Isle of Tears (7 page)

A rustling sound came as someone stirred, and a moment later she felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Can I be of help to you?’ a gentle voice asked.

Isla rolled over and looked into the face of a girl perhaps a year or two older than herself.

‘I am Pare,’ she said. ‘You are weeping. Shall I fetch your mother?’

‘Ma mother?’ Isla whispered, hope flaring in defiance of reason.

‘Ae, Merearani.’

‘Oh.’ The disappointment almost took Isla’s breath away. ‘No, thank ye. I’ll be fine. But thank ye.’

Pare nodded understandingly, and receded into the shadows.

It took a long time after that for Isla to stop weeping, and finally slip into a fitful, haunted sleep.

O
ver the next few weeks, the McKinnons settled at Waikaraka with unexpected ease. Jamie and Jean, in particular, seemed to take to life with the Ngati Pono, and Isla presumed it was because, at only six years old, they were still very adaptable. They missed their mother and father deeply, but the women of the village, and Mere especially, went to great lengths to comfort them and keep them occupied with food, and little chores and games, and fantastic stories of Ngati Pono ancestors, which rendered them both awe-struck and round-eyed.

Niel was less willing to allow himself to be absorbed into the new way of life, alternating at times between sullen withdrawal and bursts of anger, which, to the credit of the villagers, were generally ignored. He also belligerently declared a distrust of the Ngati Pono, fortunately only in private, but such was his grief and anger at their parents’ deaths that Isla doubted he would
find it easy to trust anyone who was not family.

But during their third week at Waikaraka, he had come to Isla with a rekindled light in his eyes and told her that Harapeta had promised to teach him the skills required of a Ngati Pono warrior. Then, he’d said with barely restrained vehemence, he could hunt down Tulloch and avenge their parents in a fitting manner. Isla, observing his renewed energy and the flush of excitement on his cheeks, had worried that it wouldn’t be good for him to dwell on such a morbid thing, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny him when she dearly wanted vengeance herself.

Of all of them, Laddie had perhaps settled the most successfully, but really, as Isla said to Niel, his life had barely changed at all. The wound on his flank was healing well, and he was able now to romp about as he always had. He still enjoyed the delights of rolling around a dusty yard, or chewing on a particularly satisfying bone for hours at a time, and the village dogs had accepted his presence, if somewhat reluctantly at first. But now he had only four humans to protect rather than six, and that he did, diligently padding behind the McKinnon children every time they went beyond Waikaraka’s main gate. He had, however, on several occasions woken the village by howling despondently in the dead of night, and Isla wondered if he were mourning the loss of his first master and mistress.

Without saying as much, Mere was quietly assuming Agnes’s role as the children’s mother, and that made Isla feel both sad and grateful at the same time. No one would ever replace her real mother, but Mere’s attention and concern went a long way
towards helping Isla through the dark days after they arrived at the village.

After her courses had stopped, she had been welcomed into Mere and Wira’s whare, and when during the night the twins cried for their mother, Isla calmed and tended to them. When Isla herself wept in the darkness or shouted out after a particularly ugly dream filled with floating visions of her lifeless parents, it was Mere who comforted
her
, who held her close and stroked her hair and muttered words to her in Maori that Isla didn’t understand but which soothed her nevertheless.

Isla worried, though. She worried about Rosie the house cow and her swollen udders, and she worried about the two bullocks left shut in their pen with no food and little water, and the chickens aimlessly wandering the yard. But, most of all, she worried about how long it would take the bank to realize that Donal McKinnon had fallen behind with his payments. When they did, they would surely repossess Braeburn and everything on it, and there would be nothing left of the McKinnon family, except for the mystery of where the four children had gone, and Isla doubted anyone would be overly solicitous about that.

She had spoken to Wira about her concern for the livestock, and when he’d agreed to have the animals brought to Waikaraka she asked that some of the family’s belongings also be retrieved, including her father’s bagpipes and the family Bible, her mother’s cooking pots and a certain packet of papers concerning her father’s business affairs. A week later she had been delighted when the bullocks, pulling Braeburn’s cart loaded with Donal’s farming
implements, followed by a loudly lowing Rosie, were brought into Waikaraka. But not the chickens: as the man who had led the expedition sheepishly explained, these had been eaten on the way home. And when Wira had requested that the village be permitted to make use of the animals, Isla had naturally said yes.

