Miriama

A children's story dealing with the feelings of a Maori girl on a school trip to study the coming of the Europeans to Wellington, New Zealand

Miriama

I walked over to Helen's place the way I did every school morning.

“Hi,” said Mrs van de Zee. “Helen's in her bedroom packing her bag, late as usual.”

I went in. Helen was putting things tidily in piles beside her bag and then dropping them into it neatly. How does she do that? When I pack my bag I use what my dad calls the 'push harder' technique. I pile it in until I get to the last bit and then push. It works for me.

“Come on Helen!,” I said, “today's the bus trip, all you need is a big lunch and your history project notes and just come, āe? You've made me late twice this year already.”

Helen, took some things out to reorganise her bag.

“Nooo,” I shrieked putting my hands on top. “That's close enough, just get some extra lunch.”

Once when we were at my place and Helen was taking ages to get organised, I called her a dumb blond and my mum heard and got mad and asked “How would you like it if Helen called you a dumb Māori?” and I sort of saw what she meant, so now I only call her that to her face when we're both laughing and so she calls me a dumb Māori because of what my mum said. It doesn't seem to matter so much what you say to friends if you're not mad when you say it. Actually she's not dumb, but she sure is blonde and she sure can be slow too. Helen likes to get things right, and it if takes forever then that's what she takes. At least that's what if feels like to wait for her.

We'd been learning about the New Zealand Company buying the land and bringing European settlers to Wellington. Our teacher Mr Heta is really cool. He makes stuff really fun and the kids like him, especially Helen. When I want to wind her up I call him her boyfriend and she gets mad and keeps saying he's not. Then I tell her she wouldn't get so mad if it wasn't true. But really, Helen's favourite teacher is Mrs Gibb because she takes us for art and Helen is really good at art. She tries to show me how to do art better and I try to learn, but we both think my art sucks. When we did a picture for our project about Europeans landing at Petone, near Wellington, Helen did an amazing montage. I did a boat that looked a bit like a bathtub that had people in it, only the people looked like penguins. Helen looked at it and tried not to laugh but I knew what she was thinking. Mrs Gibb looked at them and said, “nice effort Miriama,” and talked about where I could put more detail, but I bet she was thinking 'boy, what a mess.'

Anyway she looked at Helen's montage for a long time and said, 'that's very mature Helen, very evocative'. Mature means she did it like an older person, but we had to look up evocative in the dictionary, and it sort of means that it looks like something it isn't which seems to be an insult but is actually a compliment.

I didn't say it to Helen because she's big-headed enough about her art already, but what she did was really good. Her montage was stuff that happened to the immigrants from the time they were selected to come to New Zealand up to wading ashore on Petone Beach. And she really showed what it was like and that it was no easy cruise. Many of the immigrants chose to come in the first place because their living conditions were bad. Although they were hard working people they were living in cramped conditions often in huge families and unless they kept working most of the time they could go hungry. If they got really poor the only thing they could do was to go to a poorhouse which was more like a prison.

So they applied to the New Zealand Company and thought they were lucky if they could go in a little ship with masses of other people on a trip that took months and months. The ordinary immigrants didn't have their own cabins. There was a big room for the men and another for the women. Men and women weren't even supposed to talk to each other in those days unless someone was watching. The families had a bit of a large room below decks and were all jammed together in dim places. If they wanted to change their clothes they had to get under the blankets or hang up sheets for privacy. They were only allowed up on deck ocassionally and when the crew were there to watch them. Washing and bathing meant sloshing sea water over themselves.

After all that they arrived in a country where there was nothing for them that they were used to. No houses or even streets or transport. Even the mountains, trees and birds were quite different to them. Much too brave for me. I'd have stayed home. Many of them did give up and went back to England but many others stayed and became the early European settlers in the Wellington area.

Anyway, Helen got a lot of this into her picture. She showed worried thin people applying to the New Zealand Company, and then she showed people in cramped leaky rooms living on their bunk-beds using sheets as curtains. Then she had a really amazing bit with the ships in the background and the settlers wading ashore and a big almost naked Māori man carrying an overdressed woman and they all looked a bit surprised and frightened but it sort of felt quite exciting anyway.

