A Canoe In the Mist (2 page)

‘Yes, with a British officer in charge. You goose, they were friendly Maoris camped there in case of trouble. They never had to fire a shot.’

‘Then why do they look so fierce if they don’t mean to fight?’ she demanded.

‘They’re making entertainment out of an old custom. Like Morris dances in England.’

‘It’s not a bit like Morris dances. They’re happy.’

‘And so is the next item by the sound of it. Listen!’

A rollicking tune sung by the women was coming from Hinemihi.

‘Come along, Mattie love,’ said her father. ‘You were quite wrapped up in the singing before. You want to see them do the poi, don’t you?’

She let him take her by the hand, but they had gone only a few steps when she jerked back in terror all over again.

Crouched to one side of the track was an old, old man with long white hair reaching down to the flax cloak drawn about his shoulders. White whiskers stuck out from a face tattooed all over, like the strange half-human figures carved into the posts of Hinemihi, but truly fierce because he was real and alive. And it seemed that his fearsome gaze was fixed upon herself—or was he staring right through her, to frightening things she could not see?

‘Oh Papa!’ she whispered, terrified, clinging tight to his hand.

Mr Hensley drew her closer without speaking, and led her quickly to the happy scene within the meeting house. The song was surely a funny one, for the tourists were laughing with the rest of the audience even though the jokes were in Maori. A knot of small children added to the fun by trying to copy the actions and mostly getting them wrong. As for the men, they did no more than drum their feet to the sound of a soft chanting.

Afterwards the women unfastened the smooth balls of flax tucked into their waistbands. Those using pois on short strings moved back to leave space for the experts who twirled their long pois in circles, forwards, to the side, and above their heads. Mattie couldn’t take her eyes off the tall, strong-faced woman in front. As the song proceeded she added a second poi, and a third, and a fourth, until Mattie expected every minute to see them tangle together, but they didn’t, not one. And with her father she shouted ‘Bravo!’ as she clapped.

The performance ended with a dreamy kind of song which might have been a hymn. Coming out, Mattie slipped her hand again into her father’s. But there was no need.

The weird old man was gone.

T
hat evening Mattie sat gazing into the fire in the hotel drawing room. Her parents were talking with the Fazackerleys about the big day tomorrow. That was what they’d all come for—the trip to Rotomahana—and after that they’d go their different ways. It was another of those polite and pointless conversations with people they’d never see again—and just as well, thought Mattie, for Mrs Fazackerley and Eleanor were show-offs with loud voices, and Mr Fazackerley looked crushed. He hardly had anything to say.

Then a feeling came to Mattie that someone was willing her to look up. She did—and there, by the door, stood a girl in a loose green dress and a white pinafore, and two long fair plaits without ribbons that looked out of control and lop-sided, and an eager, lively face.

Who was she? Not a tourist, and not old enough to be a
servant. Mr McRae the hotelkeeper hadn’t mentioned any white girls in Te Wairoa. He’d told them at dinner-time that his own six daughters mostly lived with his wife on the hotel’s farm at Te Puke. That was so they could go to a school where everyone spoke English, and so reached higher standards than the Maori school up there on the hill.

Anyway, this girl was signalling Mattie with a smile. It needed only a smile in return, and some quiet shuffling, for the two of them to get together on the floor behind the sofa.

Thus Mattie learned that Lillian’s mother worked at the Temperance Hotel, which catered for travellers who wouldn’t touch beer or spirits. And Lillian learned that Mattie’s father was in a publishing firm and, after inheriting his uncle’s money, had set out to see the world that the authors wrote about. And Mattie confessed that though she was charmed by the action songs and the poi, she’d been frightened by the men’s haka, and the old man with the scowling face, who sat outside.

‘That’ll be Tuhoto,’ said Lillian. ‘He’s scary all right. The Maori kids are scared of him too. They reckon he’s a hundred years old. He’s a tohunga.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Mattie.

‘Well there’s all sorts of tohungas. Some are good and some are bad—some of them are sort of doctors—and they do ceremonies—they know all the old Maori things,’
said Lillian. ‘Tuhoto doesn’t like them doing their songs and hakas for a tourist show.’

