Sleeps Standing: A Story of the Battle of Orakau

by Ihimaera, Witi

  2.

  Mid­afternoon of 2 April.

  Some people say that no matter where they were, they heard the loud defiant screech, the harsh Kā-ā, kā-ā, repeating across the sky from one end to the other.

  They looked up at the clouds in the otherwise bright sky and saw something supernatural: a magnificent multicoloured forest bird, a kākā, winging through the air like a dream. A huge ghostly dog was in pursuit.

  The dog made a giant leap into the sky and, at the extremity of its ascent, caught the parrot in its teeth. Growling, the dog grabbed the pinions of the kaka’s left wing, savaging the feathers in its teeth, and the kākā, still raging, crashed to earth. There, in the dust, the dog encircled the wounded bird as it kept flailing at its attacker with beak and claw.

  The kākā kept the dog at bay, screaming out Kā-ā, kā-ā.

  The people fell to the ground, praying for Rewi and the chiefly defenders at Ōrākau.

  According to some accounts, the rearguard action involved only a few of the wounded staying in the pā to buy time for the rest to escape.

  The main force of survivors formed up in a wedge, the kawau mārō – the flight of the cormorant formation used so effectively on the battlefield by Maniapoto commanders in past campaigns. Women and children were positioned in the middle of the wedge, with the warriors on the flanks providing protection.

  ‘We must aim for the river,’ Rewi said, referring to the Pūniu. ‘If we get there and make it across, we will be able to escape through the bush. Kua pai? Once we start moving, don’t anybody stop. As long as we move, we stay alive. Make for the aukati, the boundary between Waikato and the King Country. Once we are in the Rohe Pōtae, the British troops will not cross over. That is the agreement we have with the Government. Kua reri tātou, are you all ready? Then let us begin.’

  They decided to make their exit from the northeast corner of the pā. The kawau mārō moved at a steady pace, the warriors calling, ‘Nekeneke, keep together, nekeneke,’ ensuring a tight formation. Well briefed on what to do, the people were disciplined, encouraging one another, and there was no panic.

  Not until they passed through the low grass and emerged into the open on the south side were they seen.

  Then the calls came: ‘The rebels are retreating!’

  Hītiri Te Paerata felt his courage tested when he saw the soldiers. ‘Truly they are the offspring of Tiki,’ he whispered, ‘the heaven-born sons of giants.’

  The defenders fled from the fort that had sustained them. They were soon surrounded by troops and began to swing the butts of their guns like taiaha to clear a path through their attackers. Jabbing, kicking, poking, biting, the kawau mārō picked up speed. Anybody in the way got mowed down.

  Moetū saw the chieftainess Hineatūrama who, when the soldiers shot her partner Rōpata, told her daughter, ‘Go on, Ewa, go.’ But Ewa chose to stay and both women were slain.

  Rewi’s half-brother Te Raore was severely wounded, and so was his lieutenant, Tūpōtahi. The Maniapoto warrior Niketi Pōneke fell, unable to continue, and his proud father, seeing him falter, broke away from the safety of the kawau mārō to comfort his injured son. Holding Niketi in his arms, he began to sing a poroporoaki in farewell. He was unaware of the speedy approach of the mounted cavalry behind him, sabres drawn.

  Exhausted, the old chief Te Paerata refused to run any further. ‘Let me die on my own land,’ he said. He and his son Hone Teri stood holding each other; both were shot and died during the retreat.

  Ahumai Te Paerata, true to her word, wanted to die still defending Ōrākau. When the soldiers entered the pā and found her, she was shot four times and left for dead.

  Simon, listen:

  It was Moetū’s leader Te Haa who spoke urgently to Rewi and then yelled to Moetū, ‘Sleeps Standing, the men and women will entice our pursuers to follow us. The soldiers won’t be as interested in the younger ones. You and Kararaina must lead the nursing mothers, their babies and the children by a different route, and keep running until you are safely away. Crouch down now, let us pass over you, and await your opportunity.’

