Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider

‘No wai te he?’ he shouted. ‘Where lies the blame?’

And the seagulls caught his words within their claws and screamed and echoed the syllables overhead.

When we turned back to the station wagon I saw Kahu’s white face, so still against the window.

‘This is a sign to us,’ Koro Apirana said again.

We turned off the Main Highway and onto the road to Whangara. It was so dark that I switched the headlights on full. I looked up at that illuminated cloud. I had the strangest feeling that its centre was just above the village. I felt a rush of fear and was very glad when Whangara came into sight.

Whangara must be one of the most beautiful places in the world, like a kingfisher’s nest floating on the water at summer solstice. There it was, with church in the foreground and marae behind, silhouetted against the turbulent sea. And there was Paikea, our eternal sentinel, always vigilant against any who would wish to harm his descendants. Caught like this, the village was a picture of normality given the events that were to come.

I drove up to the homestead.

‘Kahu, you help take Koro’s bags inside,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll take you and Daddy home. Okay?’

Kahu nodded. She put her arms around her grandfather and said again, ‘It’s all right, Paka. Everything will be all right.’

She picked up a small flight bag and carried it up onto the verandah. We were all getting out of the wagon and climbing towards her when, suddenly, the wind died away.

I will never forget the look on Kahu’s face. She was gazing out to sea and it was as if she was looking back into the past. It was a look of calm, of acceptance. It forced us all to turn to see what Kahu was seeing.

The land sloped away to the sea. The surface of the water was brilliant green, blending into dark blue and then a rich purple. The illuminated cloud was seething above one place on the horizon.

All of a sudden there was a dull booming from beneath the water, like a giant door opening a thousand years ago. At the place below the clouds the surface of the sea shimmered like gold dust. Then streaks of blue lightning came shooting out of the sea like missiles. I thought I saw something flying through the air, across the aeons, to plunge into the marae.

A dark shadow began to ascend from the deep. Then there were other shadows rising, ever rising. Suddenly the first shadow breached the surface and I saw it was a whale. Leviathan. Climbing through the pounamu depths. Crashing through the skin of sea. And as it came, the air was filled with streaked lightning and awesome singing.

Koro Apirana gave a tragic cry, for this was no ordinary beast, no ordinary whale. This whale came from the past. As it came it filled the air with its singing.

Its companions began to breach the surface also, orchestrating the call with unearthly music.

The storm finally unleashed its fury and strength upon the land. The sea was filled with whales and in their vanguard was their ancient battle-scarred leader.

On the head of the whale was the sacred sign. A swirling tattoo, flashing its power across the darkening sky.

I zoomed on my bike through the night and the rain, rounding the boys up. ‘I’m sorry, boys,’ I said to them as I yanked them out of bed, ‘we’re needed again.’

‘Not more whales,’ they groaned.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But this is different boys, different. These whales are right here in Whangara.’

Koro Apirana had issued his instructions to Porourangi and me. We were to gather up the boys and all the available men of the village, and tell them to come to the meeting house. And we were to hurry.

‘Huh?’ Nanny Flowers had said in a huff. ‘What about us women! We’ve got hands to help.’

Koro Apirana smiled a wan smile. His voice was firm as he told her, ‘I don’t want you to interfere, Flowers. You know as well as I do that this is sacred work.’

Nanny Flowers bristled. ‘But you haven’t got enough men to help. You watch out. If I think you need the help, well, I shall change myself into a man. Just like Muriwai.’

‘In the meantime,’ Koro Apirana said, ‘you leave the organising to me. If the women want to help, you tell them to meet you in the dining room. I’ll leave them to you.’

He kissed her and she looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I say again,’ she warned, ‘I’ll be like Muriwai if I have to. Kahu, also, if she has to be.’

‘You keep Kahu away, e Kui,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘She’s of no use to me.’

With that he had turned to Porourangi and me. As for Kahu, she was staring at the floor, resigned, feeling sorry for herself.

Together, we had all watched the whale with the sacred sign plunging through the sea towards us. The attending herd had fallen back, sending long undulating calls to the unheeding bull whale, which had propelled itself forcefully onto the beach. We had felt the tremor of its landing. As we watched, fearfully, we saw the bull whale heaving itself by muscle contraction even further up the sand. Then, sighing, it had rolled onto its right side and prepared itself for death.

Five or six elderly females had separated from the herd to lie close to the bull whale. They sang to it, attempting to encourage it back to the open sea where the rest of the herd were waiting. But the bull whale remained unmoving.

We had run down to the beach. None of us had been prepared for the physical size of the beast. It seemed to tower over us. A primal psychic force gleamed in its swirling tattoo. Twenty metres long, it brought with it a reminder of our fantastic past.

Then, in the wind and the rain, Koro Apirana had approached the whale. ‘Oh sacred one,’ he had called, ‘greetings. Have you come to die or to live?’ There was no reply to his question. But we had the feeling that this was a decision which had been placed in our hands. The whale had raised its giant tail fin:

That is for you to decide.

It was then that Koro Apirana had asked that the men gather in the meeting house.

Outside there was wind and rain, lightning and thunder. The lightning lit up the beach where the stranded whale was lying. Far out to sea the whale herd waited, confused. Every now and then one of the elderly females would come to comfort the ancient whale and to croon its love for him.

Inside the stomach of the meeting house there was warmth, bewilderment, strength and anticipation, waiting to be soldered into a unity by the words of our chief, Koro Apirana. The sound of the women assembling in the dining room under Nanny Flowers’ supervision came to us like a song of support. As I shut the door to the meeting house I saw Kahu’s face, like a small dolphin, staring out to sea. She was making her mewling noise.

Koro Apirana took us for prayers. His voice rose and fell like the sea. Then he made his greetings to the house, our ancestors, and the tribe gathered inside the house. For a moment he paused, searching for words and began to speak.

‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘there are not many of us. I count twenty-six —’

‘Don’t forget me, Koro,’ a six-year-old interjected.

‘Twenty-seven, then,’ Koro Apirana smiled, ‘so we all have to be one in body, mind, soul and spirit. But first we have to agree on what we must do.’ His voice fell silent. ‘To explain, I have to talk philosophy and I never went to no university. My university was the school of hard knocks —’

‘That’s the best school of all,’ someone yelled.

‘So I have to explain in my own way. Once, our world was one where the Gods talked to our ancestors and man talked with the Gods. Sometimes the Gods gave our ancestors special powers. For instance, our ancestor Paikea’ — Koro Apirana gestured to the apex of the house — ‘was given power to talk to whales and to command them. In this way, man, beasts and Gods lived in close communion with one another.’