When I looked at it I felt pretty proud for Helen because it was so good, but I felt a bit angry at her too because it made mine look silly. I said, “that's quite nice Helen,” and she said “Thanks,” but I didn't fool her. She knew I was impressed.

I was specially impressed because I knew she got it right. My mum has talked to me about these immigrants even before Mr Heta gave us the lessons. She told me that for the last 200 years people from all over the world have come to New Zealand, and that it is always hard and frightening to be in a place that is new and different. Many of these people only came because they were desperate or poor and that they suffered many hardships both coming and after they were here.

So anyway, Helen put it down in her picture. I wish I could do that. But I do penguins in bathtubs. So no montage, just words.

I'm a real Wellingtonian. In the 1820s before the European settlers came our tīpuna were already in Whanganui-ā-Tara which would become Wellington later. But there had been big Māori wars to the north using the new muskets that the Pāk�"hā had brought and some tribes were driven south. When they reached the Kapiti and Wellington area we weren't strong enough to resist and became like slaves. Fortunately the English missionaries were arriving about that time and they helped us by calming things down. Te Rauparaha was a fearsome fighting leader �" rangatira - of the old type. A war leader and cannibal who had come to live on Kapiti Island not far away. Rangihaeata his nephew was at Porirua even closer. Fortunately Rauparaha was getting old and in awe of the Europeans and so we were safe for a while. But the missionaries also warned us about the white settlers. They said that the white people wanted our land and that they didn't care too much about what happened to us once they had it. Puakawa was our rangatira. He had been to Sydney and seen how strong the Pāk�"hā were there.

Mum gets quite carried away about this sort of stuff at times and tells me to be proud of my Māori and local origins.

**

A bus took us to Petone Esplanade to see the places we had talked about in class. We looked at the museum there, which is pretty small for a museum. I thought museums were big things, but no, this one is just a room, but has lots of stuff in it to remind us about what happened there, which I suppose is what a museum is for really. Then we sat in the park to have something to eat. That's Helen's favourite bit of a trip away.

Then we gathered around to listen. Like I said, Mr Heta is really good at making lessons interesting. He talked about it with us standing there near the beach so we could see the places where those settlers arrived.

“They were so pleased to be out of the ships after months pushed together in their dark leaky cabins,” he said. “But then they had to get all their luggage into the row boats and come ashore to a land of mountains, birds and trees like nothing they'd ever seen before, and with only huts and tents to live in.”

Mr Heta explained that the 'Tory' had arrived only a few months earlier with Colonel William Wakefield and surveyors and officials of the New Zealand Company to buy the land. Because they were able to buy enough land here in this huge harbour, when the settlers arrived at the beginning of 1840 they also came here and the Wakefields meet them.

We went to a park by a little cemetery in Te Puni street where the great Māori leader Te Puni is buried. Back across the road on the beach Mr Heta pointed out the places that mattered in our history project. There was Matiu which the New Zealand Company called Somes Island after one of their Directors and he said the Hutt River was not so far away then.

I didn't think Helen was listening, but she said “My says that rivers make their own path but all the rivers I've seen stay in the bottom of valleys, I've never seen one go anywhere else.”

Me Heta said, “We are talking about 170 years ago and during that time there are floods and even earthquakes and big trees that block channels and all the time the water keeps pushing for a way through, and sometimes it's easier to go somewhere else, so out of its river bed the river goes and cuts a new channel somewhere else in the vallley.”

Then Mr Heta pointed up to the hills. “The Korokoro hills were important back then, because there was a walking track to Porirua in those days and Rangihaiata and his enemy tribe were in Porirua. At the bottom of the hills the local Māori had gardens for green vegetables and potatoes and kept pigs. When the Pāk�"hā arrived the Māori fed them with fresh food.”

I gave Helen a nudge and said, “If my tīpuna hadn't fed your tīpuna they might have gone back home and you wouldn't be here to make me late for school.”

And Helen said “If we hadn't come you wouldn't have a school,” and so I said, “Yeah, that's the other thing, you messed up for us”.

