Witi Ihimaera: The Parihaka Woman

‘Parihaka continued to grow and I grew up with it, leaving childhood behind. Apart from farm, forest and fishing teams we also had village officials, kitchen workers and maintenance staff. Teams regularly swept the pathways, collected the rubbish every day, kept the drains clear and cleaned the latrines. We still had scouts patrolling our perimeters but, now, we also had our own police! They were on duty day and night ensuring law and order. You don’t think that Parihaka became a great citadel by accident, do you?

‘I was so proud of Huhana. She was appointed the kai karanga, the strong-voiced woman, who would call us all awake before first light. She would call again at the end of the day to finish our labours.

‘Meanwhile, the refugees always brought news of what was happening in the rest of Taranaki. One of them sought me out.

‘“Are you Erenora? I have a message for you from Horitana.”

‘My heart skipped a beat. “How is he?”

‘“He is alive and still fighting,” was the answer.

‘“Where is he?” I asked.

‘“He is now defending the land with Titokowaru’s guerrilla army.”’

Ah, Titokowaru.

All you have to do is mention the name and Maori throughout Aotearoa will recognise it as belonging to one of the greatest warrior prophets our world has ever known. He was perhaps seven or eight years older than Te Whiti and, like him, as a young man had become a Christian of the Methodist persuasion. The four prophets — Te Whiti, Tohu, Titokowaru and Te Ua Haumene — created an astounding Old Testament framework for Maori in Taranaki.

Titokowaru’s warrior ways began when, along with everyone else, he took up the fight against the Pakeha’s continuing predations upon our land. Under military provocation, he led a raiding party near New Plymouth in protest. From that time onward, he became a dreaded presence, waging an increasing number of attacks against the Pakeha in the lands south-west of Parihaka.

You can’t pinpoint Titokowaru. He was both civilised and savage, peacemaker and rebel. He bestrode both the spiritual and temporal worlds. He was a man about whom Maori wove legends, but he was not invincible. At his army’s assault on Sentry Hill in April 1864, a Pakeha bullet took the sight from the old leader’s right eye. It was Horitana who, along with Titokowaru’s lieutenants, treated the wound. From that moment, the young man became like a favoured son to the great chief.

While Te Whiti was raising Parihaka, Titokowaru was rebuilding Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, just north of the Waingongoro River. Sixty houses were centred on an imposing marae in front of the awe-inspiring meeting house called Wharekura. Like Te Whiti, Titokowaru wanted to live in peace. The trouble was that his lands, too, continued to be encroached upon by Pakeha and, in 1868, his defining moment arrived.

And all his previous military actions paled against what was to come: the campaign known in history as Titokowaru’s War.

For two years, Pakeha New Zealand trembled before Titokowaru’s military genius and brilliance. The narrative of his army’s astonishing field tactics, fought with a blend of intelligence and savagery, makes the hair stand on end; and Horitana fought with him in five do-or-die campaigns.

Historian James Belich describes the encounters in this way:

At the outset, the odds against Titokowaru were immense, twelve to one in fighting men, and the chances of victory minuscule. Yet Titokowaru and his people destroyed one colonist army (at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu on 7 September 1868); comprehensively defeated another (at Moturoa on 7 November 1868); and scored several lesser victories (including Turuturumokai on 12 June 1868, and Te Karaka and Otautu on 3 February and 13 March 1869). Their least successful tactical performance was a drawn out battle at Te Ngutu-ote-manu on 21 August 1868, and it could be argued that even this was a strategic success.[3] James Belich, ‘Titokowaru, Riwha — Biography’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , updated 18 April 2010.

Belich goes on to point out that at Turuturumokai, on 7 September 1868, Titokowaru deployed his fearless lieutenants against the best that the Pakeha military could offer; it was at this same battle that the great Prussian general, Gustavus von Tempsky, fell.

What a life von Tempsky had lived. Adventurer, artist and newspaper correspondent, he had fought twice in Central America, mined gold in California and Australia and, in New Zealand, his name was attached to the Forest Rangers. So great was his mana that when he was killed both Pakeha and Maori honoured him.

Titokowaru’s victories ‘brought the colony to its knees’, Belich says. However, inexplicably, the tide turned against the warrior prophet. At Tauranga-ika he built a fortress — but his own army abandoned it before any attack by colonial troops. Some people say that he fell out of favour with whatever gods supported him; as easily offended as any of the Greek deities of Olympus, they lightly tapped his knees and his stride began to falter. What was the reason? Nobody knows. But soon, with £1,000 on his head, Titokowaru was on the run. His followers melted away from him and by the time he returned to his homelands in 1871, he was a different man. He was older and less turbulent in his ways. With his own dream fading, he established a close liaison with Te Whiti and Tohu and their dreams at Parihaka.

Meantime, Parihaka had, indeed, become a sanctuary. And Erenora was a young woman now, certainly no longer a girl.

‘As young as I was, I had become a good teacher. I loved the children and enjoyed teaching them the English language, knowing it would enable them to converse with Pakeha and understand European ways.

‘My greatest thrill, however, was taking time off from my teaching duties to help the men break in the bullocks so that they would accept the yoke of the plough and pull the scythe cleanly through the dirt. With so much acreage to plough, the village needed good teams of strong, obedient beasts and, for some reason, I was able to calm their fears. I would stroke them, saying, “Thank you for being our beloved companions on our journey through the vale of the world. Will you not continue to be partners with us as we go further together?” Then I would introduce them to the yoke and command them, “Pull now.”

‘Huhana wasn’t too sure how to take my masculine habits. “Oh, Erenora!” she would sigh, “I don’t know what to make of you! And if I feel this way, you must be a puzzle to the young men too!” I think that was why she began to get a bit more persistent in pushing me, and, to a lesser extent, Ripeka and Meri, towards attachments with suitable male candidates. “We need men in our family,” she would chastise me, “and babies for the future.”

‘My sisters were not backward in taking up our mother’s prodding, especially Ripeka, who loved flirting. I might not have been as pretty as them but I wasn’t without suitors. None of the boys, however, like one called Te Whao, were at all desirable to me — and some of them couldn’t even plough a straight line.’

Then, in the summer of 1873, when Erenora was seventeen, while she and her sisters were carrying calabashes of water from the stream they heard someone coming towards them. As the stranger drew nearer, they saw that it was a young man. Around him a few excited tataraki’i were buzzing.

He happened upon Ripeka first, no doubt because she had seen him approaching and wanted to flirt accidentally on purpose. But she wasn’t fast enough in pretending to slip and fall at his feet because Erenora felt his shadow cutting the sunlight across her path. One moment the sun had been hot and spinning, the next, Erenora was shivering, not because of the sudden eclipse of the light but because she knew her destiny had arrived.