Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider

The bull whale had become handsome and virile, and he had loved his master. In the early days his master would play the flute and the whale would come to the call. Even in his lumbering years of age the whale would remember his adolescence and his master; at such moments he would send long, undulating songs of mourning through the lambent water. The elderly females would swim to him hastily, for they loved him, and gently in the dappled warmth they would minister to him.

In a welter of sonics, the ancient bull whale would communicate his nostalgia. And then, in the echoing water, he would hear his master’s flute. Straight away the whale would cease his feeding and try to leap out of the sea, as he used to when he was younger and able to speed toward his master.

As the years had burgeoned the happiness of those days was like a siren call to the ancient bull whale. But his elderly females were fearful; for them, that rhapsody of adolescence, that song of the flute, seemed only to signify that their leader was turning his thoughts to the dangerous islands to the south-west.

I suppose that if this story has a beginning it is with Kahu. After all, it was Kahu who was there at the end, and it was Kahu’s intervention which perhaps saved us all. We always knew there would be such a child, but when Kahu was born, well, we were looking the other way, really. We were over at our Koro’s place, me and the boys, having a few drinks and a party, when the phone rang.

‘A girl ,’ Koro Apirana said, disgusted. ‘I will have nothing to do with her. She has broken the male line of descent in our tribe.’ He shoved the telephone at our grandmother, Nanny Flowers, saying, ‘Here. It’s your fault. Your female side was too strong.’ Then he pulled on his gumboots and stomped out of the house.

The phone call was from the eldest grandson, my brother Porourangi, who was living in the South Island. His wife, Rehua, had just given birth to the first great-grandchild of our extended family.

‘Hello, dear,’ Nanny Flowers said into the phone. Nanny Flowers was used to Koro Apirana’s growly ways, although she threatened to divorce him every second day, and I could tell that it didn’t bother her if the baby was a girl or a boy. Her lips were quivering with emotion because she had been waiting for the call from Porourangi all month. Her eyes went sort of cross-eyed, as they always did whenever she was overcome with love. ‘What’s that? What did you say?’

We began to laugh, me and the boys, and we yelled to Nanny, ‘Hey! Old lady! You’re supposed to put the phone to your ear so you can hear!’ Nanny disliked telephones; most times she was so shaken to hear a voice come out of little holes in the headpiece that she would hold the phone at arm’s length. So I went up to her and put the phone against her head.

Next minute, the tears started rolling down the old lady’s face. ‘What’s that, dear? Oh , the poor thing . Oh the poor thing. Oh the poor thing . Oh. Oh. Oh. Well you tell Rehua that the first is the worst. The others come easier because by then she’ll have the hang of it. Yes, dear. I’ll tell him. Yes, don’t you worry. Yes. All right. Yes, and we love you too.’

She put down the phone. ‘Well, Rawiri,’ she said to me, ‘you and the boys have got a beautiful niece. She must be, because Porourangi said she looks just like me.’ We tried not to laugh, because Nanny was no film star. Then, all of a sudden, she put her hands on her hips and made her face grim and went to the front verandah. Far away, down on the beach, old Koro Apirana was putting his rowboat onto the afternoon sea. Whenever he felt angry he would always get on his rowboat and row out into the middle of the ocean to sulk.

‘ Hey ,’ Nanny Flowers boomed, ‘you old paka,’ which was the affectionate name she always called our Koro when she wanted him to know she loved him, ‘Hey!’ But he pretended he didn’t hear her, jumped into the rowboat and made out to sea.

Well, that did it. Nanny Flowers got her wild up. ‘Think he can get away from me, does he?’ she muttered. ‘Well he can’t.’

By that time, me and the boys were having hysterics. We crowded onto the verandah and watched as Nanny rushed down the beach, yelling her endearments at Koro Apirana. ‘You come back here, you old paka.’ Well of course he wouldn’t, so next thing, the old lady scooted over to my dinghy. Before I could protest she gunned the outboard motor and roared off after him. All that afternoon they were yelling at each other. Koro Apirana would row to one location after another in the bay, and Nanny Flowers would start the motor and roar after him to growl at him. You have to hand it to the old lady, she had brains all right, picking a rowboat with a motor in it. In the end, old Koro Apirana just gave up. He had no chance, really, because Nanny Flowers simply tied his boat to hers and pulled him back to the beach, whether he liked it or not.

That was eight years ago, when Kahu was born, but I remember it as if it was yesterday, especially the wrangling that went on between our Koro and Nanny Flowers. The trouble was that Koro Apirana could not reconcile his traditional beliefs about Maori leadership and rights with Kahu’s birth. By Maori custom, leadership was hereditary and normally the mantle of mana fell from the eldest son to the eldest son. Except that in this case, there was an eldest daughter.

‘She won’t be any good to me,’ he would mutter. ‘No good. I won’t have anything to do with her. That Porourangi better have a son next time.’

In the end, whenever Nanny Flowers brought the subject up, Koro Apirana would compress his lips, cross his arms, turn his back on her and look elsewhere and not at her.

I was in the kitchen once when this happened. Nanny Flowers was making oven bread on the big table, and Koro Apirana was pretending not to hear her, so she addressed herself to me.

‘Thinks he knows everything,’ she muttered, tossing her head in Koro Apirana’s direction. Bang , went her fists into the dough. ‘The old paka. Thinks he knows all about being a chief.’ Slap , went the bread as she threw it on the table. ‘He isn’t any chief. I’m his chief,’ she emphasised to me and, then, over her shoulder to Koro Apirana, ‘and don’t you forget it either.’ Squelch , went her fingers as she dug them into the dough.

‘Te mea te mea,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

‘Don’t you mock me ,’ Nanny Flowers responded. Ouch , went the bread as she flattened it with her arms. She looked at me grimly and said, ‘He knows I’m right. He knows I’m a descendant of old Muriwai, and she was the greatest chief of my tribe. Yeah,’ and, Help , said the dough as she pummelled it and prodded it and stretched it and strangled it, ‘and I should have listened to Mum when she told me not to marry him, the old paka,’ she said, revving up to her usual climactic pronouncement.

From the corner of my eye I could see Koro Apirana mouthing the words sarcastically to himself.

‘But this time,’ said Nanny Flowers, as she throttled the bread with both hands, ‘I’m really going to divorce him.’

Koro Apirana raised his eyebrows, pretending to be unconcerned.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Te mea —’

It was then that Nanny Flowers added with a gleam in her eyes, ‘ And then I’ll go to live with old Waari over the hill.’

I thought to myself, Uh oh, I better get out of here , because Koro Apirana had been jealous of old Waari, who had been Nanny Flowers’ first boyfriend, for years. No sooner was I out the door when the battle began. You coward , said the dough as I ducked.