Actually Helen's not as Dutch as she pretends. Her great-grandma was a New Zealand nurse who went to England to help the soldiers during World War 2 and who came back to Wellington at the end of the war in 1945 with her Dutch husband. I know that because her Mum told me about it. Her great granddad was in Holland when the Germans invaded and so he went to England which had declared war on the Germans because of what they were doing in the rest of Europe. He flew bombers out of England and was lucky to survive the war because a lot of pilots were killed. After the war he married Helen's great grandma and because Europe was still a mess from all the bombing, they came back to live in Wellington.

Helen doesn't know when her English ancestors first came to New Zealand but she thinks it was a long time ago and she always pretends that they came to Wellington in the first ships. I wind her up by calling a newbie, because even if they were here 170 years ago, my tīpuna have been New Zealanders for about 1000 years. Then she usually says something like my tīpuna didn't build windmills in Holland which the Van der Zees did. You don't win arguments with Helen because she changes the subject whenever she's losing. I tell her she's being blond when she says things like that.

The sun was hot and the day was very still and we stood around to listen. Some of the kids sat down, but I stood close so I could hear. Mr Heta pointed back to Matiu and said “Think about the first ship, a big sailing ship, the Tory standing out there between Matiu and the Eastbourne coast. You've seen pictures. It had bunting and flags to impress the natives. My iwi were there,” he looked over at me, “so were Miriama's. We were there to welcome the Pāk�"hā to Wellington. We were ready to sell our land so that when the settlers arrived they would come here. Think what that meant. We Māori were in control. We held the land, used the language, fed the guests, but for the first time we had safety from tribal warfare and we could get metal tools and wool clothing to wear. It was as if the local people had become instantly more powerful and safer.” He waved towards the Korokoro hills. “That's where Rangihaeata and Te Rauparaha could have come from. We local Māori people gratefully watched from these shores and went out in our waka to welcome the strangers.”

I was remembering what my mum said and got a bit angry. “Mr Heta, my iwi lived at Kaiwharawhara and our chief Puakawa, wanted to keep the land and send the Europeans away.”

Mr Heta agreed that was right and said, “Not all the Māori wanted settlers. Some, like Puakawa, had already welcomed the missionaries and didn't feel safe with the new kind of Pāk�"hā. Some Māori had not been accepted by the larger iwi living around the harbour and thought it might be bad for them if the other bigger tribes accepted the New Zealand Company settlers. It was bad enough that the land was to be sold, but Puakawa didn't even think he could get a fair share of what was being paid. He had listened to the missionaries and knew how much land European farming would use and how many Europeans were likely to come to New Zealand. He was as frightened by the thought of the Europeans as some Māori were excited by their hopes for new things and trade.”

But whatever their feelings it was an important time and things would never be the same again.

“Imagine it. The ship is out there, proud and rich in decoration. It was high summer as it is now. The hills and forest are alive with birds. Loud harsh parrots. The tui chattering everywhere. The Māori have gathered from their kāinga around the harbour. Colonel William Wakefield was the leader of the Pāk�"hā, and his nephew Jerningham Wakefield his secretary. They were looking smart in their best clothes gathered to impress the natives and buy the land.”

I looked back to Matiu again while the sun beat down and Mr Heta talked on. And through the heat haze I saw..., I blinked and looked again. Au�", too much sun and too much history! There was a large sailing ship by Matiu. Around it I could see smaller boats. It was amazing. They looked like waka circling the Tory and between it and the shore a large row boat - a longboat, came towards us. I thought I heard someone laugh and say, “The Pāk�"hā paddle backwards”. And I could see Māori sitting up proud and tall in their waka and I looked at the row boat and it looked silly. The feeling was like nothing else. It was like living in a history book. I wanted to hold onto the weird feeling, but I wanted to be back with the class - but then I didn't any more. I didn't want to spoil it. I was feeling history and it was wonderful. The seagull calls were too loud. They weren't just seagulls. They were kākā parrots I could hear. Everyone else had gone. Gone to the 21^st century. That was mad. I was the one who had gone. Dimly I still heard Mr Heta.