‘What should they do them for, then?’

‘Oh, for their own huis, and weddings, and tangis—that’s a funeral—and things like that. Tuhoto says the young ones have gone mad for money and Tama-o-hoi is going to punish them soon.’

‘Who’s Tama-o-hoi?’ Mattie said.

‘He’s an old, old legend. They say the first Maoris came here hundreds of years ago on the Te Arawa canoe, and their tohunga was Ngatoro-i-rangi. He was a real magician! He travelled round stamping on the ground and calling for fire, and made the hot springs and the lakes, and put fish in them, and things like that. And when he got to Tarawera, that big mountain across the lake, d’you know the one I mean?’

‘Yes, we saw it when we were up the hill,’ said Mattie.

‘It’s a weird mountain. Its name means “burnt peak” but it hasn’t got a peak, just three separate bumps. Anyway when Ngatoro got to Tarawera he found Tama-o-hoi there saying it was
his
mountain. And he must have been a sort of demon because there weren’t any people before the Te Arawa canoe came. So Ngatoro stamped his foot extra hard and made a deep chasm and shoved Tama-o-hoi down inside it. But all the time that demon kept shouting that one day he’d break out and take his vengeance.’

Mattie giggled. ‘How could he, after hundreds of years?
I’d feel sorry for him if I believed it. He was there first and—what was the other one’s name?’

‘Ngatoro.’

‘Ngatoro shouldn’t have gone round stamping up boiling hot springs all over the place.’

‘Why, don’t you like them?’ said Lillian.

‘No! The big noisy ones scare me and the little ones bore me and they’re terribly smelly. What about you?’

Lillian sighed. ‘I hear about them all the time and I haven’t ever seen one close up. We came straight from Auckland, you see. But Mr Humphreys says there’s nothing to be afraid of, they’re not like tigers, they can’t chase you.’

‘That’s just it,’ said Mattie. ‘Tigers have to hunt for meat; it’s their nature. People know that and keep out of their way or else they shoot them. This mud and steam and smelly stuff, it’s got…it’s got such
power
and it isn’t even alive. Papa says there’s a core of burning rock deep down in the earth and the heat has to sizzle out where it can. It’s so inhuman! Us up here with the animals and trees and flowers, and down there enough heat to burn us all up.’

‘But it doesn’t,’ said Lillian. ‘The steam comes out and cooks the dinners. In those old times when they didn’t have pots, Ngatoro was a hero. He didn’t really make the hot springs, though. He only found them.’

‘People can fall into hot springs and get boiled to death,’ Mattie persisted.

‘People can fall into lakes and get drowned, too,’ said Lillian. ‘Are you scared of going across the lake tomorrow?’

‘Not a bit. I’ve been in boats hundreds of times and never seen anything happen.’

‘Nothing is scary when you’re used to it. Nothing bad ever happens at Rotomahana.’

‘How do you know when you’ve never been there?’ inquired Mattie.

‘Everybody says so. Hold on! I’ve got a brainwave!’

‘Quick, give it to me before you lose it!’

‘How many for the boat, do you know?’ Lillian asked.

‘Seven. Papa and Mama and me, and the three Fazackerleys, and Dr Ralph, that tall man with the moustache, reading a book.’

‘Guide Sophia said she’d take me one day when there’s room in the boat. And it’s her turn tomorrow! She’s very special, Mattie, you’re lucky, maybe I’ll be lucky too. I’m going to ask her.’

Lillian rushed out. An hour later, Mattie had her answer.

Wonderful, wonderful news! With Lillian there, it could never be a boring day. Maybe she wouldn’t be scared, either.

W
hite rabbits!’ said Lillian for luck, as she jumped out of bed in the darkness this first day of June. ‘Mattie, here I come!’

Lillian needed a friend, too. There wasn’t another Pakeha girl her own age in Te Wairoa except when the McRaes came home. The five Haszards at the schoolhouse were all too old or too young, except for Adolphus, and who wanted a boy? The rest of the children were Maoris, good fun to play with but hard to talk to, because most of them were still learning English. Of all the Maoris only the two guides, Sophia and Kate, were equally happy in both languages, and they both had Scottish fathers.

