Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

Suddenly, my lessons with Koro came flooding back into my memory. Hadn’t he told me about the Dolphin ?

‘When Europeans arrived in the South Pacific,’ Koro had said, ‘Tupaea must have known that the Maohi world would be changed forever. But for good or evil? There was amazement at first when the Dolphin arrived, but then Maohi — and Tupaea and his queen Purea also — realised that Captain Wallis and his crew on the Dolphin had come to conquer, and they retaliated against the invader. Of course the Dolphin was a gunship, but Tupaea and Purea weren’t to know that. It wasn’t until the battle at Matavai Bay, on the north coast of Tahiti, that they witnessed the full and lethal power of the Dolphin ’s guns.

‘They sent out three hundred canoes, carrying some two thousand men onto the water. “Attack!” Tupaea ordered. That’s when the Dolphin ’s great guns were brought into action with a savage twenty-four-gun broadside, and another and another. Within minutes bodies filled the bay, turning the sea blood red, and there were more deaths as further broadsides were aimed at the shore where thousands of spectators had gathered.

‘“What is this death-dealing aitua,” Purea asked Tupaea, “that can cut our great canoes in half as if they are just floating sticks of wood? Look how it roars and, immediately, people fall around us.”’

Listening to Mrs Miller, I was almost bursting out of my skin. I wanted to tell her that I knew the story.

‘Another expedition was planned under the joint auspices of the Admiralty and the Royal Society,’ she continued, ‘and James Cook was chosen to lead it. He was given command of the Endeavour .’ She began to point out on a map the incredible voyage from Plymouth. Then she said the words that made me sit bolt upright:

‘Cook established his observatory at Matavai Bay, where the Dolphin had anchored three years earlier. He stayed for almost two months, waiting for the transit, and unlike Captain Wallis of the Dolphin he was able to make friendly relations with the Tahitians. Among them was a Polynesian sailor called Tupaea, who joined him on board the Endeavour . After the Transit of Venus was observed, Tupaea sailed with Cook to New Zealand.’

Tupaea a sailor?

And he joined Cook on the Endeavour ?

I couldn’t help myself. ‘That can’t be right,’ I said.

That night, I rang Uawa. Nan Esther answered the telephone. ‘Can I speak to Koro?’ I asked.

I was very cross and embarrassed, having tried to explain to the class about our family story of Tupaea — and being laughed at when I insisted he arrived in New Zealand on his own waka.

‘I thought Tupaea came to Aotearoa on the Hotu ,’ I said. ‘You never, ever told me our ancestor came with James Cook, on the Endeavour . Why not?’

‘James Cook?’ Koro replied, as blithe as a bird. ‘Tupaea didn’t come with James Cook. James Cook came with him!’

Couldn’t Koro understand? My ancestor had just been blown out of the water.

Ah well, blame it on my vivid imagination.

I’d assumed that straight after the battle of Matavai Bay, Tupaea had sped back to Mahaiatea, on the south coast. Dismayed by what he’d seen of the Dolphin ’s death-dealing powers, he’d embarked on a desperate mission: he must, for the second time, save ’Oro and protect him unto death.

Tupaea hastened up the steps of the sacred pyramid and there, under a swollen moon, removed the ironwood cylinder and royal loincloth, spiriting them on board the Hotu . Escaping under the cloak of night, he soon had the outrigger skimming like an America’s Cup yacht over the jagged reef. No wonder they pinched the design.

Quickly, quickly now, for the white strangers must be close behind! Already the Dolphin had opened fire, its shells falling closer and closer.

But Hotu surged ahead, into the cloak of night. Relieved, Tupaea looked up at the million stars strewn across the night heavens. Where could he go?

To the farthest ends of the earth, the land at the bottom of the world.

Yes! He would seek the sacred seaway that had long ago been cut to Aotearoa. Surely, there, among ’Oro’s fiercest worshippers, the God would find sanctuary.

As it happened, Koro was due to visit Wellington for a few days, because here’s the thing: although he stopped telephoning, he began visiting.

‘If the maunga can’t come from Wellington to visit Mohammed,’ he said, ‘Mohammed will have to go to the maunga.’

Every five or six weeks Nan Esther drove him from Uawa to Gisborne, where he boarded the cheap early-morning flight to the capital. He generally stayed for three or four days, as long as his job at the Maori Land Court allowed him.

‘We just have to go along with it,’ Mum said when the visits started. ‘Goodness knows, Pa must have a lot of leave owing. And he loves you, Little Tu,’ she added, looking at me, ‘and he pines for you.’

Actually, I never found Koro’s visits a burden; I looked forward to seeing him. The problem was, though, that as our flat only had two bedrooms Mum said I had to give up my bed for him.

‘Don’t do that,’ Koro told her. ‘We can bunk in together. It will be like a sleepover, eh moko, and we can talk all night if we want to.’

Well, though I wasn’t keen to share a bed with my grandfather, things have a habit of working out. Although Koro complained on his first visit about my snoring there was something really nice and comforting about nodding off to the sound of his voice, like surging waves coming across the midnight sea.

I almost blotted my copybook, however, on a subsequent visit. Dad had gone to collect Koro from the airport, and they were coming up the zigzag steps when Mum gave a small scream. ‘Quick,’ she said, ‘you forgot to take that red feather off your Arnie poster and put it in the wakahuia.’

She was referring to its more appropriate location in the small carved box which we kept in the sitting room on what I called ‘The Altar’, the ledge above the fireplace, where it was surrounded by family photographs.

The reason I had forgotten to remove the feather was that the poster was no longer Arnie looking like a mean Red Indian dude but Tupaea looking like Arnie. I was almost tempted to leave the feather there.

No, perhaps not. Not yet.

I was surfing after school with Horse and Bilbo when Koro arrived.

Mum had told him where to find me, and he caught a taxi to Lyall Bay where we were sitting on our surf boards, waiting for waves just beyond the causeway. The planes were soaring from the airport, close by, into the wild blue yonder. Although I was more focused on my studies, I’d never lost the wonderment of a Uawa schoolkid pressing his nose hard up against the window, except now I was watching planes, not cars and buses.

When I saw Koro get out of the taxi and pay the driver, I felt a rush of joy and told my mates, ‘I’m going in now. See ya.’ Although he was wearing a hat and three-piece suit, Koro took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers. He couldn’t wait for me to come ashore and waded out to his knees. ‘Still got some leave left, I see,’ I said.

He laughed, embraced me as if we hadn’t seen each other for centuries, and then appraised me. ‘What’s happening to you? You look a different boy. Where’s my skinny mokopuna gone? Well, whoever you are, are your Maohi ancestors speaking to you today? They were riding on surf boards, too, when Cook arrived in Tahiti.’

‘Yeah,’ I said sarcastically, ‘just before Tupaea joined him and c-came to New Zealand on the Endeavour , eh Koro.’