  The fleeing body of Māori reached a place where the grass was knee-high and the terrain was bumpy. The kawau mārō, its escape cut off by troopers, was whirling around and around, trying to find another way through. The men and women engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the soldiers; meantime, beneath their feet, Kararaina, Ngāpō and Moetū and the two mothers, Tihei and Erana, lay on the smaller children to protect them.

  Patu kept trying to help them, ‘I do it.’

  Then the kawau mārō made a savage shake to left and right, and cleared a passage through: ‘Come on, if it’s us you want, come and get us.’

  It passed over the children, leaving them behind.

  Moetū gathered some of the trampled grass and pulled it over the children. The mothers saw what he was doing and did the same, and Patu soon joined in. The attempt at camouflage might give them some precious seconds.

  The kawau mārō was breaking up, Māori fleeing separately or in small groups towards the river, pursued by the soldiers. Moetū seized his chance. The land sloped away towards the orchards into a small depression out of sight of the fort, and he started to roll like a barrel down the slope. The children quickly caught on and rolled with him, and not until they reached the bottom did they stand up.

  ‘Quick,’ Moetū called to them, ‘we should get away through the trees.’

  He looked back only once. He heard a soldier call ‘Charge’ and saw the Forest Rangers in pursuit of warriors also heading for the orchard. The Rangers were riding at full gallop, sabres drawn, their pistols thundering.

  The children were sighted, too. Tihei’s baby had been hurt in the roll down the slope and cried out, and this attracted attention. Six horsemen turned in pursuit and, children or not, chased them through the orchard. ‘Don’t let any get away.’

  On and on the children ran. The trees became their friends, hindering the horses. Whenever the soldiers came too close, Kararaina would push ahead with Tihei and Erana, the three of them trying to carry not just the babies but the younger children, too, while Moetū and Ngāpō pretended their guns were loaded, aiming so carefully that the horsemen fell back. And when that ruse wouldn’t work anymore, the boys grabbed peach stones from the ground and threw them at the pursuers, trying to make their horses shy.

  The children made it to a huge swamp — and went straight into it. Time was lost in constructing a makeshift walkway out of fallen branches so they could negotiate the boggy terrain. Tihei and Erana, who were taller, waded further out and dragged old logs into place, then helped the children balance their way along them. Only half of the escaping band were on the walkway, the rest were still waiting to clamber onto it when the horsemen came charging again.

  ‘Take off your cartridge belt,’ Moetū yelled at Ngāpō.

  They whirled their belts in the air, startling the horses, several of which reared, unseating their riders.

  ‘Kia tere! Kia tere!’ Tihei cried as Moetū, Ngāpō and Patu followed the others, pulling up the walkway behind them. The remaining horsemen were floundering in the bog, cursing. One of them was trying to cock his weapon.

  He sighted on Moetū.

  In desperation, Erana threw a branch at him: it hit the side of his face just as he was taking aim.

  Click.

  The force of the bullet spun Moetū around and, when the second bullet slammed into him, he fell to the ground.

  ‘No …’

  Simon’s face is filled with grief.

  ‘Don’t cry, boy, don’t weep,’ I say to him.

  And then one of his cousins comes up to Simon, laughing: ‘Come on, cuz, it’s your turn on the karaoke.’ He pulls Simon through the crowd to the stage.

  Simon recovers his equanimity. ‘I was going to sing you blokes “Waltzing Matilda”—’ The crowd laughs, but then they watch as Simon struggles to find something else. It’s a long wait, but then his eyes light up
and shine bright and full of strength: ‘Instead I’ll sing this one and I hope you’ll join in.’

  Well, he’s not much of a singer … How can he be a Māori when he can’t even hold a tune? But, oh, the words to the song are so sweet.

  ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’

  And I look at my moko from the other side of the ditch and think: Yes, Simon, even if our backs should ever be against the wall, we’ll be together, to fight on, eh, all of us.

  Chapter Six

  Moetū’s Great Mission

  1.

  Eh Papa Rua, eh Papa Rua …

  Yes, Simon, I hear you. And when the time comes, tell your son the story of Moetū and the people of Ōrākau.

  I’ve had to get Simon and Amber up early so they’ll be on time to catch their plane. The sun is just tipping the mountains and then, lo, the dawn. The sea and the land begin to breathe nice and easy.

