Call of the Kiwi (42 page)

Gloria spoke little of her adolescence in England but told him a bit about Miss Bleachum and her interest in plants and animals.

“Miss Bleachum said I should study natural history. Then I could have stayed in Dunedin. But I know so little. We only ever played music or painted and looked at strange pictures.”

Over the next few days Wiremu often brought her examples of interesting plants and insects, and one night he carefully woke her to show her a kiwi. They followed the flightless bird’s shrill chirping, eventually discovering the shy animal under a bush. There were many nocturnal birds on Aotearoa, particularly in the foothills, but seeing a kiwi was something special. Gloria trusted Wiremu entirely as she followed him. Wiremu invited her on more short walks at night, but he never touched her.

The tribe eventually left the lake and headed further into the mountains toward Aoraki, the island’s high mountain, which they considered sacred.

“A few
pakeha
climbed it some years ago,” Rongo reported, “but the spirits did not like that.”

“Why did they allow it then?” Gloria asked. She knew the mountain as Mt. Cook, and she had heard about the successful expedition.

Rongo gave her standard reply: “Don’t ask me. Ask the mountain.”

As they pressed into the McKenzie Highlands, Gloria mustered the courage to tell the story of her great-grandfather James around the campfire. In the long, convoluted style of the Maori, she told of McKenzie’s encounter with his daughter, Fleur, and how John Sideblossom had hunted him down and drove him into exile in Australia.

“But my great-grandfather returned from the great land beyond the sea where the earth is red as blood and the mountains seem to glow. And he lived long.”

Gloria’s listeners applauded enthusiastically, and Marama smiled at her.

“You’ll be a
tohunga
yet if you keep it up. But that’s no surprise. Your father, too, speaks beautifully—even if he makes strange use of his talents.”

Given wings by Marama’s praise, Gloria practiced her rhetoric. She worked intensively on her
pepeha
, the personal introduction speech that each Maori can recite when a ceremony demands it. In it one named one’s
tupuna—
ancestors—and described the canoe and the details of the journey that had brought them to Aotearoa. Marama helped Gloria name the tribe the travelers then formed and showed her the places they had inhabited. Especially fascinating was a valley that formed a natural fortress. Now it was
tapu
because some people had once battled there. The men of the tribe feared setting foot in the place, but Rongo and Marama led Gloria there and meditated with her by the fire. Gloria wove a detailed description of the rock fortress into her
pepeha
.

Describing the
pakeha
branch of her family was more difficult, but Gloria gave the name of the ship on which Gwyneira had traveled, used Kiward Station as the destination, and labeled the Wardens as her
iwi—
her tribe. As she described the area where she was born, she felt something almost like homesickness. The Ngai Tahu had been traveling for three weeks. And although Gloria felt accepted for the first time in years, she often sensed that she was leading someone else’s life. She was succeeding in her role as a Maori girl, but was that what she really wanted to be? As she practiced handling medicinal plants, learned to weave and understand the meaning of the weaving patterns, and prepared the meat the men brought, she realized that the women of the tribe did nothing more than what Moana and Kiri did in the kitchen back home. Yes, they worked under the open sky, but that was the only difference. Gloria, however, had always enjoyed working with the sheep and cattle. She missed the animals.

Though the Maori did not stop her from hunting and fishing with the men—all the women were allowed to, and every Maori girl learned how to survive alone in an emergency—it was rare for them to do so. If a girl did join the men, it was often mistaken as an attempt to get closer to someone, and Gloria did not want to take the risk. The one time she convinced her friends to go hunting with her, it soon devolved into uninhibited flirting with the boys.

So she mostly stuck to the fire and only occasionally accompanied Wiremu fishing. Though it would have been more enjoyable to share in the men’s duties than to sit around the fire with the women, who discussed her relationship with Wiremu as they braided reeds and twigs, Gloria soon realized that she did not want to kill every day for her sustenance. She hated taking the birds or small strangled rodents out of the traps. She missed the work of a breeder, who kept animals for many years, contemplating the best pairings of ewe and ram, mare and stallion, and celebrating birth rather than death. She liked taking care of animals, not hunting them down.

So she was not especially disappointed when the tribe started toward home. Tonga would have liked to continue the migration, but the sheep would soon need to be herded out of the highlands on Kiward Station, and there was good money to be made for the men. Besides, the seeds the women had planted before the migration would be sprouting. The families could survive the winter off the harvest and the money earned from the
pakeha—
without undertaking arduous treks and hunting expeditions in the rain and cold. Tonga could object as often as he liked that this was not the traditional way and made them dependent on the whites. A warm fire and a little luxury in the form of
pakeha
tools, cooking pots, and spices were more important to the people than any tradition.