“.....and there were hui around the harbour to discuss the buying and selling of land....”

The hills. I had never seen so many trees. Huge forest trees reaching up from the floor of the Heretaunga Valley. The Heretaunga Valley. That's where I am. This is not the Hutt Valley named by a silly bunch of newcomers. This is the Heretaunga which it had been for nearly a thousand years. There were other voices, other people. There were old chairs and a rough bench and there were the Pāk�"hā manuhiri setting themselves up for a hui. The colourfully dressed ones in front wearing medals and braid must be the Wakefields just landed from the Tory. There was a little fat man with a friendly face, and some sailors. Mr Heta's lessons are good, but not this good. I didn't really want to be alone with these intruders. If only Mr Heta was still here. Then I saw him. He was there alright but he was different. He was looking angry and fearsome. He was no longer the gentle teacher I knew but a rangatira. Mr Heta looked at me with the eyes of that proud old warrior Te Puni who sold our harbour to the Pāk�"hā. The villain who called us slaves. He wore only a Māori flax dress and his face and body were covered with tattoos. He held a mere.

It was up to me and now I wanted it like that. I would not be a scared little schoolgirl, Puakawa is long dead. I must defend my people. I felt my muscles stretch and my strength rise. I felt the sea breeze rustle the flax at my waste. I stretched and showed off the full tattoo of the fighting rangatira that I now wore. And I felt pride that I alone would not be crushed by these newcomers who would drive me from my land.

The fat man got up. I knew him. Dicky Barret the interpreter and whaler. But now although he too was long dead I knew him as a person and he was my personal enemy.

He was saying stupid things. He couldn't really speak Māori, but I could, and I listened and got mad.

“Sign this paper and you will have all the benefits of English citizens. You will dress well, have farms, have the muskets and tools you need. You sell your land but keep one part for every ten that you sell.' He waved his hand around. 'Do you really need all this wasteland?

If you sell it to the Pāk�"hā the value of what you keep will be much more than ten times what it was before, so you will be richer by far.”

I don't think anyone around me really knew what he was talking about, his reo was so bad. We don't sell land. How can you sell land? Land is just there. You live on it. But this made no difference to the Māori who wanted the clothes and guns and tools that Barrett said we would get. They thought we would get these things and some Pāk�"hā would come to help protect us and things would go on as before.

I had listened to the missionaries who had said that the Pāk�"hā would take the land and throw us out. I had seen Sydney. White people everywhere in there thousands. Where would Māori be then. Where were the missionaries now! Back in the Bay of Islands probably. It was up to me. Only I knew.

“No,” I cried and jumped up. Only it came out as 'Kāo'. Puakawa would speak again through me and I would make sure he was heard. I ran to the centre of the clearing, I threw back my head and rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue. I stamped my foot and extended my arms. The school girl was gone, the Māori warrior was there. I knew I looked terrifying. The Wakefields looked anxious, and angry.

They looked to Dicky Barrett to interpret. I wanted them to understand, so I kept stopping while Barret talked to them.

“What is the Māori if not the keeper of the land? Are we to give up our kāinga, our fisheries, the trees that feed us and give us the birds and food we eat so that we can have the droppings of the Pāk�"hā pigs?” I was rather proud of that. Then I turned to Barrett who has a Māori wife. “Shall we give the Pāk�"hā the rest of our wahine and then go up into the mountains to starve because we have no more land to grow our kai?” I turned to Te Puni's iwi. “What will you say when you find that you have parted with all the land between Rimutaka and Turakirae and from the sea to the Tararua. What will you say when many white men come here and drive you away into the mountains?” I had a lot to say and I let it out until it came no more.

It is the Māori way to say things you mean and then shut up so others speak, so I pushed out my tongue again and stamped and threw out my arms and ran back to my spot by my iwi. Mr Heta got up. But it was not him. It was Te Puni and his mana that challenged me. He was as mad as me and he was mad at me. He ran to the centre of the clearing and showed the whites of his eyes. He looked amazing with the sun shining on his skin and tattoos and with his eyes gleaming, but then he turned to the Pāk�"hā.

