Wham here, slam there, and two Hukareka women were down. The rest of the Mahana women joined the attack. The rain was so heavy that nobody could see what was really happening. Slash here and slash there, and another two Hukareka women bit the dust. Boot here and boot there, and a fist as well, and three more went reeling away from the circle.

Suddenly the rain cleared and there was Aunt Sarah, hair plastered on her face like a gorgon. Wielding her hockey stick with one hand, she gave an earth-shattering cry and cracked the ball. The fact that it missed the goal by a mile was not the point. Aunt Sarah had had no intention of getting a goal. She took out The Brute, who fell, clasping her mouth with horror. She shouldn’t have been in the road anyway.

The referee found his glasses. Oh, look at the time. He blew the final whistle. In protest, somebody threw an orange at him.

Mahana 4, Hukareka 4.

A draw — but, boy, it was worth it.

When I look back, I realise something was happening to me in 1958 that made me wilful and rebellious — something intangible that I couldn’t recognise in myself, though others could.

I was delivering calico for the cloaks to Aunt Ruth one day when –

‘Hey Aunt,’ I said, ‘have you ever heard a poem about a young Scottish boy who steals his girlfriend on her wedding day and —’

She pierced me with a glance. ‘Just because the Scottish have the same story doesn’t mean ours isn’t true.’

‘I wasn’t going to say that!’

‘But you were thinking it,’ she growled. ‘You’re getting too whakahihi, Simeon. Too big for your boots.’

I turned away from her. ‘Nor was that song about Ramona,’ I muttered, ‘written for Grandmother. It was written for a silent screen star, Dolores Del Rio and a film she made in 1928 when she played a Spanish girl in the Old West and —’

‘What’s that?’ Aunt Ruth asked. She was holding her sewing needle as if she was ready to skewer me with it.

‘Oh nothing,’ I answered.

Even Glory was affected by the change in me.

‘I hate it when you’re like this,’ she said one day while we were milking.

Like what?

‘You’re always so up yourself. Always in a bad mood. You never talk any more, and when you do it doesn’t come out sounding nice. At nights you’re the only one who doesn’t answer when I call g’night to everybody. I don’t care if you don’t love anyone else, but —’ She pinched me, hard. ‘Don’t you love me any more?’

I looked at her, surprised.

‘There,’ she said, ‘you’re doing it again.’

Doing what? Suddenly afraid, I hugged her close to me; we clung together as if we didn’t want anything to get in between. I knew Glory was right. I was changing, and I didn’t know how or why. Nobody was safe from me. At school I went around pushing little kids out of the way. I pushed my father Joshua and mother Huria away. The fearsome ones in my life, like Miss Dalrymple, were no longer so formidable.

‘Do speak up, Simeon,’ Miss Dalrymple said in class.

‘Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle,’ I mumbled.

Even when Mohi tried to push me around, I pushed him back. Perhaps he put his finger on it: ‘You’re growing up, kid.’

One night the collision between new and old bordered on madness.

The family had just finished evening prayers. Grandfather was at the holy end of the room, where his throne was. Casually, Aunt Esther asked me, ‘So, Simeon, what are you studying at school these days?’

‘We’re doing biology,’ I answered. ‘The theory of evolution. Did you know that we are descended from monkeys?’

Grandfather Tamihana was in the middle of talking to Grandmother. His mouth made a big O. ‘Man is a special creation,’ he said. The Voice of Authority hath spoken.

‘There was a court case about that,’ I muttered. ‘In the 1930s. God lost.’

‘Simeon,’ my father reproved.

There was silence for a moment. I thought that was the end of it. But –

‘Get me the Bible,’ Grandfather Tamihana said.

‘I know what it says in the Bible,’ I answered.

‘So you know ,’ Grandfather continued, ‘that God created Adam and Eve?’

‘I know that is what the Bible says —’

‘And is the Bible not the Word of God?’

‘No,’ I answered, ‘it’s the Word of Man.’

Mohi started to make strange choking sounds. My aunts were blushing with embarrassment.

‘I think you should leave the room,’ Mum said. She was panicking. Grandfather Tamihana was growing extremely angry.

I looked around at everyone. ‘Why is it?’ I asked, ‘that every time I say something, everybody takes sides so quickly? Doesn’t anyone here, apart from Grandfather and myself, have an opinion?’ My uncles and aunts continued looking at their laps. Ah well, I had tried.

‘I am not descended from a monkey,’ Grandfather said.

His comment would have been humorous, except that he was apoplectic with rage. I crossed my arms and stared at him. ‘Grandfather,’ I said, ‘the greatest biblical scholars in the world have agreed with you. However, some of the greatest scientists have disagreed. You are right —’ he nodded — ‘but you are also wrong.’

There was hardly a sound. Dad was on his feet ready to clip me over the ear. Grandmother restrained him.

‘Let us agree to differ.’