Life with the Ngati Pono was not unlike that at Braeburn. The daily routine was remarkably similar—up early to prayers and a hearty breakfast, then chores, then a period of learning for the McKinnon children followed by plenty of free time for the twins. Mere had taken it upon herself to teach the children to speak Maori, along with Ngati Pono’s history and way of life, which Isla found far more complicated than learning to speak their language. Already she was recognizing many of the words she heard in the villagers’ everyday conversation, and could even ask very basic questions in Maori herself now. It was a powerful tongue, Maori, and not unlike Scottish Gaelic, with much emphasis on the rolling ‘r’ and strong consonants. Jamie and Jean were picking up the new language very easily, and Isla found it amusing to hear their familiar Scottish accents randomly interspersed with Maori words.

Taranaki Maori, and indeed Maori throughout New Zealand, Isla was quickly learning, seemed to be organized along similar lines to the clans of Scotland, although her ancestors, so far as she knew, had never been quite as fabulous and as magical as Mere’s. Maori society was divided into three groupings—iwi or tribes, broken down into hapu or clans, which were themselves broken down into whanau or extended families. Ngati Pono were a hapu,
whose parent iwi were Te Ati Awa. The latter had both mortal and immortal origins, being descended from Awanuiarangi, the son of a woman named Rongoueroa and a spirit of the sky known as Tamarau-te-heketanga-a-rangi. This, Mere said, was in the days when mountains freely roamed the land, when Rangi, god of the sky, formed entire oceans with his tears, and when cloud, thunder, lightning and wind children came down to earth to play with mortal children.

‘But did the missionaries no’ teach ye that ye were created by a Christian God?’ Isla had asked.

‘Ae, they did, but I do not think that applies to Te Ati Awa,’ Mere had replied dismissively.

She had gone on to explain that there were other iwi in north Taranaki—namely Ngati Tama, Ngati Mutunga, Ngati Maru and Taranaki.

‘Ngati Maniapoto?’ Isla ventured, pleased with the way the Maori vowels rolled comfortably off her tongue. ‘I heard Da say something aboot Ngati Maniapoto once.’

‘No. They are affiliated to the Tainui confederation of iwi in the Waikato. We have been at war with them for a long time. Although that may change shortly,’ Mere added cryptically.

‘Oh.’ Isla couldn’t stop herself from glancing nervously over her shoulder, as if even now there might be a party of bloodthirsty Ngati Maniapoto warriors lurking behind the cabbage trees beyond Waikaraka’s fence. ‘Then where is your clan’s northern boundary?’

‘Our rohe, our territory, is large and extends north-west from
Taranaki mountain to Nukutaipari near New Plymouth, and north to Te Rau o te Huia near Motonui. Our iwi papakainga, our ancestral home, is called Pukerangiora, and is near Waitara.’

‘And the other iwi? Where do they start and finish?’

‘My people, Ngati Maru-whara-nui, are inland from the mountain, Ngati Mutunga are coastal and to the north of Te Ati Awa, and Ngati Tama even further up the coast. But that way…’ Mere waved her hand in a general southerly direction, ‘that way, Taranaki are to the west and south of the mountain as far down as Opunake. We have often battled with Taranaki over boundaries. We also share ancestors with Nga Ruahine, Ngati Ruanui and Nga Rauru to the south-east of the mountain. Within the Ati Awa iwi are the hapu Ngati Rahiri, Puketapu, Ngati Tawhirikura, Otaraua, Pukerangiora, Manukorihi, Ngati Te Whiti, Hamua and Ngati Tuparikino, among others. And Ngati Pono, of course.’ Noticing that Isla’s eyes had glazed over, she smiled wryly. ‘Are you no longer interested in this, Isla?’

‘Oh, aye, I am! It’s just that, well, there’re so many names and places.’

‘Is it not the same in Scotland?’

Isla thought about all the McNichols and McLeods and McDonalds and McKinnons of Skye, and their affiliations to other Highland clans such as the Mathesons, the MacRaes, the MacDonells, the Frasers, the Grants…‘Aye, it’s verra much the same. And d’ye no’ all consider yeselves tae be one people?’

‘No, we do not.’

‘I hadnae realized. I thought ye were all the same.’ Isla sighed.

‘Sorry. It wis the same wi’ the clans. Da said it wis oor ruin, in the end.’

Mere frowned. ‘Well, let us hope it is not to be
our
ruin, as well.’

Isla was familiar with the village now, able to find her way around the huts and larger houses, and confident that she knew the purpose of each and every one. The largest was the wharenui, or the meeting house. Mere had taken her inside on her second day at Waikaraka and explained how the wharenui represented the body of the Ngati Pono ancestor, Awanuiarangi. At the apex of the house, above the porch, was the koruru, the carved face of Awanuiarangi, and his arms were the bargeboards stretching to the outer supporting posts, embracing all who entered. The ridgepole running the length of the house was his spine, his ribs the rafters. Three large posts supporting the roof inside the wharenui represented the connection between Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, the Sky Mother. When Isla admired the beautifully ornate red, black and white patterns on the ceiling and the walls, Mere named them, respectively, as kowhaiwhai and tukutuku, and pointed out that the intricately carved panels between the tukutuku depicted other Ngati Pono ancestors. Isla was stunned by the magnificence of the house’s interior, and awed by the many hours of work that must have gone into its creation.