“We are children”, he said. “Brave smart children, who cannot be safe without the Queen to protect us, without British muskets to protect us. We need the Pāk�"hā to bring us tools and to share the food we grow.” He turned briefly towards me. Again he challenged me with his whole body and rolled his eyes and stamped his foot. He was so scary, but I knew it was just show. “Let Puakawa give back their utu and keep their piece of mud. We the tribes of Whanganui-ā-Tara embrace the future and will look after our land and our wahine.”

I sprang to my feet. I was so out of control with rage that I ran right up to him face to face. “You will not have any land or wahine. You will have slavery and exile. Your mokopuna will curse you for a thousand years and your iwi will starve begging at the Pāk�"hā's table.” I could say no more, but I could see doubt in Te Puni's eyes and that some of the Māori were restless and that the Colonel was talking a lot to his helpers. I had done my best. I had been strong and I was strong. My ancestors were proud of me that day, but as I ran back to sit down a sadness began to come. I alone knew the future.

The magnificent tattoos began to fade. They were not mine any more. I felt my strength fading. I felt the rangatira in me shrivel. The tattoos were nearly gone. Let them return to Puakawa. The mana was not mine. It shrivelled and left. The flax tied at my waist became cotton track pants. I had fought for my whenua. It had been a great feeling. And now I sat. For one last wonderful moment I heard a voice say 'He tamāhine pai. He tamāhine pai rawa atu.' And I thanked old Puakawa where ever he is.

The years rolled on. The fog in my head cleared. Had it been a dream? No, my past had spoken to me and I had listened.

“..... and there was angry debate and Wellington was sold for.....” and Mr Heta stopped and held his hand up behind his ear and some of the kids shouted: “ blankets umbrellas, nightshirts, sealing wax “as they remembered what we had been told were the things that had been given to Māori for Whanganui-ā-Tara.

And they laughed.

I looked about. The only boat in the harbour was the Kaitaki going towards Wellington Heads on its way to Picton on the other side of Cook Strait. The trees on the hill were gorse and manuka. The screaming parrots were cooing pigeons. But I still felt proud. For a moment I had known what it meant to have mana.

Helen put her arm around me. “Are you crying Miriama?”

“No its just too hot,” I said lying.

“It's OK to cry over important things,” Helen said. “We thought what you said was awesome. And Mr Heta won't mind. He knows that you don't really believe it was his fault.”

I think she was trying not to laugh when she said that. I wasn't quite sure what I had said. Some of the kids had moved away from me a bit and were looking at me kind of respectfully.

Mr Heta was also looking at me in a very strange way. It was as if he knew that we had been together in 1839 on that sunny day. Perhaps he was worried about what he had said in front of the kids as well. I wanted to talk. But how do you say to someone “Have you been to 1839 recently?” I don't think so.

Anyway he had the whole class to think about and so he said, “Before we go, some of you might like to karakia with me.' It was the old Māori custom to say a karakia at important times. “This is an important place to me,” and then he looked at me and smiled,“ and to Miriama”. A few of the kids laughed nervously. “If any of you would like to join us while we think about the old times and what happened near this spot, please do.''

I think that both Mr Heta and I were surprised when most of the kids joined us.

Mr Heta said, “This is not a prayer. This is a time to think about the things of nature and our place in time and space. If we choose to express those thoughts in words to things that are not living and that do not understand our words, that doesn't matter. We understand the words and it is our way to use words to express our feelings. Our gods are what we make them. The ancient Māori recognised the gods of the natural world. The sea, Tangaroa. Rangi, the sky father, Papa the earth mother. The ancient Māori kept themselves aware of nature by talking to it in karakia.”

Helen got very serious. She is the best friend I will ever have and was still worried about me. She took hold of my hand. I nearly giggled and shook it loose, but she looked so solemn, that I didn't.

Mr Heta said “That's a nice idea Helen, how about we all take someone's hand?” We all stood in a circle holding hands and feeling pretty stupid.

Mr Heta said, “At this place two quite different people came together. Tangata whenua and manuhiri. We are both of those people today and many others as well.” He broke into a sort of low chant.

