Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

‘That’s it,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘You’re coming out shearing. I’m not having you turn into the real Salome and shedding your veils for boys.’

Haromi and Aunt Sarah ended up fighting each other. Haromi moved to Mahana Four.

Dad resumed shearing and I was again the sheriff looking after the one-horse all-women ghost town of Waituhi. Grandfather didn’t let up on me either. One year in a boy’s lifetime, however, can make a big difference in the boy. I was sixteen now, and the ease and assurance with which I tackled the chores sometimes took my own breath away. Without realising it, I had filled out. I had also become taller and muscular and, ironically, seemed to be physically taking after Bulibasha himself. I loved it when old Pera told him this one day.

‘That boy’s the spitting image,’ Pera chortled.

Grandfather hated that. He hated the whole idea that I, the least malleable of his mokopuna, should become the one who resembled him most. I’m sure this is why he really rode me while the others were away.

‘You finished chopping the wood, Himiona? Good. We need three more beasts killed for the gangs. Then after that I want you to shift the cattle to the hill yard. And after that we need a long drop for the new lav —’

He tried in so many ways to run me into the ground. But something else had happened to me. As well as growing stronger and taller I had become resistant to his control and his mind games. Moving away from the homestead to our land had given my family freedom from Grandfather’s constant tyranny. In the wide gap that was developing between him and me, I was able to build a sense of independence, a sense of my own self. It was not just a matter of distrusting his decisions. It was a matter of trusting my own. That, though, did not stop him from hassling me, particularly on the question of my still being at school.

‘You’re useless, Himiona,’ he said. ‘Your father and mother are out there working their guts out. You’re old enough to leave school. What do you want brains for? You’ve got strong hands. Why don’t you help your parents?’

He almost won. One night when Dad came home from the Wi Pere station and our family were eating dinner I tried to give destiny a push.

‘We’ve got big bills,’ I began.

‘The shearing will put us right,’ Dad answered.

‘But we have no savings, and we still have to plant our crops for next year.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Mum.

‘No,’ I answered. ‘It’s time for me to go out and work.’

‘Where?’ Mum asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘In the shed with your father?’

Perhaps the way to win them over was to parrot Grandfather back at them. ‘Look at Bulibasha,’ I said. ‘He’s managed all right. If God had wanted me to have more brains, He would have given them to me at the start.’

‘No,’ Mum said.

‘But —’

‘Kaore. I don’t want you ending up in the shed, son. You deserve better. You and all of my children.’ Mum was trembling. She looked at my sisters. ‘All of you deserve better. Your dad and I want you to stay at school and get qualified. We want you, Simeon, to try for your School Certificate. Then maybe we’ll talk about your leaving school.’

‘But why?’ I asked.

‘Why?’ Mum echoed. ‘You want to know why?’

She pushed her chair, stood up, and got a piece of paper and a pencil. Then she sat down and slashed an ‘X’ with the pencil.

‘That’s why,’ she said.

Apart from not being able to read, my mother was unable to write even her own name. My father couldn’t either.

The next time I saw Grandfather I wanted him to know he had lost. I grabbed him with my parents’ obstinacies and wrestled him to a standstill.

‘I’m staying at school,’ I said. ‘Don’t try to make me feel guilty, because it won’t work. Mum and Dad want to support me.’

‘What a waste of money.’

‘It’s their money and their decision.’

‘And when you all starve over winter, boy? Words come easy when your belly is full, ne?’

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. ‘Why are you so frightened, Grandfather? Do you think I might be better than you?’

Grandfather was enraged at the suggestion. ‘You’ll never be better than me, boy. Whakahihi, that’s your trouble. Whakahihi.’ He raised his fists. I was no longer afraid. Sure he could still beat the outside me, but the me I was inside? He’d have a hard time there.

Our antagonism increased. Grandfather was always in my way, casting his shadow. He was like a giant wall of Jericho. I wanted to take up a trumpet and make that wall tumble down so I could get on with the business of growing up and becoming myself.

At the end of 1958, two events took place which brought competition between Hukareka and Waituhi to a climax and put thoughts of Bulibasha temporarily on hold. One was the seven-a-side Maori hockey tournament. The other was announced in the Gisborne Herald just before Mum, my sisters and I joined Mahana Four for the season:

New Golden Fleece Award

The New Zealand Wool Board today announced the holding of a national competition to select the best shearing gang in the Dominion. A substantial cash prize of £5000 and the Golden Fleece Shield will be awarded the winning gang. A gold statuette, christened ‘Jason’, will be given to the best shearer of the year, not necessarily from the winning gang.

The new competition has been inaugurated to focus attention on the wool industry and to encourage quality in shearing.

‘As a country which relies on its wool production for its overseas receipts,’ Mr Williams, Chairman of the Board said, ‘it is only appropriate that we should recognise the contribution of the shearing gang to New Zealand’s economy.’

Regional finals would be contested in all the provinces, Mr Williams said. Two finalists from each province will travel to Masterton for the semifinals and finals.

It was the visionary Apirana Ngata who in the 1940s encouraged the seven-a-side Maori hockey tournament. What a man! His fingerprints were to be found everywhere throughout Maoridom — in politics, business, religion, education, culture and sport. A true Renaissance man for the Maori.

‘Tamihana,’ Apirana Ngata had said when he went to see Grandfather. ‘I have done you one favour and now I ask you a favour in return — a favour for a favour, ne?’ Tamihana agreed. ‘Our people need the spirit of competition to keep our pride and mana and to improve and develop our culture. This is the reason why the haka nights were started, and the hui topu for Maori Anglicans. I want the same thing started up in sport.’ Apirana Ngata’s eyes creased into amusement. ‘I’ve already been to see Pera Smiler and his sister Mini Tupara here in Waituhi. They have suggested hockey as the sport for the tournament because it is a game that all can play, men, women and children. Kua pai?’

‘Kua pai,’ Tamihana said.

Apirana Ngata was clever all right. Sport was just the excuse to get Maori together. Once that happened, the protocols of ceremonial gatherings took place and, before you knew it, a hui was happening.

Ngata well knew that Maori people loved to meet each other and loved to talk. In the formality of meeting, genealogies were exchanged so that one person could find the blood connection between himself or herself and another. Once that was achieved entire histories were exchanged. The tournament was therefore the place where the older people could reaffirm their personal and political relationships. Some hadn’t seen each other for years, so it was important to redraw the map of the present by finding out what had happened, who had died and who had been born. Over five days people discussed the past and the present — land problems, cultural issues, old grievances — all in the language of the iwi. At breakfast, lunch and dinner the old people talked and talked and talked. They would say, ‘Now that we have had kai for our bodies, let us now have the food of chiefs.’ They would lie in the meeting house way after everyone else was asleep, discussing and debating matters affecting the history of the Maori.