Beneath the Kauri Tree (The Sea of Freedom Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah Lark

  Lizzie smiled. “You’d like to make it right because you like Kupe,” she responded, “and he’s done a lot for you.”

  Matariki nodded.

  “But you’re not in love with him,” Lizzie asserted, “and you blame yourself for that.”

  Matariki looked at her mother in amazement. How could she know that? It felt good for someone to say it out loud. Matariki bit her lip. She was almost ready to cry.

  Lizzie pulled her daughter onto the sofa next to her and into her arms.

  “Matariki, that’s how it is with love,” she said softly. “You can’t direct it. Sometimes people fall in love with the wrong person and often with someone who doesn’t return their love. And then there’s someone who could love you with all his heart, but you don’t feel anything for him. No one needs to feel guilty about it. Just don’t pretend to him or yourself. You’re doing everything right, Matariki. Don’t worry.”

  “But I’ve never been in love,” said Matariki. “And I really want to be. I’m afraid something’s wrong with me. I—”

  Lizzie could not help herself. As much as she understood the girl, she had to laugh. “Riki, it’ll happen,” she assured her. “Probably right when you least expect it, and when you have no use for it.”

  It would not be all that long before Lizzie’s words would prove true.

  During the journey, Kupe gained respect for Lizzie and Michael. Until then, pakeha had always seemed inept and inflexible. The whites he knew had almost never set foot outside their city, and every little trip necessitated ample preparation. Lizzie, Michael, and Matariki, however, sloughed off civilization as soon as they set out. The former gold miner and the friend of the Maori knew how to build a fire and how to catch fish and hunt. They thought nothing of overnighting in a tent. The tents were new; Michael had purchased one for himself and Lizzie and now two small ones for Matariki and Kupe in Auckland. Cost wasn’t a concern; they bought the highest-quality equipment—Lizzie even complained that they had not rented a covered wagon.

  “We wanted to get to you as quickly as possible, and we thought the roads would be in better condition.”

  The South Island seemed to be ahead of the North Island in that regard, though naturally the gold rush sped up the construction of roads, particularly in Otago. Lizzie and Michael proved themselves true pioneers and Matariki a child of the Ngai Tahu. To Kupe it was embarrassing that they knew more about surviving in his country than he did.

  “Tattooing,” Matariki teased, “doesn’t make the Maori warrior.”

  They left the main road between Auckland and Wellington and turned to the west toward the Tasman Sea. Matariki and Lizzie were overjoyed when the sea came into view.

  “This is where we sailed from, Kahu and I,” Lizzie recounted, sounding almost wistful. Michael gave her a jealous look. “The coast is gorgeous.”

  That was true. The west coast of the North Island was varied: flat bays alternated with sheer cliffs; some beaches had dark sand and others had light; there were rocky sections, though sometimes the fern or mixed forests reached all the way to the sea. The weather was clear, and Mount Taranaki came into view, its snow-capped peak glimmering in the sun.

  “Another piece of land they took away from us,” Kupe said, looking at the mountain, “confiscated during the Taranaki Wars.”

  Lizzie frowned. “Didn’t the government give the mountain back last year?”

  Michael nodded. “Yes, once the settlers discovered the land wasn’t good for anything. The volcano still erupts from time to time. Under those conditions, the settlers could afford to be generous.”

  To Kupe’s amazement, the Drurys showed understanding for the situation of the Maori and their anger toward the white settlers. When he mentioned this, Michael spent half a day giving them an extensive history of Ireland and his people’s struggle for freedom.

  “We know full well what oppression is, my boy,” Michael assured him, and recounted his own banishment to Tasmania for stealing grain during the famine.

  In Kupe’s eyes, Michael had earned points with regard to his mana. “You were a freedom fighter, Mr. Drury?”

  Lizzie smiled to herself. Actually, Michael had been a whiskey bootlegger, and he had taken the grain for illegal distillation so he could use the profits to flee Ireland with his pregnant girlfriend, Kathleen.

  “Is there any freedom fighter who doesn’t have personal motivation?” she asked quietly.

