Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

Glory got into a number of relationships with Maori men, all like me but nothing like me. I am too frightened to think about the implications, but I know that I love my sister Glory more than anyone else in the world. In her mature years she has settled down to a single life which, from time to time, admits a man. Ours will always remain one of those tumultuous sibling relationships, defined by the fact that we have always been too close to each other. We need times away from each other, but when we are together it is an emotional fusing of such fierceness that all the times apart are rendered meaningless.

Glory is forty-nine now and matronly. She has a parcel of kids from different fathers. Sometimes, just for fun, I’ll say, ‘Play dead, Glory.’ Instantly she will keel over, faint and lie on the floor, pretending to be unconscious. What Glory’s kids feel about these performances I shudder to think. Then she’ll laugh out loud and we will hug each other. What happened that night when Grandmother left the homestead is a secret between Glory and myself alone.

I now live in Auckland. I met Erana when I first arrived there and we married soon after. We have a son, Mark. Erana was curious about Poppy, who was the first girl I ever kissed, and began writing to her. It is through this link that I keep in touch with the way Hukareka is feeling about Waituhi. Poppy has married and raised children — three sets of twins — and ostensibly taken over leadership of the Poata clan, having been accorded this role by Rupeni Poata himself.

For a time there was an expectation that I should return to Gisborne, as if Grandfather had marked me in some way to be his successor. As time has passed this expectation seems to have faded. Anyway, Uncle Hone is still alive and my father Joshua too. There is no need for me to engage the question yet. My Aunt Ruth acts as messenger between us.

The great Mahana family of God has enlargened and become a wonderful tribe of young men, women and their children. Some have married with the Whatu family and most of them still work for Mahana One, Mahana Two, Mahana Three or Mahana Four. There is now talk of a Mahana Five which can travel to Australia, America and Scotland for shearing. Uncle Hone’s eldest son is expected to take over. Grandfather would have been proud of that.

Although shearing is now an all-round profession, there is always an October meeting at the homestead. There my father Joshua and dear Aunt Ruth preside over the history, the telling of the dream that Grandfather Tamihana had many years ago, and the great Golden Fleece win of 1958. Zebediah Whatu, Ihaka Mahana, Granduncle Pera, Maggie, Nani Mini Tupara and Auntie Molly have all gone now, but are remembered in the Mahana Shearing Hall of Fame. Lloyd is still living.

Since 1958 there have been triumphs aplenty for the Mahana clan, but those earlier times are remembered with reverence, thanks and joy. To Aunt Ruth has fallen the task of being the scolding termagent, the one who reminds us of the past and of our duty to the family. The family comes first and it comes last. The family is for ever .

And to my father Joshua has come his time. He is no longer ninth child and seventh son but respected head of the Mahana family in Waituhi. That is, unless Uncle Hone comes to visit.

I am still a member of the church which has been so central to this story. Despite my waverings, nothing has shaken my conviction of its truth and beauty. The church has suffered my waywardness with infuriating patience. The way to God is not always straight and narrow, and mine has been as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

The Waituhi Valley survived the split caused by Grandfather, and these days we are stronger than ever. Nani Mini Tupara would have loved to have seen that return to unity.

I believe my grandfather did, indeed, see an angel.

My Grandmother Ramona and Rupeni Poata married in a registry office and lived happily together for seven years. When Rupeni died at seventy-one, he was buried at Hukareka and it was our turn to go there and abuse him in the same way that he had abused our grandfather. We all thought that Grandmother Ramona would return to us but she said, No.

Grandmother Ramona died three years later. She had wisely stipulated that she should lie on her own family marae at Hauiti rather than at Waituhi or Hukareka. At her tangi the Mahana and the Poata families eyed each other angrily, one family on either side of her casket, while Grandmother’s own Hauiti people tried to mediate between us. Some people say Grandmother’s was the worst tangi they have ever been to; others say it was the best because of all the arguments and fighting. It seemed the only place we wanted to bury the hatchet was in each other.

The arguments took place over three nights and were always on the question of where Grandmother Ramona should be buried. Next to Tamihana, the man with whom she had lived most of her life but who was not her husband? Or next to Rupeni, the man she had always loved and who was her legal husband for only a short time? When I suggested, jokingly, that we should have a vote, Aunt Ruth looked fit to murder me.

A swarm of bees, coming across the hills like a golden cloud, only complicated matters. For a moment all was bedlam as they entered the tent where Grandmother was lying in state. There they kissed her arms, drank from her lips and, from their immense buzzing, sounded as if they could die for love of her.

‘You and your bees, Mum,’ Aunt Ruth cried.

For some reason, it was to me that everybody looked for a decision on that night before Grandmother was buried.

‘You make the decision,’ Grandfather had said. Nothing more.

When I saw the family waiting for me to say something, I looked for Glory, hoping she would faint for me. For the first time in our lives she didn’t.

Sorry, bro, this time you’re on your own.

I thought of Bulibasha, the King of the Gypsies, and realised that he had put my feet on a difficult path. There are people who lead because they have the courage to make decisions. The test for all leaders is whether they are able to accept responsibility for changing people’s lives for ever.

I took that responsibility. For Grandmother’s sake I had already, once before, let my heart rule my head. Was it not time for me, in all my arrogance, to now place my head above my heart? To acknowledge that Grandmother had had her time of truancy but that it was over? To remember that, dead or living, the family always came first?

Cinderella had danced at the ball not once but twice, for I had forced the hands of the clock back before midnight to allow her to dance with her prince again. Midnight was gone now. Was it not time for Cinderella to make utu, make payment? Or could I, being the romantic, continue to place her above the Bulibasha? Above even family?

— Ramona, I hear the mission bells above –

I can never hear that song without thinking of my Grandmother Ramona and her great love story. Nor can I ever dissociate it from those times in the 1950s when the Waipaoa River so ruled our lives. The sound of the river is like a cry in my soul — aroha, aroha — and I know that both Glory and I will love the river until we die. And my father is right. It is the sweetest-tasting water in the world.

Everybody accepted my decision about where Grandmother should be buried, though not all agreed with it. I suppose this must be Bulibasha’s last laugh on me. I can just imagine him up there, chortling his head off and saying, ‘So you’re the leader now, Himiona? See if you can do better.’

And the decision? I’ll let you work it out for yourself, though I’ll give you a clue. It has become yet another reason why, today, the Mahana and Poata families are still fighting each other.