  Not so, me. I am feeling sad that my Ngāti Kangurū moko is hopping away with his girlfriend and that baby in her pouch.

  We pick up Hūhana on the way to the airport. She liked the farewell speech I gave last night and looked at me with a more appreciative stance than usual. ‘I better look to my own laurels,’ she said. ‘As a chief you show promise.’ This morning she has dressed hastily and is wearing her cowboy boots again, good grief.

  While we wait at the terminal, the rest of the whānau begin to turn up, most of them red-eyed and sleepy, hungover from the party last night. ‘Big hugs, big hugs,’ they say to Simon. ‘Let us know when Skippy arrives.’

  He laughs, ‘You mob are merciless.’

  Man oh man, the beer fumes that come off them. ‘You and Amber better watch out,’ Hūhana says, ‘or else you’ll be asphyxiated before you get on the plane.’

  That’s a big word for our kuia to show off with.

  As for me, all I can think of is how long will it be before we see this lost mokopuna again?

  Of course Hūhana has to have the last word. ‘Hang on a minute,’ she says to Simon, ‘I haven’t finished telling you the story of Moetū.’

  ‘Make it quick,’ I tell Hūhana. ‘The boarding call will be made soon.’

  ‘When you look at the figures of the dead or captured that the Pākehā released,’ Hūhana begins, glaring at me, ‘you will not find any mention of the children. That was because Moetū, Kararaina and Ngāpō managed to get them away from the pā.’

  2.

  ‘Moetū,’ Kararaina screamed.

  The horsemen were only ten paces away. The soldier who had been put off his aim by Tihei was cursing her and trying to resight so he could get another shot at Moetū.

  ‘Help me,’ Kararaina called to Tihei and Erana. Moetū was unconscious but still breathing; both bullets had gone straight through his left shoulder. The women handed their babies to Areka and Rāwinia, then carried Moetū between them along the makeshift walkway.

  Behind them, Patu was helping Ngāpō to pull the walkway up.

  ‘Hurry! Kia tere!’ Kararaina yelled at them. The soldier had almost finished reloading.

  He lifted his rifle to fire and —

  ‘Where are they?’ he roared to his companions.

  The children had disappeared behind the flax, further into the dark and murky water.

  By nightfall they had made it to the other side of the swamp.

  Moetū had regained consciousness. ‘Can you walk?’ Kararaina asked him.

  ‘I have to. We’ve got to get away from the soldiers,’ he said. Tihei and Erana had cleaned and bandaged his wounds with strips torn from their skirts, but the blood soon seeped through. Regardless, he pushed onward, climbing up through the bush. ‘Don’t lag behind, keep together,’ he commanded.

  Not until midnight did he decide they were far enough in front to rest.

  ‘Did we lose anybody?’ he asked as they made a makeshift camp. He took a head count: twenty-eight. In a panic, he turned to Kararaina: ‘Who’s not here?’

  Counting again, this time … ‘Thirty,’ he sighed. ‘I forgot the babies.’

  He blacked out.

  ‘Moetū has lost so much blood,’ Kararaina said.

  She wasn’t sure whether the escaping band should continue onward or rest. ‘What shall we do, Ngāpō?’ she asked. ‘We can’t outrun the soldiers while we’re carrying Moetū. Maybe I should stay behind with him while you all get away.’

  In the end, Ngāpō decided, ‘As Moetū said, we should all keep together. We’re hungry and tired. Tihei and Erana need to suckle their babies, and we need to rest. We should go to ground.’

  Ngāpō fashioned a litter out of branches and flax, and he and the older boys took it in turns to carry Moetū further up the mountain. They found a spot under an overhanging cliff, where water dripped from the ceiling. Ngāpō sent Kararaina and the older children foraging for food — berries, flax root, grubs, anything. While they were gone, Ngāpō, Tihei, Erana and Patu thatched together a wall of ferns and vines. Once they were all safely tucked under the cliff, they closed the ferns around them.

  The following morning, they heard the soldiers moving behind, around and then above them. Tihei and Erana suckled their babies to keep them from making any noise. For two days they laid low, listening to the repeated calls and sweep of the soldiers, venturing out only to get more food from the bush.