  Matariki, the only one who heard her whispering, shrugged her shoulders. The coastal road led along a beach that reminded her of her favorite cove in Dunedin, and she thought of school and Elizabeth Station. Would her life ever be so simple again? Was anything as it appeared?

  Their first glimpse of Parihaka was the fields alongside an exceptionally well-built and -maintained road. Sweet potatoes and melons, cabbage and grain lined acre after acre.

  “To farm that, you would need hundreds of people,” Kupe marveled.

  “Or very modern plows and other farming equipment,” Michael said. As if to confirm his point, a heavy horse team pulling a massive plow came into view, the driver cultivating new land. The young Maori waved, and Michael returned the greeting. “Or a bit of both,” he added, nodding toward a few women pulling weeds at the edge of a field. “But this here looks grand. If it goes on like this . . . What was this Parihaka originally, anyway, a pa?”

  Kupe shook his head. “Specifically not a fortress,” he said. “An open village. Te Whiti planned it that way. It’s supposed to look inviting, not threatening. Everyone should feel welcome. It—”

  “It was originally planned as a shelter for the people uprooted by the Maori Wars,” Matariki said. She, too, had noted what the students had told them, but she was not enthusiastic about their prophet. “Many were driven out during the land confiscation.”

  “Gathering them here was an act of protest,” Lizzie added. “Te Whiti had to be cautious, another reason surely for the open construction. The pakeha would have seen the construction of a pa as an act of enmity. Here everyone was and still seems rather thin-skinned.”

  And then all four of them fell silent, losing themselves in awe when Parihaka came fully into view.

  “It’s so pretty,” whispered Matariki, who had been determined not to be impressed.

  The village was constructed in a clearing—apparently no one had wanted to chop too many trees. Nature was sacred to the tribes. Past the village, the forest covered low hills. Above them, the majestic peak of Mount Taranaki shone forth. It looked as if the spirits of the mountain watched over the people gathered here. The sea, too, held Parihaka in its embrace, and Waitotoroa Stream provided the settlement with clear water.

  Michael directed his horses on wide, clean streets through town, which consisted, like every Maori village, of common, sleeping, and storage lodges. Some buildings resembled the log cabins of the pakeha whereas others were decorated in the Maori way with intricate carvings. Lizzie recognized two large common lodges in the middle of the village. Carved stylized ferns and big images of the gods testified to the skill of the craftsmen. Small, well-tended gardens surrounded the sleeping lodges. They, too, were properly fenced and very well tended.

  “It’s like the area of the Germans I worked for,” Lizzie said, amazed. She had spent her first few months in New Zealand as a maid in a village occupied by Lower Saxon farmers.

  “Where do we find this wonder-worker, Te Whiti?” Michael asked.

  The village was well populated, though Lizzie noticed it was lacking old people. It was afternoon, and Maori men and women would be in the fields or busy with other work. Typically, children would be lovingly watched by their elders in the village. Here, children were playing, but they were supervised by young women and girls.

  Matariki nervously kept an eye out for overattention to tradition, but the ariki did not have a separate fire and the girls did not wear traditional clothing. Most were dressed in Western clothing—even on the North Island, the Maori had realized that
pakeha clothes were better suited to New Zealand’s climate than the light skirts and shawls of the Polynesians.

  Michael stopped in front of a few women peeling sweet potatoes, and Lizzie asked about Te Whiti.

  “Oh, he’ll be in the fields,” one of the girls answered, smiling. She seemed to be happy Lizzie spoke Maori. “If you’re visitors, you’ll be welcomed in one of the marae. You’re a little early for the gathering. Most probably won’t arrive until tomorrow or the day after. The ariki will speak when the moon waxes round. But please, feel at home, whether or not you speak to one of the chieftains. We are all Parihaka. Anyone will gladly answer your questions.” With that, she pointed the way to the marae in the middle of the village.

  “The people are all very nice,” Matariki said, “and I’m already looking forward to the food. They’re heating the hangi, did you see? I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

  Hangi were traditional earthen ovens, heated with warmed stones, but here, close to Mount Taranaki, they were likely also heated by volcanic activity. One made holes and lowered in meat and vegetables in baskets. After a few hours, the food could be dug back out, fully cooked.

