Witi Ihimaera - The Parihaka Woman

Te Whiti was accustomed to Erenora saying her piece. He winked at Horitana, who kicked his wife under the table, but she would not heed him.

‘And it is not only the w’enua — cultivations, burial grounds, villages or grass seed crops — that’s at risk,’ she continued. ‘There’s also the danger to our w’akapapa, for it is the umbilical cord between the past and the present which is being shredded by the surveyors’ lines. If Pakeha continue to do that, the enriching blood of the pito, the afterbirth, will drain away and what therefore will give life to the generations yet to come?’

The prophet smiled at her as he finished his stew. ‘Maybe you should be the one to go out and stop the surveyors?’

Erenora coloured, a little embarrassed, but Te Whiti patted her hand. ‘Kei te pai, Erenora, your words are food for thought.’ He pondered them, and then turned to Horitana again. ‘I do not want you to take weapons with you. You are not to use arms against the surveyors.’

‘How will I be able to get them to stop?’ Horitana asked. ‘What if they fire on us?’

‘Let them do what they do,’ Te Whiti answered. ‘I am telling you what we do. The land is ours and I do not admit their right to survey it. You will find a way.’

The next morning, Horitana selected his squad. The rain had stopped but the clouds were hanging heavy in the sky. The group of men was large, perhaps seventy, including Paora and Riki and others like Te Whao, Ruakere, Rangiora and Whata.

Meri was unhappy that Horitana had chosen Riki. Swollen with child, she needed him. As the men rode out, she shouted after him, ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’

Ripeka elbowed her impishly. ‘You should talk,’ she said.

Meri was still upset. ‘Horitana should never have picked Riki,’ she said to Erenora. ‘If anything happens to him, it will be your husband’s fault.’

But, as it happened, when the squad had their first encounter with the surveyors, Horitana won the day because of the intimidating number of men with him. He had also decided, in talking to the surveyors, to try not to provoke, but to use reason and be firm.

The squad rode up to one of the surveyor camps, and Horitana called for the chief surveyor, a Mr Charles Finnerty. ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘you and your men are trespassing. We have therefore come to pull up your survey pegs, take down your theodolites and …’ with a twinkle in his eye ‘… if you would be so good as to dismantle your tents, we shall escort you safely back to your land.’

The surveyors may have objected but they were also obedient. It was all very reasonable and done without incident.

Came the dusk, however, and Erenora was in such a nervous state, worrying about the men. She ran with Ripeka and Meri to the road to watch for their return. A phrase in German came to her lips.

‘Ich hab auf Gott und Recht vertrauen,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I trust in God and Right.’

The tataraki’i waited with the women, silent, but when the men appeared, oh, their commotion was deafening. Meri was so melodramatic, running towards Riki and wailing as if he had been away for years. All the women were making a fuss of their men, even Ripeka of her Paora, but Erenora held back. Even though Horitana had brought her a gift of some surveyors’ pegs she said, ‘Husband, you were only doing your job.’

As soon as she said the words, Erenora realised she should have been more forthcoming with her praise. Sometimes, however, her love for Horitana was so huge that rather than show it she limited its expression, especially in public. And Te Whiti was correct that she should have been the one to go out and lead the men: she was as good as any of them.

Later that evening, she saw that Horitana was still hurt by her slight. He excused himself after dinner, went outside with his axe and began chopping the surveyors’ pegs into kindling. Erenora followed and stood watching him. The night sky was immense and full of wheeling constellations. All there was to disturb the silence was the sound of Horitana at work, cutting through the night. After a while he looked at Erenora and smiled shyly. ‘The pegs will make a good fire,’ he said.

‘I’m so glad,’ she answered, ‘that you did your job well, husband, and that you’ve come back to me.’

‘I will always come back to you, Erenora, always,’ he said. ‘Who else do we have in our lives except each other?’

Then followed a long period when, every morning, Erenora and her sisters would farewell their men: ‘’aere ra ki runga o te kaka’u aro’a o te Atua. Go under the cloak of God’s love.’

Erenora had spoken to Horitana about Riki, and, initially, he had commanded him, ‘No, not you, e ’oa.’ But would Riki stay behind? No. ‘Men will always do what they wish,’ Erenora sighed, threading an arm through Meri’s. The women watched the men riding away through the reddening dawn.

During the day Horitana’s squad removed more parties of surveyors. Sometimes they used packhorses and drays so as to quickly and efficiently escort them out of their lands. By nightfall the womenfolk would be waiting eagerly for the men’s return. Nor was Meri’s continuing nervousness any help: ‘Maybe something has happened to them.’ But Erenora would finally see Horitana leading the party back through the twilight and, as always, she continued to try to hide her overwhelming feelings.

Nevertheless, one evening, she asked him, ‘Have you done your job today, husband?’

‘As well as I think my wife would have wanted me to,’ he said with a grin.

Although she wouldn’t admit it, Horitana was the lord of Erenora’s life. She pushed him reprovingly for teasing her, but her heart betrayed her. It thundered with love for him, ka patupatu tana manawa.

How come he could never hear it?

‘Parihaka’s resistance by peaceful means truly began,’ Erenora wrote.

‘During this period, however, the kainga became sanctuary to a man named Wiremu Hiroki who had killed one of the surveyors, a European named McLean.

‘The story is mangled and confused with conflicting accounts of which side was to blame. The dispute began over the killing of pigs owned by Wiremu and escalated into unreason. I will be honest: neither side was faultless. The killing, however, added to settler fears that our peaceful removal of the surveyors was only a prelude to a violent uprising. Wiremu was pursued by a number of different posses, one of them led by his own chief, to take him back to face Pakeha justice. But Te Whiti intervened and offered Wiremu haven. In doing so, however, the prophet appeared to affirm Parihaka as the centre where criminals were gathering to create a growing rebel stronghold.

‘Te Whiti instructed me and Horitana to take Wiremu into our house and, of course, as a Christian I offered him sanctuary. This, even though he was not a person I was inclined to like — but he had been pursued, shot at, and was wounded. What shocked me, however, was that soon after Wiremu’s chief departed, another posse pursuing Wiremu stormed into Parihaka. When I saw them coming I shouted to Meri, “Get into the house.” As usual she disobeyed me and barely managed to move out of the way.’

The posse was led by a fair-haired gentleman, a settler who was a cut above the others. He wore a red riding jacket and black hat and jodhpurs and looked as if he was on a fox hunt; there was a whip on his saddle.

Erenora stepped in front of the horses. ‘Stop,’ she cried. The horses wheeled and bucked, dust swirling from their hooves. The men riding them cursed her, but she stood her ground until Meri was safely to one side.

‘So this is what a Maori kainga looks like,’ the fair-haired gentleman said. ‘It is more modern than I had expected.’ He looked somewhat bored. The hunt for Hiroki had developed around him and he had agreed to lead the posse only because it would provide a diversion in his day.