Besides, sometimes things happened that Lillian couldn’t understand. Like the time she was riding that grey horse of theirs and they kept egging her on to go faster and farther; so she went up the hill track towards Rotomahana,
and the big boys galloped after her and made her turn back. She couldn’t make out why
they
were allowed up there and she wasn’t. And she couldn’t ask a grown-up because then her mother would know she’d been riding those half-wild horses.

She swallowed her porridge and piled on extra clothes and raced across to McRae’s before the tourists had finished their breakfast. They looked as if they were going to a city instead of to a lake, except for Mattie, who wore a tartan kilt and a tam-o’-shanter.

Mr McRae and George Baker the cook went through the dining room with a big picnic hamper. ‘What have you got there for us?’ called Mrs Fazackerley.

‘Fish bait and fishing lines,’ said Mr McRae. ‘It’s what’s left of yesterday’s haggis and if that won’t tempt the fish, nothing will. You’ll need them to make your meal.’ His face was serious.

‘Nobody told me we’d have to catch our own luncheon,’ said Mrs Fazackerley.

‘Don’t expect
me
to catch anything,’ added Eleanor.

‘I think he’s pulling our legs, my love,’ said Mr Fazackerley mildly.

Mattie giggled, and Lillian whispered, ‘He’s always stringing people on,’ and Mrs Hensley said, ‘Shush!’ as the hamper disappeared through the doorway and a tall, strong-faced Maori woman came in.

‘Here’s Guide Sophia,’ said Lillian.

‘Is that her?’ exclaimed Mattie. ‘She was in the poi dance yesterday, swinging four poi
s
at once. Doesn’t she look picturesque!’

Sophia was wearing a blue skirt over a red flannel petticoat coming just below her knees, like the girls’ own dresses; a greenstone tiki, and a short cloak of flax fibre with taniko borders. Her hat, woven from rushes, was turned up at one side to show its pink satin lining, and beneath it her glossy black hair hung free. She had only a little tattooing round her lips and chin, and her voice was soft and pleasant as she asked if they were ready to leave.

The tourist party descended the zigzag path to the lake by lantern light. Another lantern shone on the boat landing-stage where Mr McRae was waiting to lend a hand. ‘Don’t slip, the boards are wet!’ he called.

‘How did they get so wet?’ said Lillian. ‘It isn’t frosty.’

‘It could have been a Loch Ness monster splashing its way over,’ said Mr McRae.

The girls giggled. ‘Hey Lillian, you the tourist today?’ said a jovial voice. And Mattie turned to face the haka leader who had frightened her yesterday with his menacing weapon and his rolling eyes!—only now his face was crinkled with smiles and he looked homely in his blue flannel shirt.

‘Do I look like a tourist, Ruka?’ returned Lillian.

‘You’re the wahine tino pai,’ he said, giving a friendly
tug at the red scarf tied over her head Maori style.

Ruka handed the two girls on board like a gentleman. Soon the lunch hampers were stowed, the tourists and the six oarsmen were in their places, Guide Sophia sat in the bow, and with a cheery, ‘I wish you all a grand day’, Mr McRae went back to the warmth of his hotel.

Dr Ralph had gone back for his mackintosh, and here he was now, coming fast down the zigzag path on his long legs.

‘Watch out, it’s slippery on the landing!’ warned Guide Sophia.

But Dr Ralph didn’t even touch the boat landing. With a sudden cry of ‘Crikey!’ he leapt upwards and sideways on to a ledge in the same instant as a wave washed across the footpath where his feet had been. And the same wave lifted the boat so high that it stretched the mooring rope to its limit. Mattie and Lillian, holding hands, looked at each other in astonishment. It happened so fast that nobody said a word until, as swiftly as it had risen, the water fell back and poured across the wooden boards of the landing-stage into the lake.

When the boat had steadied itself Dr Ralph stepped carefully aboard.

‘Whew! That nearly caught me!’ he said.

‘I thought it had. Are you sure you’re not wet? We don’t want you getting chilled,’ fussed Mrs Fazackerley.