‘Did the men o’ the village build it? The timber looks as though it’s been sawn.’

‘Ae, it was. We purchased it in the town and brought it here on carts.’

‘All the way from New Plymouth?’

Mere said yes, and also told Isla that the wharenui was a relatively recent addition to the village. Over the past fifteen or so years there had been more and more call for hapu and iwi gatherings, hence the need for more spacious accommodation.

Also in the village were several dozen whare moe, each of which could house up to ten or twelve family members, half as many communal cookhouses, numerous pataka—food stores—and shelters for storing wood. Some of these buildings were made from sawn timbers, but most had manuka frames with walls of raupo or ponga, and roofs thatched with reeds or nikau. There were no chimneys, only holes to allow smoke to escape. Bricks were extremely expensive, Isla knew, from her father’s bitter complaints about the ‘bloody fortune’ he’d had to pay for the hearth and chimney at Braeburn, so she wasn’t surprised they weren’t in evidence at Waikaraka.

The fences around the village, and its extensive gardens, were essential to keep out wandering livestock; Ngati Pono kept pigs, cows and horses, and now the animals brought from Braeburn, but the dogs and chickens roamed where they pleased, and Isla had not been at all happy one day to discover that a chicken had wandered into the Tamaiparea whare, and had both shat and laid an egg on her bedding. The egg had been welcome, but it had taken her ages to get the smeary mess out of the woollen blanket, as the bird had evidently been eating some sort of highly coloured berry.

She was at least as busy at Waikaraka as she had been at Braeburn. Washing day was even more arduous as there were
no coppers in which to boil clothes—instead, they had to be scrubbed vigorously in the stream, then hung along the village fence to dry, after which any repairs would be attended to. Mere told Isla that most of the villagers bought garments from the travelling merchants who came through the area every six months or so, selling clothing, blankets, knives, tobacco, pipes, tools, gardening implements and cooking utensils, and sometimes liquor, although Wira did not allow alcohol at Waikaraka. A small party from the village also regularly went into New Plymouth for specialist goods and to hear the ‘news’. Just like Da had, Isla thought.

Most days were taken up with chores, such as sweeping out the whare, cooking, tending to the animals and the gardens, flax-cutting, foraging for puha and harvesting the village’s crops. Sometimes Isla could hardly stay awake long enough to eat her evening meal before she collapsed onto her sleeping mat. It was good, though, having so much to do: the busier she was, the less time she had to think about her parents.

Jamie and Jean also helped with some of the chores, although Niel seemed to be exempt from many things domestic, except for working in the gardens. Instead, he spent much of his time with Harapeta learning to wield taiaha, the long staffs Isla had used to such effect when they’d arrived at Waikaraka, and the patu, a flat sharp-edged hand weapon made from wood or bone. But most of all he concentrated on improving his rifle skills, using, to his delight, his father’s Enfield, which Wira had returned to him, declaring solemnly that it was a taonga, a treasure, and must be revered. And revere it Niel did, practising for three or four hours
every day until he seldom missed his targets, and keeping the rifle within arm’s reach when he went to sleep each night.

Ngati Pono actually had quite an alarming arsenal of firearms. Some were old-style muskets, but most were carbines, shotguns and the more modern rifled muskets. When Isla had asked Harapeta where they had all come from, he had simply shrugged and said something vague about ‘traders’, so Isla assumed they had been obtained illegally, much as her father’s rifle had. But many settlers acquired their firearms in that manner, as only the military had access to a plentiful stock of weapons. In fact, she suspected that some Ngati Pono guns originally
had
been the property of the imperial army.

Isla soon discovered that Ngati Pono had a very strong military tradition to go with their arsenal. One day, Mere took her to Puketeitei, the pa, or fortified village, where the villagers retreated in times of threat or attack. Two or three miles inland from Waikaraka, it was situated at the end of a long ridge on a high hill from which much of the bush had been cleared. The hillsides had been terraced, and the wide terraces rimmed with tall stockades behind which trenches had been excavated to varying depths. At the top of the hill, which was relatively flat, sat a compact village of huts and larger houses and a tall wooden tower. Mere showed Isla where the food and firewood were stored when the pa was in use, and how the ground in places had been dug into channels to collect rainwater.