The Whale Rider

by Witi Ihimaera

  Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

  Let it be done.

  sixteen

  Yes, people in the district vividly remember the stranding of the whales because television and radio brought the event into our homes that evening. But there were no television cameras or radio newsmen to see what occurred in Whangara the following night. Perhaps it was just as well, because even now it all seems like a dream. Perhaps, also, the drama enacted that night was only meant to be seen by the tribe and nobody else. Whatever the case, the earlier stranding of whales was merely a prelude to the awesome event that followed, an event that had all the cataclysmic power and grandeur of a Second Coming.

  The muted thunder and forked lightning the day before had advanced quickly across the sea like an illuminated cloud. We saw it as a great broiling rush of the elements; with it came the icy cold winds hurled from the Antarctic.

  Nanny Flowers, Kahu and I were watching the weather anxiously. We were at the airport, waiting for the flight bringing Koro Apirana and Porourangi back to us. Suddenly there was the plane, bucking like an albatross, winging ahead of winds which heralded the arrival of the storm. It was as if Tawhirimatea was trying to smash the plane down to earth in anger.

  Koro Apirana was pale and upset. He and Nanny Flowers were always arguing, but this time he was genuinely relieved to see her. ‘Oh, wife,’ he whispered as he held her tightly.

  ‘We had a hard time down South,’ Porourangi said, trying to explain Koro’s agitation. ‘The land dispute was a difficult one and I think that Koro is worried about the judge’s decision. Then when he heard about the whales, he grew very sombre.’

  The wind began to whistle and shriek like wraiths.

  ‘Something’s going on,’ Koro Apirana whispered. ‘I don’t know what it is. But something —’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kahu soothed. ‘It will be all right, Paka.’

  We collected the suitcases and ran out to the station wagon. As we drove through the town the illuminated cloud seemed always to be in front of us, like a portent.

  Even before we reached Wainui Beach we could smell and taste the Goddess of Death. The wind was still lashing like a whip at the landscape. The car was buffeted strongly, and Nanny Flowers was holding on to her seat belt nervously.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kahu said. ‘There, there, Nanny.’

  Suddenly, in front of the car, I could see a traffic officer waving his torch. He told us to drive carefully as earth-moving machinery was digging huge trenches in the sand for the dead whales. Then he recognised me as one of the people who had tried to help. His smile and salute were sad.

  I drove carefully along the highway. On our right I could see the hulking shapes of the graders, silhouetted against the broiling sky. Further down the beach, at the ocean’s edge, were the whales, rocked by the surge and hiss of the sea. The whole scene was like a surreal painting, not nightmarish, but immensely tragic. What had possessed the herd to be so suicidal? The wind hurled sand and mud at the windscreen of the station wagon. We watched in silence.

  Then, ‘Stop,’ Koro Apirana said.

  I stopped the station wagon. Koro Apirana got out. He staggered against the onslaught of the wind.

  ‘Leave him,’ Nanny Flowers said. ‘Let him be with the whales by himself. He needs to mourn.’

  But I was fearful of Koro’s distraught state. I got out of the car too. The wind was freezing. I walked over to him. His eyes were haunted. He looked at me, uncomprehending.

  ‘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.

  Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai.

  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.

  Karanga mai, karanga mai,

  karanga mai.

  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 ke
ep 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.’

  Koro Apirana took a few thoughtful steps back and forward.

  ‘But then,’ he continued, ‘man assumed a cloak of arrogance and set himself up above the Gods. He even tried to defeat Death, but failed. As he grew in his arrogance he started to drive a wedge through the original oneness of the world. In the passing of Time he divided the world into that half he could believe in and that half he could not believe in. The real and the unreal. The natural and supernatural. The present and the past. The scientific and the fantastic. He put a barrier between both worlds and everything on his side was called rational and everything on the other side was called irrational. Belief in our Maori Gods,’ he emphasised, ‘has often been considered irrational.’

  Koro Apirana paused again. He had us in the palms of his hands and was considerate about our ignorance, but I was wondering what he was driving at. Suddenly he gestured to the sea.

  ‘You have all seen the whale,’ he said. ‘You have all seen the sacred sign tattooed on its head. Is the tattoo there by accident or by design? Why did a whale of its appearance strand itself here and not at Wainui? Does it belong in the real world or the unreal world?’

  ‘The real,’ someone called.

  ‘Is it natural or supernatural?’

  ‘It is supernatural,’ a second voice said.

  Koro Apirana put up his hands to stop the debate. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it is both. It is a reminder of the oneness which the world once had. It is the birth cord joining past and present, reality and fantasy. It is both. It is both,’ he thundered, ‘and if we have forgotten the communion then we have ceased to be Maori.’