‘No, I’m not wet,’ snapped Dr Ralph.

‘That’s new to me, a wave on a lake,’ said Mr Hensley.

‘You can never guess what’s coming next in this weird country,’ said Mrs Hensley.

The Maoris were talking together, excited and anxious. In the end Guide Sophia faced the tourists and said, ‘I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we do not wish to go on.’

‘Not go on!’ exclaimed Dr Ralph. ‘When I’ve come all the way from Melbourne and the Hensleys from England! Why ever not?’

‘There was another such wave before you came down. None of us have ever seen this before. We don’t know what it portends.’

‘But it did no harm, and it’s a beautiful day,’ protested Mrs Fazackerley. ‘You couldn’t ask for better weather at this time of year. We’ve paid our money and we want our trip.’

‘So we do,’ said Eleanor.

‘A wave twice as big shouldn’t bother a sturdy craft like this,’ said Dr Ralph. ‘She’s as good as a whaleboat.’

‘She
is
a whaleboat,’ said Sophia. ‘It is not the boat that we question.’

‘Oh Sophia,
please
!’ Lillian burst out, throwing caution to the winds. She had waited so long for this day and it was doubly precious to her because of Mattie.

Sophia sighed, and then she smiled and spoke again to the boatmen. It was easy to disappoint a party of tourists—she’d
done it often when bad weather threatened—but not this eager child of her own village. After a little more talk in Maori the boat was cast off.

By now the dawn had come. With six oars expertly handled they moved swiftly out of the inlet on to the broad waters of the lake, glassy smooth, with wisps of fog here and there. Dr Ralph, who had a bent for science, took note of the wave marks on the edges, and declared that the water must have risen all over the lake.

‘A small earthquake, I expect,’ he said. ‘Nothing unusual in these parts, don’t you agree, Guide Sophia?’

‘We have many earthquakes that do no harm,’ she said, and put the subject aside by going on to her regular commentary. She told how the first explorer Ngatori-i-rangi had thrown a tree into the lake and it splintered into a thousand living fish.

‘And Mr McRae says this hamper is full of fish bait so we can catch them,’ said Mr Hensley, pretending to be serious.

‘Then you must tell me when you see a thousand fishes coming,’ said Sophia. She liked to play along with the hotelkeeper’s jokes.

Mattie would have asked more about the legend but Mrs Fazackerley interrupted: ‘Oh look, here’s the sun, isn’t it beautiful? It puts a blush on those hills like the bloom on a rose!’ And she continued her romantic chattering while the sunshine crept down towards the water.

‘It doesn’t need her to tell us,’ whispered Lillian.

‘We’ll close our ears,’ Mattie whispered back, and so they did.

The scene cast its own enchantment. Green bays nestled between massive cliffs of clean-cut rock. Wherever there was a root-hold, the creamy plumes of toetoe hung over the water and brightened the reflections. To the north, the shores were softened by distance; to the east rose the face of Tarawera mountain, dark with shadow.

‘D’you like it, Mattie?’ asked Mr Hensley in that keen voice which showed how much he liked it himself.

‘Yes, Papa,’ she said truthfully. ‘Oh, what’s that bird, Lillian—is it a cormorant?’

‘We call them shags,’ said Lillian.

‘It’s floating double, one head up, one head down. What a perfect reflection! Oh—it’s gone under.’

‘Let’s guess where it comes up again. You can never tell.’

They made their guesses and watched—but what they saw next was not a bird.

‘Oh look, Papa,
look
! A canoe, and a big one too!’

All eyes followed her pointing finger. Towards the north a shaft of sunlight broke through the mist to make a circle of light. Within the circle, moving eastward like themselves, came the canoe. Flashes of water fell from its paddles.

‘Why, it’s a carved canoe from the ancient time!’
exclaimed Dr Ralph. ‘It’s got a prow like the one in the Auckland Museum.’

‘With such good eyesight, can you see how they’re dressed?’ asked Mrs Fazackerley. She wore glasses herself and sounded peeved.

‘No, they’re too far off,’ said Dr Ralph.

‘Their arms are bare,’ said Mattie. ‘Like the pictures in that book about Captain Cook, aren’t they, Papa?’