  Kupe could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

  At the marae, a group of girls was turning the common lodge into a guest house, cleaning and laying out mats.

  “You’re early,” this welcome committee also declared. “Most guests come just before the gathering. But we’re happy for you to take part in village life until then. Please forgive us for not greeting everyone with an individual powhiri. If we did, we’d never finish singing and dancing. Up to a thousand guests come to the monthly gatherings.”

  Michael smiled at the girls. “Do I look like I could dance the wero?” he teased them.

  The wero was a war dance belonging to the greeting ceremony. An especially strong warrior performed it, and his movements signaled whether the visitor came in peace.

  “You, no, but he could,” one girl laughed, and pointed to Kupe, smiling flirtatiously at him. “You’re tattooed. That’s rare. Are you a chieftain’s son?”

  “No, I, it’s really more because it’s kitanga.”

  If the girl was surprised by the warrior who could not even pronounce the simple word for “custom” properly, she did not let it show.

  “It’s become fashionable among the Maori again, but I wouldn’t have it done. It hurts terribly. But you know that. You must be very brave.”

  Lizzie noticed that Kupe seemed to like the girl’s flirtation and that Matariki didn’t seem at all jealous.

  Lizzie descended from the carriage. “Kia ora. We’re happy to be here,” she said. “I’m Elizabeth Drury—in Maori, Irihapeti. Originally from London, but I lived with the Ngati Pau, and now we share the wahi of an iwi of the Ngai Tahu.”

  The oldest Maori girl approached her and exchanged hongi, pressing her forehead and nose to Lizzie’s. “Haere mai, Irihapeti. I’m Koria of the Ngati Porou. I hope you do not see an enemy in me.”

  The Ngati Porou were old rivals of the Ngati Pau.

  “I don’t have any enemies,” Lizzie said amiably. “And if I’ve properly understood the spirit of Parihaka, there’s not supposed to be enmity among the individual tribes. Meet my daughter. She is half–Ngati Pau.”

  Matariki beamed at Koria and likewise offered her nose and forehead. “Let’s be friends,” Koria said enthusiastically once the girls had hugged.

  Matariki nodded. “Can I help with anything here?”

  Lizzie picked up a broom. Koria pressed a stack of blankets into Matariki’s hands.

  “You can place one of these on each of the mats. And Pai will show the men where they can unharness the horses.”

  She glanced at Kupe and winked impishly at Matariki. Pai was the girl who had spoken to Kupe about his tattoos and could not take her eyes off him.

  When evening came, quitting time seemed to be its own festival in Parihaka. The people ate and drank, danced and made music, and the guests were naturally made a part of it as was customary among the Maori.

  Matariki enjoyed being with girls her age. They laughed and clapped as she tried to perform the tribal haka of the Ngai Tahu of Tuapeka all alone. Pai clung to Kupe, plying him with food and beer. Lizzie was amused and concerned when she noted that despite Pai’s attention, he had eyes for only Matariki.

  Neither Kupe nor Michael felt excluded because they spoke no, or very little, Maori. Almost all the residents of Parihaka spoke English, many fluently. That confirmed Lizzie’s supposition that the town was not a refugee camp for the displaced of the Maori Wars. It might have begun like that, but now Parihaka was home to young Maori who were unhappy about the pakeha intrusion into their world but did not want to respond with force of arms. Almost every one of them had a story—rarely one as dramatic as Kupe’s—of wandering between the two worlds, which led to the desire to unite in peace.

  “For peace to happen, we must show the pakeha that we’re not stupid savages,” Koria said. “We won’t impress them by dancing a haka, sticking out our tongues, and threatening them with spears. They need to see that we can organize our community, cultivate our land, manage our affairs, and direct our schools—just as they do. We’re not ashamed to adopt things from them, but hopefully they will see that they can also learn something from us.”

