O my land standing forth!
Now hide your face
Be lost to view!
To the white god, the young people.
Garnered like a sheaf on the decks of the Lucy Anne they stand, our daughters, our sons, their sons and daughters, and theirs again. Our hina tini. Brown eyes and blue eyes, girls with arms entwined, young men firm footed on the rolling ocean as their grandfathers before them.
Our island home slipping away behind us, all falling silent, turning with one gaze to its vanishing. Even the little children stop rushing like puppies among our legs, stand witness as the only land they know dissolves into the light of the rising sun.
But before any doubts can be expressed, Mr Nobbs leading us into song.
Immortal love forever full, forever flowing free!
Our voices boldly raised into the wind. Forever shared, forever whole, a never-ebbing sea!
Who are we to fear a sea voyage or a far land? Our legs will soon remember the roll of the swell, the salt spray be as meat and drink to us, the masts our trees, the decks our land!
Our outward lips confess the name, all other names above.
The name of Jesus Christ. Iehu Tireti! Even our tongues have been twisted in order to pray to the white god, and the little ones can whisper the name of Jesus like birds in a bush.
Love only knoweth whence it came and comprehendeth love.
But do not forget the ancient demons of this ocean! How often in the years gone by we heard of Puna’s beastly sea gods, the devouring ones, who threatened Rata on his famous journey to redeem his parents from slavery to foul Puna.
There are just four of us left now, of the thirty who came from Tahiti on that weary ship, seeking like Rata across the trackless ocean. The others who were with us are long gone.
Aue, all the dead men. Already we have wept enough.
Toofaiti and Vahineatua, Teraura and Mauatua, those were our Tahitian names.
We are the only ones still living. We remember, and we performed our own rituals before leaving Pitcairn, secretly leaving offerings on that hidden altar, out of sight of white men’s prying eyes. The white Lord is very good, but we are still Maohi.
Do not neglect the old gods, e hine, they are the source of your being. They flee to the highest pinnacles, but returning in triumph, they gather our people on the winds ...
Tahiti! Teraura and I hardly dared speak of the old friends, the sisters and cousins we hope to find still alive. We hear Tahiti is a Christian island now, like Pitcairn, with churches and preachers of the white god.
We too, have our white preachers, Mr Nobbs and Mr Buffet, whose children are my grandchildren, boys with names from the book. Thomas, John, David and Reuben. Of Christians there are a Joseph and three Marys, two young Fletchers, two Pollys ... too many to count. Fletcher would be proud, after all. From our blood springs a people worthy of his Island of Man, worthy of the fenua maitai which appeared when hope was gone, just as he had promised.
When we looked again, our island home had vanished.
The Lucy Anne lifted her skirts and began to run before the wind. The people settled to enjoy the ride.
‘Sit over here Granma, sit over here. Put your bundle here. How’s this ship, Granma, es good’un no?’
Unroll the comfortable mats. The children are in all directions, the babies are set down among us. ‘Granma, watch me! Granma, Joseph is gwen up a mast!’
Lucy Anne slides over the waves. It’s good to be at sea again. Going home at last. She is more comfortable than Bounty. A few chickens sticking their heads out of baskets here, but Bounty had creatures sticking their heads out every hatch. So many smelly creatures the Englishmen wanted to bring with them, all manner of four-legged absurdities. It was a floating sty with stinking bilges. Refusing to make love, we banded together in the great cabin. Na, we unrolled our mats there and lay down together like this to talk, with sandalwood smouldering all night and day against the stink.
Lucy Anne pitched and the creak of timber set memories spilling.
Margaret Christian crept closer to her grandmother, reaching for her hand. Secretly, holding it in her lap, her fingertips would trace the mysterious messages written into the weathered skin. Silently, listen.
Tahitinui is the land,
Teauroa is the point,
Fareroi is the marae.
From Teauroa you will see Aimeo, with the sun setting beyond it.
Above stands the mountain Orohena, and beside it, Aora’i. Nobody can reach the top of those peaks. They are tapu.
I’sa listening, Granma, Margaret’s fingertips replied.
‘From Hema was born Tahaki of the golden skin. From Tahaki was born Vahieroa. From Vahieroa and his wife Mata Mata Taua, the highest chiefess of sunward Tahiti, was born Rata, who rescued his parents from foul Puna’s land. This is not to be forgotten.’