Not that this meant that they took the direct route back to the Canterbury Plains. The return stretched out over several weeks and included visits to sacred sites and other tribal villages. Gloria could now have performed the ceremonies blindfolded. She sang and danced with the other girls without inhibition and recited her
pepeha
when their hosts wondered about her foreign appearance. In this she always received great acclaim; her descriptions of the
pakeha
’s voyage from far-away London across the
awa
Thames and their sojourn over the mountains of their new homeland inspired her listeners’ imagination. Gloria’s
mana
in the community grew. She walked upright and proud among her friends when the tribe finally set foot on the land of the
pakeha
again. Wiremu smiled at her occasionally, and she did not shy from doing the same.

“Don’t you want to go home today?” Marama asked, looking with puzzlement at Gloria’s Maori festival clothing. The tribe had settled back into the village, and Gloria was cleaning the meeting hall with several other girls in anticipation of the approaching festivities. Marama, however, had assumed her granddaughter would want to go home.

“Gwyn will hear that we’ve arrived. She’ll be expecting you.”

Gloria shrugged, though in truth she was torn. On the one hand she wanted to celebrate the return with the tribe; on the other, she yearned for her comfortable bed and the privacy of her room—and even for her great-grandmother’s embrace, her scent of roses and lavender, and dinner served by Moana and Kiri. A proper table. Proper chairs.

“What is this talk of home, Marama?” Tonga asked. He had just entered, followed by his sons. Wiremu entered last. “Gloria is at home here. Do you mean to send her back to the
pakeha
?”

“I’m not sending anyone anywhere, Tonga,” Marama said calmly. “Gloria must know herself what she’s doing and where and with whom she wants to live. But it would be proper for Gloria to at least visit Gwyn and show her that she’s well.”

“
I . . .
” Gloria began, but the elders bade her be quiet.

“I think Gloria has already proved where she belongs,” Tonga said grandly. “And I think she should complete this connection to her tribe tonight. For months we have observed Gloria and Wiremu spending time together. The time has come, in the presence of the tribe, here in the meeting hall, for them to sleep together.”

Gloria was taken aback. “
I . . .
” she began again, but her voice failed her. All her education as a
whaikorero,
or artful speaker, had not prepared her for this situation. “Wiremu,” she whispered helplessly.

Wiremu had to say something. Though she was trying hard to protest, she was almost relieved that she was speechless with panic. If she refused him here in front of everyone, Wiremu would lose face in front of his tribe. It was up to him to stand up to his father.

Wiremu looked from one to the other.

“This, this comes as a surprise,” he said stuttering. “But I, well, Glori
a . . .
” He approached her.

Gloria looked at him imploringly. Evidently, he found it difficult to admit to the others that nothing had ever happened between them. Gloria cursed his male pride. And her old rage began welling up inside her. Tonga had put his son in an impossible situation. And he’d done the same to her. It did not exactly increase a chieftain’s son’s
mana
to get turned down in front of the entire tribe. He had no right to propose on his son’s behalf.

“I, uh.” Wiremu was still searching for words.

Gloria began to find this alarming. Wiremu should have been able to manage a simple “No, I don’t want to” or, if it had to be, a stall: “Give us time.”

“Gloria, I know we’ve never discussed it. But as far as I’m concerned, I’d welcome it. That is, I would happil
y . . .
”

Gloria looked at him in disbelief. This man she had trusted was betraying her.

“We could do it merely as a formality,” he whispered to her in English. “That is, we would have to have our wedding night in front of the whole tribe.” Wiremu had enjoyed enough of a
pakeha
education that this last sentence was embarrassing for him as well.

“Then it’s decided. We’ll celebrate it tonight. Gloria, you will be greeted in this
wharenui
like a princess,” Tonga beamed.

Unsure how to proceed, Wiremu shifted his weight from one leg to the other. The
pakeha
in him was expecting the bride’s formal “I do.”

Once again something burst inside of Gloria. Frenzied with rage, she ripped the flax band with Wiremu’s
hei-tiki
from her neck and threw it at his feet.

“Wiremu, you were my friend. You swore never to touch me. You told me a Maori girl got to choose. And now you want to sleep with me in front of the whole tribe without even asking me what I want?” Though no one threatened her, Gloria drew her knife. Standing among men who were armed with spears and war axes—ritual weapons, to be sure, but sharp nonetheless—she knew that it was a ridiculous thing to do, but she needed to feel the cold steel in her hand.

In that moment Gloria would have gone up against an army. She no longer felt any fear, only rage—a searing white-hot rage. But for the first time, her rage no longer left her speechless. She neither held her peace nor flailed about with words. Suddenly she knew what she had to say. She knew who she was.

“Tonga, you think I need to secure my ties to the tribe? That I could only be part of this land if I belonged to the tribe? Then listen to this, my
pepeha
. Gloria’s
pepeha—
not that of the daughter of Kura-maro-tini, nor that of the great-granddaughter of Gerald Warden. Not she of the Maori, not she of the
pakeha
.” Gloria stood upright and waited until all of those present had gathered around her. Not long ago, a crowd that size would have robbed Gloria of her voice. But she had long since passed that point. The shrinking violet of Oaks Garden no longer existed.