‘You’ve got sharper eyes than me, Mattie love,’ said her father.

‘Is that right, Eleanor?’ said Mrs Fazackerley.

‘Yes, they do look like that,’ said Eleanor.

‘Perhaps they’re practising for something,’ said Lillian. But why, and what for? she wondered. From the sound of their talk the boatmen were as puzzled as she was. It was all men’s talk, very fast, and not one word from Sophia. She was gazing into the distance as if to another world, towards the tapu mountain where the chiefs were buried.

‘They’d be winners in a race,’ said Mr Hensley with enthusiasm. ‘They’re gaining on us, and see those paddles! Perfect timing.’

‘Three of them have stood up,’ said Mattie, ‘and they’re wearing robes, and feathers in their hair. Are they chiefs?’

‘I’d say they’re kaihautú,’ said Dr Ralph. ‘The ones who chant a rhythm for the paddlers. How should we hail them, Guide Sophia?’

‘They would not answer,’ was all she said.

Dr Ralph was not to be put off. At the top of his lungs he bawled the come-hither words, ‘Haere mai! Haere mai!’ and Mr Fazackerley, who spoke so little, emitted some loud whistles. If the crew of the great canoe could hear them, they gave no sign. A second time the doctor called and still there was no response. Before he could try once more the mist came in, and the canoe was gone.

‘Confound it! I should have used my camera,’ said Dr Ralph. ‘Tell me, Guide Sophia, was that a waka taua? A war canoe?’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘It was a waka wairua.’

‘What would be the difference, then?’

‘You would not see one in a museum,’ she said with a cryptic smile.

‘So busy with that canoe, you’re missing a village,’ said Mrs Fazackerley. ‘See there, on the point!’

The whole party turned to look at the gently sloping shore where a cluster of whares showed up among fruit trees bare of leaves, in contrast to the rich greenery of the bush in the valley beyond.

‘Isn’t that pretty!’ exclaimed Mrs Hensley.

‘I can see fields,’ said Dr Ralph, ‘and nets hung up to dry.’

‘That is Moura,’ said Sophia. ‘It’s a busy place. They make their living from the land and the lake, not from the tourists. In summer when the days are long we call
there for cherries and peaches. They have a Pakeha baker to make their bread, Sam Browne.’

‘Why would he live there?’ asked Mrs Fazackerley. From the way she said it, she seemed to think he was lowering himself.

Sophia ignored the slight. ‘He lives there because his wife is of the kainga, and their five children. They’ll be sorry we must pass them by. We’ll only have time to pause at the rock Huruwhenua, and leave a small gift for the taipo who lives there. Otherwise he might set up a contrary wind for our return, or even capsize our boat.’

‘Is a taipo the same as a taniwha?’ asked Dr Ralph.

‘No. A taipo is a devil. A taniwha can be good, a guardian of the people. We have our guardian taniwha, but not in this lake.’

‘Have you ever seen that taniwha?’ Mattie whispered to Lillian.

‘No one ever does,’ Lillian whispered back. ‘I don’t know if they’re real or not.’

As for the taipo, Mrs Fazackerley was telling everyone she didn’t believe in such rubbish. But the rock couldn’t be missed; it was a great boulder close to the shore, covered with yellow lichen, halfway down a long inlet. To each traveller Sophia gave a frond of fern to be tossed on to the rock as a koha. After they had all obeyed amidst good-natured laughter, the oldest of the boatmen bunched the rest of the fern together and tapped the rock
with it several times, to the rhythm of a chant.

The tourists didn’t know whether to smile or be solemn. Only Mrs Fazackerley said when it ended, ‘What was all that about?’

‘It is a karakia,’ answered Sophia.

‘What, a sort of prayer to the old devil?’

‘Call it that if you like. The karakia is as old as the custom.’

‘Do you really believe in that bad-weather spirit?’ asked Dr Ralph more politely.

‘We never scorn a legend,’ said Sophia. ‘Didn’t your St George have to deal with a dragon? You will see that we end our journey safely.’

Very soon afterwards the boat was gliding smoothly in to the landing place at Te Ariki.