Witi Ihimaera - The Parihaka Woman

Angrily, Erenora stepped up to him. ‘Where is your search warrant?’ she asked. She looked for Horitana to support her but could not see him.

The gentleman looked at Erenora, bemused. ‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ he smiled. ‘What does a Maori wahine like you know about such things?’ The lilt of his accent was playful and slightly aspirated but, beneath, his intonation was inflected with all the assumptions of his class — May-or-ree wah-hee-nee . ‘Is this where the fox has gone to ground?’ He dismounted and pushed Erenora out of the way.

Her anger mounted as he went from one w’are to the next, walking in as if he owned them, as if he had some divine right. When he tried to enter her own house, however, she stepped into his path and barred his way. ‘This is my w’are. Keep out.’

‘You are annoying me,’ he said. This time, he was not smiling.

‘I will not stand aside and let you invade it without a legal document.’

Erenora’s mission-educated accent gave him pause again, but not for long. His eyes widened at her impertinence and he tried to push past her.

Meri, trying as usual to be helpful, came to her aid. ‘No, Meri,’ Erenora cried, concerned that the settler might hit her. The tataraki’i, seeing Erenora struggling with him, tried to get in between, to protect her. At that moment Horitana spurred his horse along the thoroughfare, leapt from the saddle and joined the tussle. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

But the settler would not back away from the doorway and, with a laugh, Horitana slapped him.

The fair-haired gentleman fell backwards to the ground. When he rose, dusting himself off and rubbing his face, he had become a different person.

‘How dare you put your filthy Maori hands on me ,’ he whispered, his words carefully enunciated. His growing hysteria was all the more frightening for being so contained. And then he caught a glimpse of Wiremu inside Erenora and Horitana’s house and made an assumption that was clearly motivated by the merest visible connection. ‘You were with Hiroki at the time of the murder,’ he accused Horitana.

One of the men in his posse called, ‘They both have a price on their heads for helping Titokowaru.’

The settler strode back to his horse. Erenora thought with relief, He is leaving us . But when he turned to face Erenora and Horitana, he had the whip in his hand.

‘You should never have touched me,’ he said.

The first lash of the whip was aimed at Horitana. It caught him around the legs and he cried out, ‘Aue!’ and fell to the ground. The second lash had an altogether different target, snaking towards Erenora. Had she known, she would have put up her hands to protect herself. And even when she saw the lash approaching she thought, Surely a gentleman would not do that to a woman, even if she were a Maori . But then the whip wrapped itself around her neck and tightened, taking the breath from her. Eyes wide with fear, she backed away but that only made the situation worse, and she was coughing and choking.

She saw Horitana picking himself up and though close to blacking out, retained enough presence of mind to wind herself even tighter into the whip so that the fair-haired gentleman could not use it again. A tug of war began that was somewhat comedic. The settler began to snarl, alarmed that Erenora appeared to possess the greater strength. ‘Let it go, damn you, let it go.’

Horitana realised what Erenora was doing, and he sprang at the Pakeha. ‘You, a man, would whip a woman?’ His neck tendons were popping as he tackled the Pakeha to the dust — and the whip lost its master.

That’s when Erenora unloosed herself from it. Her throat felt on fire as she stumbled away, gasping for air.

Horitana, seeing the settler trying to stand, picked the whip up and used it against its owner. ‘As you do to my wife, I do unto you,’ he cried. No, he had not yet been able to ascend the whirlwind path of Enoch.

One of the lashes caught the settler across the eyes and he called to his men, ‘For God’s sake, help me!’ before falling again to the ground. Another stroke whipped across the planes of his face, the blood beading the skin like moko. But the men were cowards, standing off as Horitana continued to flay their leader, shredding his red riding jacket to the skin beneath. Even when the man attempted to writhe away, Horitana followed, lashing him again and again.

Erenora tried to stop him. She thought, with fear, So this is what it is like when the blood-lust comes upon you . She rushed up to him, grabbing at the whip, her voice hoarse and rasping, ‘Horitana! No …’

Then another voice commanded loudly, ‘Kati. Enough.’

It was Te Whiti. He wrested the whip from Horitana and stopped the song of the lash. For a moment there was silence, except for the groaning of the fair-haired gentleman.

Horitana reached for Erenora, then collapsed at Te Whiti’s feet. ‘Aue, te mamae,’ he sobbed. ‘I am so sorry, rangatira.’

That day marked all three men:

Wiremu would never escape implacable and vengeful justice.

Te Whiti was also marked, for in harbouring Wiremu he gave John Bryce justification for closing Parihaka down.

And Horitana had just made an enemy.

As Erenora watched the fair-haired Pakeha being helped away by his men, she began to feel very afraid. Such men did not like to be humiliated in front of their fellows, least of all by a native.

At some point she knew Horitana would be made to pay.

Before I go any further I need to bring on stage a man whom I have already mentioned in this narrative:

John Bryce, enter, sir, and take your bow.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1833, Bryce arrived with his family in New Zealand in 1840, the same year the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between Maori and Pakeha. As a young man in the 1850s, he bought a farm near Whanganui and also went into local and then national politics until ill health put a temporary stop to his career.

But Bryce was a man on a mission: sort out the Maori and get on with the business of settling Pakeha in New Zealand. During Titokowaru’s War he was a lieutenant in the Kai-Iwi Yeomanry Cavalry Volunteers and, in 1868, his detachment was reported as having successfully attacked Hauhau warriors, killing two and wounding others; some reports actually suggest the ‘warriors’ were unarmed ten- to twelve-year-old boys. He re-entered politics and rose quickly to prominence, mainly because his actions were so swift and effective against Maori opposed to the alienation of their land. Called Honest John by his supporters and, mockingly, King Bryce by his detractors, Bryce became Minister for Native Affairs in 1879, the politician with the highest power over Maori — and he did not hesitate to use it. His face became one of the most recognisable in New Zealand: already large, it was made bigger because of his receding hairline, and the small alert eyes could not hide behind whiskers and beard.

G.W. Rusden found him contemptible. Referring to his earlier life as a dairy farmer he wrote:

The occupation of a cow-herd gives scope for the humane and for the brutal. If the lad be kindly he will reclaim an erring cow in a kindly manner. If he be inhuman he will inflict as much torture as he can by hurling stones at the eyes of the patient beast which unwittingly offends him. His admirers have not cared to record much of Mr. Bryce’s boyish days, but his conduct as Native Minister justifies the inference that he was of the inferior order of cow-boy. [9] Rusden, History , Vol. 3, p. 286.