How the garden had flourished under Pania’s care. Flowers and shrubs: the purple hebe at the front, the white clematis twining round the veranda. The vegetable garden: cabbages, beans, tomatoes. The plants were living, accusing proof of all the time Pania had been staying in Kelly’s home. It had been weighing heavily on Kelly’s conscience. He knew he should have made the return journey to Te Kuiti with Pania as soon as he was fully recovered and fit to travel. Ᾱwhina would be rightly concerned about his failure to follow through on their agreement to return Pania to her home. He had been too preoccupied with the business and with the building of the new house, or so he’d told himself. The truth was he had also become too comfortable with having Pania stay on as his housekeeper and lover.
Kelly met with Dilworth to make arrangements for taking leave from work to go back to Te Kuiti. Dilworth agreed quite readily and said, “I thought you would have taken the girl back sooner.”
Dilworth hadn’t said anything about Pania before but Kelly was uncomfortably aware of his disapproval. Dilworth also said that he wished to make a contribution to Ᾱwhina’s whānau. Kelly hadn’t realised that Ᾱwhina and Dilworth had been attending the same church and had developed a close friendship.
“Take an extra horse and bring Rāwiri back with you,” Dilworth added, “if he wants to come and Ᾱwhina is willing to let him go. I wish to offer him a job.”
“Well, I’m sure he’d be a better prospect than O’Neill,” Kelly said, with some surprise.
“Ᾱwhina foresaw the day when Rāwiri and you and I would work together when the time was right. Yes Finbar, there’s more to Ᾱwhina than meets the eye, more than Quinn ever knew, or you for that matter, I’m guessing.”
“You know the Māori are a deeply spiritual people,” Dilworth continued, “and when they turn from their pagan gods to Christianity, to the one true God, some, like Ᾱwhina, become filled with the Holy Spirit. She was well schooled in the Word of God and often, during worship in the church, prophecy would flow from her lips and she would describe visions she saw when the Spirit was on her. She prophesied in Māori and English and in some unknown language. And she saw herself in the future returned to her own people, but it was a future without her husband. She had already grieved for Quinn before he died.”
“Are you saying she was a prophet?” said Kelly incredulously.
“Yes, a prophetess, if you like.”
This was beyond any conception that Kelly had of religion and he had always associated spirits with primitive superstition, but Ᾱwhina didn’t fit that mould.
“What of the Māori prophets like Te Ua Haumēne and Titokowaru and the Pai Mārire, the Hauhaus who killed the missionary Vӧlkner. He was a Christian missionary, a man of God. The Hauhaus hanged him from a tree outside his church.”
“A man of God he may have been,” said Dilworth, “but they hanged him for a spy.”
“A spy?”
“He was an informant on the side of their enemies, the British.”
“They didn’t just hang him,” Kelly continued, “they cut off his head, drank his blood and smeared it on their faces. The Hauhau Kereopa ate Vӧlkner’s eyes and said “This one is Parliament and this one is the Queen and English law.” Pai Mārire is supposed to mean Good and Peaceful. They don’t sound very good and peaceful. Are they also Christian?”
Reports of the recent, gruesome killing in Ōpōtitki had spread quickly and Kelly’s scepticism was understandable. “Well, in essence, yes, they are Christian,” said Dilworth, with some hesitation, “but in some such cases you see a mix of Christianity and elements of traditional Māori religion, which can muddy the waters and besides, they’re still at war in the Taranaki. Kereopa was at war with the British also because his wife and two daughters were killed in the raid on Rangiaowhia and his sister was killed the next day at Hairini.”
“But, anyway, I believe Ᾱwhina is a pure spirit, at least I hope she still is. They’ve gone through a terrible ordeal with the war and I fear they’re suffering great deprivation and hardship. By all means, go to the King Country before your fiancée arrives.
*
And indeed they were hard times in Te Kuiti and throughout the King Country. They were times of hunger, disease and death. But the remnant in exile grew stronger again as the land was cultivated and brought forth food.
Tāwhiao and his whānau of supporters were campaigning for the return of Waikato land. There were many hui to plan strategies, to take legal action, to get justice. A hui was convened on the marae to draft a petition to Government while Kelly was staying with Ᾱwhina. Among the kōrero there were some dissenting voices, none louder than Hamana’s. He sprang to his feet to address the meeting.
“You waste your time with petitions,” he said. “Why do we beg the thieves to return our property? The government will not return any land they have taken. They say it is settler land now and cannot be returned. You petition the Queen and she says she can do nothing and it is a matter for the colonial government. They have stolen our land and left us here to starve. They will come after our land here in the Rohe Pōtae too. There is no end to their greed. They will not rest till they have all our land.”
“We will protect what remains,” Tawhiao insisted, “and we will not give up our fight for justice.”
“They confiscate our land to punish us for our rebellion,” Hamana continued, strutting back and forth on the marae atea, brandishing a pounamu mere. “Why are we rebels? Because we would not give up our land and we try to protect our homes. And because we have a king they say we rebel against the Queen, the Queen who promised to protect us. What of the kūpapa who fought with the government against us, the ‘loyal’ Māori. The government has taken their land too. The government and the Treaty that made us subjects of the Queen and promised to protect us and protect our ownership of the land. The Treaty is a lie. I say we have no use for Queen or King.”
“We cannot fight them anymore,” Tāwhiao said. “They are too many for us. We can only fight them in the courts.”
“The courts!” Hamana hissed. “The Land Court is a monster they have created to devour more land.”
“What would you have us do?”
“You can write your petitions. I will not lie down and wait for the government to take the last of our land. I will fight. Ka whawhai tonu ahau, āke, ake, ake,” he declared. It was the defiant boast of Rewi Maniapoto at Ōrākau.
“That will justify the government taking the land,” Tāwhiao said.
“They will take it anyway,” said Hamana.
“So you will fight them by yourself,” Ᾱwhina said.
“I will join Titokowaru at Te Ngutu o te Manu and others will follow.”
Ᾱwhina feared for her reckless brother but feared more for her son. Rāwiri looked up to his uncle and she feared he would follow him. He wanted to have the mana of a warrior.
“Do not follow Titokowaru,” Ᾱwhina warned. “He has lost his way. He has given up on Pai Mārire, the way of Righteousness and Peace. He has given up on Christianity and gone back to the old ways of heathenism, utu and cannibalism.”
Hamana responded: “Yes, Titokowaru tried Christianity but the so called Christian colonists were the thieves that Jesus warned had “come to steal, kill and destroy.” Titokowaru tried peace, even giving up some land and still the government sent McDonnell and the dogs of war to kill and rape and take more Ngāti Ruanui land and raid his village. It was Titokowaru’s utu to kill settlers and soldiers and he boasted he had eaten their flesh, like the flesh of a cow. Then he said, “I shall not die. When death itself is dead I shall be alive.” He attacked the garrison at Turuturumokai and cut the heart out of the body of the commander, an offering to the god Tūmatauenga. Titokowaru strikes fear throughout Whanganui and all of Taranaki. Why should we live in fear?” The fierce eyes behind Hamana’s moko swept the assembly and glared at Kelly. “Let the Pākehā fear us!”
“Does he think he will live forever?” said Ᾱwhina, scornfully. “Has he become a god? He is only a man and he will die like all men.” She spoke with authority and was obviously accorded great respect in the whānau. She stood tall in a long skirt, blouse and shawl, all in black, in mourning for her husband, and likely for the many of her whānau who had perished in the fighting. She was careworn and thinner but otherwise little changed in appearance, Kelly thought, but he was aware of a regal bearing she carried here and of deeper dimensions that Dilworth had intimated.