Witi Ihimaera - The Parihaka Woman

‘The tataraki’i leapt aside as my beloved companions trumpeted and put their heads down. Oh, they were so inspiring as they approached the invaders; the barrels of water were falling left, right and centre, and the constabulary scattered. “The road is yours,” I said, as I pulled on the reins of the team before they trampled the men, “but the fences are ours.” I think the labourers and constabulary were more frightened of my pawing beasts than they were of me, but they wisely retreated.

‘That evening, Te Whiti came to see me at my house. I expected him to chastise me for my intemperate action. Instead he said, “You are as bad as your husband.”

‘He told me he had called all the villagers to meet on the marae.’

The space in front of the meeting house was ringed with blazing firelight. The sun had disappeared, and the temperature had plummeted. The villagers huddled in blankets, trying to keep warm.

Huhana smiled at Erenora. ‘We were lucky to get our seeds planted before winter really arrives.’

Te Whiti and Tohu appeared. ‘What are all you people doing sitting out here in the cold?’ Te Whiti joked, stamping his feet and hugging himself. ‘Waiting for me? Then I had better get on with it. It is makariri, freezing.’

The gathering laughed as the prophet got straight down to business. ‘The government has still not proven its right to come onto our land,’ he began. ‘Why have they not stopped their surveying and roadbuilding until the commission reports on its findings? Although it appears that the inquiry is hostile to us we shall, as we always have done, trust to God’s will.’

The people murmured, ‘Ae. Yes.’

‘Thus I say that until God shows us what that will is, we carry on as usual. Tomorrow, let us return to our gardens and put the fences up again where they belong. Kua pai?’

From the people came a strong, deep chorus. ‘Yes, we are agreed.’

James Cowan describes this extraordinary reaction:

The dispute now assumed a new aspect. A party of forty to fifty men, styled the morehu, or ‘survivors’, marched out from Parihaka almost daily, each man carrying a tree-branch, and on arriving at the road where it entered the cultivation on the south side continued to march along the line, reciting an incantation, until within a short distance of the north boundary of the field, close to the Constabulary camp, and back again to the south boundary, where they planted the branches across the road. [15] James Cowan, The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period , 2 Vols Government Printer, 1922–23, Vol. 2, p. 469.

Every morning, the roadbuilders tore the fences down again and pushed on with their road. Came the evenings, however, and while the roadbuilders were asleep, the villagers rebuilt all the fences they had broken. What happened the next day? The constabulary tore those down. So what did the villagers do? Rebuild them again and again.

That’s when Bryce ordered this, on 19 July: ‘Any Maori who puts up a fence that has been taken down by the government will be arrested.’ Why? Surely it was the government that should be arrested for removing the fence in the first place.

‘By now,’ Erenora wrote, ‘the winter had burst upon us, with squally rain sweeping across Parihaka from the sea. No matter the weather, Mr Bryce’s challenge was too much for our men not to accept. They clamoured to work at the fences! Te Whiti and Tohu chose who was to go and many men were disappointed when the prophets didn’t pick them.

‘Just as had happened with the ploughmen, the arrests of the fencers began, but to our amusement, the constabulary could only handle on average four arrests a day. Who were they going to choose from the large groups of fencers sent out by Te Whiti? Our men were calling, “Pick us! Arrest us!” When their colleagues were carted away to New Plymouth by the Armed Constabulary, those who remained turned unimpeded to repair the fences and fill the breach.

‘Mr Bryce had no option but to post more constabulary to the area. The number of arrests increased. The men held vigorously to the pickets and wouldn’t let go. Prised away, they would run back and hold tight to them again. It ceased to be a game for the constabulary. Bad weather made for short-fused tempers. After all, what constable would not want to be drinking beer in the mess with his mates instead of dealing in the cold and wet with Maoris? The invaders began to use batons to smash the men’s fingers: the crunch of wood on delicate bone was terrible to hear. In pain, the men were wrested from the fences, handcuffed in pairs and taken to New Plymouth.

‘Still, they refused to give in. One day, 300 men went out. This time, they resowed with wheat the very road the roadbuilders were constructing.

‘In all this time, Te Whiti and Tohu stayed inside at Parihaka. They knew that Mr Bryce was awaiting any opportunity to arrest them. Cleverly they continued to keep out of his reach.’

It was a deadly war of attrition.

The male population of Parihaka was being depleted. Seeing this, Titokowaru sent warriors to reinforce the numbers of men at the village, but Te Whiti and Tohu would not let them go out to the plantations. ‘This is our fight, not yours,’ the prophets said.

The weather turned nastier. Taranaki was snow-covered. From July to the middle of August — an extraordinary space of six or more weeks — most of Parihaka’s able-bodied men were arrested. One man, almost blind, was released. The prisoners were not deterred by the initial sentence of two years’ hard labour and the threat of continuation.

By the beginning of September, the courts had sentenced 150 to be sent to the South Island. On 4 September, the last fifty-nine able-bodied men and thirty-two boys marched through snow drifts to the fences. The men were arrested.

‘Who was left? Our prophets, yes, and aged tau’eke, old men, women and the tataraki’i. All the rest had been taken away to gaol.

‘It would have been so easy to give up. Everywhere, women were weeping. “What shall we do now?” Ripeka asked me. I thought of Horitana and I looked at her. “We must do our job,” I answered. “Rouse the rest of the wives, but not Meri — she will only get in the way. Tell them it’s our turn now.”

‘The snow still lay on the ground. The women wrapped themselves up against the chill. Te Whiti didn’t try to stop us. Instead he came to watch as I marched with the other wives out to the fences. “Good, Erenora, so the women now act as the men,” he said. “Be resolute, be strong.”

‘The constabulary and the roadbuilders were shocked when we arrived. “What do we do now?” Ripeka asked.

‘“Pick up the broken pickets,” I replied. “Weave them together with flax and build the fences again.”

‘Piharo was among the invaders. “Stop those wah-hee-nee ,” he ordered. He rode towards me, bent down and with his whip nudged my chin up so that he could look at the weals around my neck. Then he tapped his own scars and, smiling gently, said, “We have such pretty decorations, you and I.”

‘It began to hail, the ice stinging our faces. The constabulary cursed as they moved among us. Their body odour was rancid and bitter. Some of the invaders were lascivious, handling our breasts in an obscene manner. “Ignore them,” I ordered. “Keep making a fence.” One man tried to put his hand into Ripeka’s groin. She spat in his face.

‘And then Meri came running to help, almost slipping on the icy ground; Kawa was strapped to her back. “You left me behind,” she rebuked me. “I know you think I’m hopeless, but I’m not entirely useless.”