  Then Moetū regained consciousness again. ‘Kararaina … Patu … Ngāpō … We still have to reach the aukati.’

  But now the troops were ahead of them. Moetū decided to take the children southwest, skirting the soldiers’ camp in the night. The two mothers and the older children took turns carrying the younger ones on their backs. Not until they had reached the boundary and crossed over into the Rohe Pōtae did Moetū call a halt to their headlong flight.

  3.

  ‘And then Moetū realised,’ Hūhana tells Simon, ‘what a difficult task the council of chiefs had given him when they told him to act on his own initiative.’

  ‘What happened next,’ I continue, ‘was a narrative just as extraordinary as the battle of Ōrākau itself.’

  ‘We have to get the children back to their various villages,’ Moetū said to Kararaina.

  He decided to split the children into two groups. Kararaina and Ngāpō would return northward with eleven of the children; Ngāpō had stepped to the front and he would look after Kararaina — not that she needed it. He, Moetū, would take the longer road south with Tihei and Erana and the remaining refugees, including Patu.

  Moetū found saying goodbye to Kararaina difficult. ‘We have been through so much, will we see each other again?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kararaina answered. ‘All I can think of is that my sister is dead, I am an orphan, and these children must be returned or else they will be orphans, too. Who was to know that any of us would survive? Don’t ask me to look into the future, Moetū. The past is still with me, and there’s the present to take care of.’

  The last time Moetū saw Kararaina, she and Ngāpō were hastening their charges through the dappled sunlight of the bush — and then she was gone.

  As for Moetū, he and the others pushed southwest to Te Urewera. There, they were no longer under the protection of the Rohe Pōtae, so they had to be careful on the roads. They were an unusual-looking travelling group, and when people enquired who they were and where they had come from, Moetū answered, ‘We come from Ōrākau.’

  The news soon spread that a boy named Moetū was taking two mothers and a gaggle of children back to their homes — and marae after marae opened their doors to them. Of course, the journey wasn’t as easy as that: the soldiers were making constant raids and the travelling pace slowed down whenever they stopped to hide from military horsemen. Movement by groups of Māori was banned, even if the travellers were going to a tangi, and there was a curfew after 6 pm.

  Moetū took two months to complete his responsibilities, but, one by one, he delivered every child back to their people. There were many villages where th
e parents had not survived; the return of an orphan daughter or son to the tribe was an occasion ringing with joy as well as waiata of sadness.

  At one kāinga, a grateful father gave Moetū an old nag, which proved to have more life left in it than anyone expected: the two mothers took turns riding it with the smaller children clutching on in front and behind them. Moetū grew to admire the horse for its stubbornness, its habit of flopping down on the ground when it was tired, and the way it would head for a river in the late afternoon and refuse to go any further, forcing them to set up camp.

  Moetū soon adopted a protocol on those occasions where the parents had been killed at Ōrākau. He was strict: he demanded identification, even if the children recognised aunties, uncles or sisters and brothers. He — a young man, still recovering from his wounds — would sit down with the elders and gravely question them; he wasn’t going to let his charges go easily. If there were choices as to which relative they could go to, Moetū was hard with his questions before making the decision, and the children waited patiently while Moetū concluded his kōrero.

  ‘E hē, Moetū,’ the elders said admiringly.

  At the end of the first month, Moetū reached Ruatāhuna, where Tihei and Erana and their babies were reunited with their husbands. Both men had managed to escape Ōrākau, but had not known where to look for their wives. ‘We knew they would be safe with you,’ the husbands said.

  With each placement, Moetū felt a deep sense of loss. And the most difficult separation was still to come.

  Moetū’s last child was Patu. They rode the old nag southeast to Wairoa, where he found Patu’s uncle. Oh, he really put the uncle through the mill: ‘You will bring Patu up as one of your own sons? You will not overwork him? When he grows up he will inherit his father’s land?’

  Try as he might, Moetū could not come up with a reason not to leave Patu with his kin; nor could he find any fault with Patu’s uncle. He kissed the boy goodbye. ‘You are home now,’ he told him.