'Kuku, kuku ika, kuku wehiwehi,

Takina ko koe nā, te iho o ika,

Te iho o Tangaroa �"

Uara ki uta rā, uara ki tai rā.' “

He looked across at me. “Do you know that one Miriama?”

“Hold the fish, hold it tight.” I knew that much. I thought that was pretty clever of him, because the North Island of New Zealand is Te Ika a Maui, 'The fish of Maui'. Maui is said to have fished it up for us to live on and we had been talking about letting it go again.

Mr Heta said some more things in te reo, about Whanganui-ā-Tara and its place in Māori history.

He said, “The power of karakia, or prayer, or being spiritual or even just thinking hard is that for a while you can get out of yourself and be like a spirit. Let it happen to you now. Be in the year 1840, see the settlers come.” This time I just accepted. The ships, and the colonists who scrambled through the waves to this spot, became my friends and the future. Then for a last amazing moment I heard my ancestors. “You are our future Miriama. Live it for us and live it well. Haere rā”. I felt so proud that I started crying again. I didn't care.

It felt good to be there with everyone else too emotional to talk.

Helen still looked pretty serious so I thought I better say something.

“You know, it wasn't so bad the Māori selling Wellington, we got some pretty nice friends as well as tools and stuff, and even school is OK sometimes,” and I squeezed her hand.

As we walked back to the bus, Mr Heta came up beside me and said, “It was not just your ancestors who were proud of you today.”

The kids were beginning to talk a bit louder and Jimmy got some grass to put down Lisa's neck to show us see he wasn't emotional.

By the time we were back at the bus I was feeling my normal old self again. Helen was pretty relieved about that. She said, “Hey Miriama, it was just as well for you guys that you got me on the deal, made it all worthwhile.”

She stopped and put a finger up to the side of her head, pretending to think hard. “Remind me again, how many red nightshirts did we Pāk�"hā have to give you for all the land you can see from Petone beach?”

Mr Heta stepped around the door of the bus behind me. “Au�", girl,” he said. “It's not too late for us to change our minds and eat you.”

Helen looks pretty spectacular when she blushes. She disappeared down the bus.

Mr Heta said to me quietly. “You were there weren't you Miriama?”

I nodded.

He said, “They couldn't be stopped. They would have come anyway. If not the English, the French or the Americans, or even Rangihaeata.”

We both looked up towards the Korokoro hills and then laughed when we realised what we were doing.

“Āe,” I said. “It could have been worse, and we looked good in the nightshirts.”

Mr Heta chuckled and went to stop Jimmy poking Lisa with a pencil.

---

Glossary

Āe: yes, also used in question form.

Au�": exclamation.

Aotearoa: possibly Land of the long white cloud, New Zealand

hui: meeting, traditionally with strict protocols, where any man could speak, and continuing until agreement was reached.

iwi: tribe

kai: food

kāinga: settlement

kāo: no

Manuhiri: visitors

Pāk�"hā: non-Māori person

reo: the Māori language

Tangata Whenua: people of the land. The local people

Tararua and Rimutaka: are mountain ranges bounding the eastern and northern extremities of the greater Wellington area. To the south and west is ocean.

Turakurae: the eastern extremity at the southern end of the Rimutaka mountains

motu: island

tīpuna: ancestors, respected forebears

utu: payment, recompense, revenge

wahine: woman

waka: boat, traditionally a single large tree hollowed out and shaped and carved.

Whanganui-ā-Tara: Whanga is harbour, nui is large, a is of, Tara was a Māori explorer. Together they mean Wellington Harbour a term never adopted in English, although Port Nicholson the previous Pāk�"hā name is still used in Māori language and titles as Pōn�"k�".

---

Kuku, kuku ika, kuku wehiwehi,

Takina ko koe nā, te iho o ika,

Te iho o Tangaroa �"

Uara ki uta rā, uara ki tai rā.

Hold tight, hold the fish, hold tight with fearsome power,

You are led along, the essence of the fish,

The essence of Tangaroa �"

Desired on the land, desired on the sea.

Author's Note

Comments welcome