The train speeds across the night. There is a sudden glimpse of traffic trickling along a wet, shining highway. The fluorescent lights of a roadside cafeteria snap on and off with a bold orange glow.
Striking a match, the girl from Napier bends her head to catch the flame to her cigarette. Her eyes are filled with excitement. She reminds me of the thrill I felt when I first decided to move to the city.
It was not only to climb the Pākehā poutama.
I was a young man: I wanted to have as much fun as I could while doing it.
Finally all the visitors, the waewae tapu, return to their own lands to the north, south, east and west. The time comes for the local people of Waituhi to return to our own lives also.
Nani Miro and Uncle Pita preside at the final hākari. Auntie Mary has planned a special kai of the leftover crayfish Mum’s people have brought to the tangi. Food has always been used as an element to bring life back to normal. Outside the hāngī gushes steam through the darkness. The smells linger as Kōpua, the Mahana shearers, fleecos and others lift the kai from the earth oven and bring it into the hall. The young boys are still boasting about whose shots brought down the boars, with Simeon claiming it was his one-bullet-three-pigs that did the trick. My cousin has always been noted for chicanery but, who knows, he might be telling the true story.
Whatever, the tangihanga is where new epic narratives arise involving new heroes.
Come and get it, Auntie Mary yodels. Her voice is so loud, every cow in Waituhi must have heard it and decided it was time to go to the cowshed.
Tamati Kota sits eating with Miro and Nani Tama. My mother and sisters sit with Auntie Rose, who is reading some of the village girls’ palms and giving them advice on love and marriage. To one of them, my cousin Haromi, she says: A big and burly man has come into your life … and in nine months’ time so will another surprise …
The entire hall erupts at that one. Cheeky, Auntie Rose!
Uncle Pita gives me a nod. Time is wasting. Start the speeches of farewell.
I get up and cough for attention. I can’t remember what I say. When your emotions are engaged, your brain switches off. Time takes a deep breath and allows you to touch the very centre of your heart and unlock it so that you can share your feelings, without constraints, with others. My manawa is overflowing and the voices of my ancestors are within me, speaking their eternal truths about the iwi that we are. I speak of mountains that can never be moved, of rivers that will always flow. Of a people, the mōrehu, who have survived. I begin to thank everyone, the ringawera, the men who looked after the hāngī, the cousins the gravediggers …
Uncle Pita says it best: No need for thanks, Nephew. We are whānau. This is who we are. This is what we do.
He wai, Auntie Rose calls. Here’s your song to bless your words.
My cousin George strums a guitar:
Tahi nei taru kino
Mahi whaiāipo,
Kei te wehenga
Aroha kau ana …
We sing of Māori aroha: Your heart is my heart. When you are sad I am sad. When you are happy I am happy. When you need love I will give you love. Your tears are my tears, your laughter my laughter.
Oh, how it grieves me
To look within your heart,
And think of parting,
Which brings such sorrow …
We sing of whanaungatanga, of sharing our family history, culture and values. We sing to one another, because this may be the last farewell for some of us. We sway together and we sing of our love for our whānau. And we say to each other: No matter how far away from here we go, we will always leave our hearts here. Always remember us. Always remember.
Haere mai rā
Ki ahau nei rā,
Te aroha tino nui
Haere mai …
We sing of manaakitanga, of supporting one another. Life is so fragile. The times are changing. The people are being scattered to the four winds. We must remember the ties that bind.
There’ll be a welcome
when you return,
You know my heart is yours,
come, haere mai …
And then Tamati Kota says a final karakia: Korōria ki Tō Ingoa Tapu.
Life, come again.