  Kupe was excited by this philosophy, and even Matariki seemed impressed. They caught each other slinking around the second marae, next to which there was a small sleeping lodge. They had learned that Te Whiti o Rongomai, the spiritual leader of Parihaka, lived here. It wasn’t long before they spotted a white-bearded man who had a big head topped with dark hair. He wore a pakeha hat and poorly fitting pakeha clothing.

  Te Whiti was talking with two other men. One was his representative, Tohu Kakahi; the other was his friend and relative, Te Whetu. When Matariki stumbled slightly on a rock, she drew the men’s attention, and all three smiled at her. Matariki immediately noticed that Te Whiti was not tattooed, and she found that comforting.

  Over the next few days, the village of Parihaka filled with visitors coming to the meeting, the monthly gathering at which Te Whiti and Te Whetu spoke.

  On the second day, Koria and Pai asked Matariki to sing and dance with them. They lent her a piu-piu skirt and a top, into which the special pattern of Parihaka was woven. Matariki wore it proudly, dancing with the others, though the steps were not yet familiar to her.

  Te Whiti and Tohu Kakahi were rarely seen before the full moon, busy as they were with speaking to the leaders of the various groups and advising them to work together. For the Maori tribes of the North Island, the thought of kingitangai—the unification of all tribes under one king—was not new. With Tawhiao there was a second king in office, and they still found it difficult to see themselves as one people. Te Whiti often had to ease minor strife.

  Koria and the other villagers who spoke fluent English concerned themselves with the visiting pakeha, of whom there were many. Some were sent by the provincial government and the military, and there were journalists too. Others were just enthusiasts, people who were as excited as the young Maori about community life in Parihaka and would gladly have lived there. While pakeha were welcome as visitors, the village belonged to the natives.

  By the day of the meeting, the population had grown by more than a thousand people, and the Drurys noted with respect how the residents mastered this crowd. The cooking houses and bakeries worked double time. Brigades of fishers and hunters went out to ensure provisions. Kupe went with them. He learned how to catch birds in the traditional way with snares, and proudly showed his prey to Matariki.

  “And they even have the spirits on their side,” Lizzie said when they all gathered at sunset to listen to Te Whiti in a clearing in front of the village. “At least those responsible for the weather. Isn’t this light beautiful?”

  Indeed, the sunset tinged the sky and the snow on Mount Taranaki with a symphony of colors. Varied shades of red mingled with oche
r. The sea looked struck by arrows of gold and silver. The waves played with the last light of the sun. Even the dancers and singers, who greeted the visitors at the beginning of the meeting, seemed enchanted. They spoke the traditional prayers, danced their message of peace, and finally, an older woman let out the karanga with impressive fervor. Matariki thought her own attempt to unite the worlds of the gods and people must have sounded blasphemous. Now, however, she felt protected and blessed—and did not even resist when Kupe, moved, reached for her hand.

  Finally, Te Whiti stepped before the crowd, wearing traditional chieftain’s clothing. His ceremonial weapons were simple, and his assistant arranged them unobtrusively beside him. His wool cloak was not half as costly as Kahu Heke’s feather cloak, with which Matariki protected herself from the evening chill.

  Te Whiti, though diminutive, seemed to grow before his audience. He spoke Maori but paused every few sentences so Koria could translate his words into English.

  “My name,” said Te Whiti, “is Te Whiti o Rongomai. I belong to the Patukai, a hapu of the Ngati Tawhirikura. My family has represented for generations the chieftains of our tribe. I, too, was chosen for this, and like every ariki, I am a warrior. I was born and raised to fight, and I was present many times when my people awoke Tumatauenga, the war god, against the invaders who wanted to take our land. I bravely paid homage to that god, but as I shed my blood, doubt stirred within me. Killing is not what the gods had in mind. That’s what our faith tells us, and that’s what the pakeha tell them. Through violence, my friends, nothing good has ever come into this world. Violence changes us, and not for the good. Through violence a foreign force has gained power over us. Through violence we become slaves—slaves of death and the god Tumatauenga. I learned this, friends. I felt this, and I would like to pass this message on to you: Free yourselves from killing and from violence. There is no reason why war should have power over us. Be free. Let peace set you free.”