  The wind whistled through his words. ‘The whale is a sign,’ he began again. ‘It has stranded itself here. If we are able to return it to the sea, then that will be proof that the oneness is still with us. If we are not able to return it, then this is because we have become weak. If it lives, we live. If it dies, we die. Not only its salvation but ours is waiting out there.’

  Koro Apirana closed his eyes. His voice drifted in the air and hovered, waiting for a decision.

  ‘Shall we live? Or shall we die?’

  Our answer was an acclamation of pride in our tribe.

  Koro Apirana opened his eyes. ‘Okay then, boys. Let’s go down there and get on with it.’

  Porourangi gave the orders. He told the men that they were to drive every available truck, car, motorbike or tractor down to the bluff overlooking the sea and flood the beach with their headlights. Some of the boys had spotlights which they used when hunting opossums; these, also, were brought to the bluff and trained on the stranded whale. In the light, the whale’s tattoo flared like a silver scroll.

  Watching from the dining room, Nanny Flowers saw Koro Apirana walking around in the rain and got her wild up. She yelled out to one of the boys, ‘Hoi, you take his raincoat to that old paka. Thinks he’s Super Maori, ne.’

  ‘What are they doing, Nanny?’ Kahu asked.

  ‘They’re taking all the lights down to the beach,’ Nanny Flowers answered. ‘The whale must be returned to the sea.’

  Kahu saw the beams from the headlights of two tractors cutting through the dark. Then she saw her father, Porourangi, and some of the boys running down to the whale with ropes in their hands.

  ‘That’s it, boys,’ Koro Apirana yelled. ‘Now who are the brave ones to go out in the water and tie the ropes around the tail of our ancestor? We have to pull him around so that he’s facing the sea. Well?’

  I saw my mate, Billy, and volunteered on his behalf.

  ‘Gee thanks, pal,’ Billy said.

  ‘I’ll take the other rope,’ Porourangi offered.

  ‘No,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘I need you here. Give the rope to your brother, Rawiri.’

  Porourangi laughed and threw the rope to me. ‘Hey, I’m not your brother,’ I said.

  He pushed me and Billy out into the sea. The waves were bitingly cold and I was greatly afraid because the whale was so gigantic. As Billy and I struggled to get to the tail all I could think of was that if it rolled I would be squashed just like a nana. The waves lifted us up and down, up and down, up into the dazzle of the lights on the beach and down into the dark sea. Billy must have been as frightened of the whale as I was because he would say, ‘Excuse me, koro,’ whenever a wave smashed him into the side of the whale, or, ‘Oops, sorry koro.’

  ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ Koro Apirana yelled from the beach, ‘We haven’t much time. Stop mucking around.’

  Billy and I finally managed to get to the tail of the whale. The flukes of the whale were enormous, like huge wings.

  ‘One of us will have to dive underneath,’ I suggested to
Billy, ‘to get the ropes around.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Billy said. He was hanging on for dear life.

  There was nothing for it but to do the job myself. I took three deep breaths and dived. The water was churning with sand and small pebbles and I panicked when the whale moved. Just my luck if it did a bundle, I thought. I sought the surface quickly.

  ‘You’re still alive,’ Billy shouted in triumph. I passed the two ropes to him. He knotted them firmly and we fought our way back to the beach. The boys gave a big cheer. I heard Billy boasting about how he had done all the hard work.

  ‘Now what?’ Porourangi asked Koro Apirana.

  ‘We wait,’ said Koro Apirana, ‘for the incoming tide. The tide will help to float our ancestor and, when he does we’ll use the tractors to pull him around. We will only have the one chance. Then once he’s facing the sea we’ll all have to get in the water and try to push him out.’

  ‘We could pull him out by boat,’ I suggested.

  ‘No, too dangerous,’ Koro replied. ‘The sea is running too high. The other whales are in the way. No, we wait. And we pray.’

  Koro Apirana told Billy and me to get out of our wet clothes. We hopped on my motorbike and went up to the homestead to change. Naturally, Nanny Flowers with her hawk eyes saw us and came ambling over to ask what was happening down on the beach.

  ‘We’re waiting for the tide,’ I said.

  I thought that Nanny Flowers would start to growl and protest about not being involved. Instead she simply hugged me and said, ‘Tell the old paka to keep warm. I want him to come back to me in one piece.’

  Then Kahu was there, flinging herself into my arms. ‘Paka? Is Paka all right?’

  ‘Yes, Kahu,’ I said.

  ‘There, there,’ Kahu said to Nanny Flowers. ‘They’ll be all right.’