‘And Rona-nihoniho-roa, Granma?’
‘Rona, the long-toothed man-eater! Tahaki’s great-grandmother. Her daughter Hina was his grandmother, No’a his grandfather.’
‘In Noah’s ark?’
‘Kaue kaue, e hine.’
‘Mr Buffet says Noah is my ancestor.’
‘Mr Buffet does not know your grandfather’s genealogy, so he’s wrong to say such.’
‘Is Captain Cook my ancestor?’
‘No, but he had a ship of animals like Noah.’
‘Are there dogs on Tahiti?’
‘Yes, dogs that bark, bark, bark, and cats that meow.’
The babies looked around at those strange sounds.
‘Horses, Granma?’
‘Our chiefs and chiefesses had strong men to carry them, no horses. Captain Cook brought those animals.’
‘Mr Buffet says the queen of Tahiti rides in a horse and carriage like the queen of England.’
‘Then she invites you to ride with her, for your great-grandfather and hers were half brothers.’
‘Is the truth, Granma?’
‘Would I tell a story?’
‘Are we cousins with all the Tahiti people?’
‘Many, many, Margaret Christian. Your great-greatgrandmother, Tetua Avari’i, made me remember the names of all our family. Everything must be remembered. No paper to write on then.’
‘You wrote on your hands Granma.’
Her own small hand was almost as dark as the old one’s, and already calloused from climbing and scrambling, grating coconut and gathering firewood.
But the back was plain. Empty. She had tried scratching patterns there, using a feather pen and schoolroom ink. One morning Mr Buffet had caught her with pen in hand and her tongue between her teeth. ‘What have you done girl?’ he exploded, seizing her wrist. ‘Has the devil possessed you, or are you a heathen through and through?’
‘Please Mr Buffet, the quill jump up and write on me!’
Mr Buffet’s face hair had seemed to stick out horizontally. ‘I knew it! We shall have to thrash the devil out of you!’
She had shrieked and eluded his grasp, his roar of laughter following her all the way down the hill to the spring.
By the time she had washed her beautiful patterns away, everybody knew.
Margaret Christian a heathen!
She prayed harder than ever. She could not be a heathen if she prayed so hard.
Her grandmother, smelling of coconut oil, was combing Margaret’s hair, snipping lice between her last remaining teeth.
Safe under her hands, Margaret lay back and listened to the creakings and strainings of the Lucy Anne, her eyes wandering upward into the enchanting web of canvas and ropes. At last a ship! The Lucy Anne was her prayer come true, she was going on a real journey. Like Rata. Like the men from ships who rowed ashore to Pitcairn. They who climbed up the Hill of Difficulty and ate as much food as there was to give them, their ships lying out beyond her reach.
Her grandmother would find her gazing at that distant beacon while the other children were singing hymns to the guests. Embrace her there, above the raw ocean. The wind singing up off the surf.
She heard the other children laughing. For no matter. Granma holding her. Now the story would begin.
‘Tell me again how Grandfather came to Tahiti to find a wife.’
‘Ssh. Listen now. It’s beginning long long afore that. Before Tute came, the priests foretold everything. A canoe without an outrigger, carrying the children of a glorious princess! That is what Pau’e the seer predicted. The people would be covered from head to foot, he said.’
‘Like Mr Buffet and Mr Nobbs.’
‘Ssh. This Tute was a mystery. Maybe an ancestor. Maybe an atua. Na, the children knew. Tute was chief of a land of wonders. He sailed a ship full of gifts. All the little children getting something! I had a comb, but I wanted scissors. When he departed I was wild because I’d missed the farewells. Maybe Tute made one more gift of scissors, and where was I? Far up the river path with my own granma, chasing her escaped piglet. Who’s wilder, the pig or me, I didn’t know. Tute’s sailing away and all the other people are down at the beach.’
‘Why you not let the pig go, Granma?’
‘For when that pig runs onto any land belonging to a man, pau, it’s lost to the woman. No sweet little pork dinner. Belongs to the man. When it runs onto the marae, the same. Belongs to the priests.
‘That pig was like an eel, this way and that way. We falling in the mud, our good clothes all stained. Finally got it cornered in an aute plantation. Then poooum! The cannon goes! The pig’s bolting and I’m bolting too ...