Rawiri Character Analysis

“A girl,” Grandfather, Koro Apirana, said, disgusted. “I will have nothing to do with her. She has broken the male line of descent in our tribe.” He shoved the telephone at our grandmother, Nanny Flowers, saying, “Here. It’s your fault. Your female side was too strong.” Then he pulled on his boots and stomped out of the house.

I could understand, however, why the old man was so against the idea. Not only was Kahutia Te Rangi a man’s name, but it was also the name of the ancestor of our village. Koro Apirana felt that naming a girl-child after the founder of our tribe was belittling Kahutia Te Rangi’s prestige. From that time onward, whenever Koro Apirana went past the meetinghouse, he would look up at the figure of Kahutia Te Rangi on the whale and shake his head sorrowfully. Then he would say to Nanny Flowers, “You stepped out of line, dear. You shouldn’t have done it.” To give credit to her, Nanny Flowers did appear penitent.

“Never mind, girl,” she said to baby Kahu. “Your birth cord is here. No matter where you may go, you will always return. You will never be lost to us.” Then I marveled at her wisdom and Rehua’s in naming the child in our genealogy and the joining of her to our lands.

When a child is growing up somewhere else, you can’t see the small signs that mark her out as different, someone with a destiny. As I have said before, we were all looking somewhere else.

“Hey!” one of the boys had said, pointing. “Over there. Orcas!”

It had been uncanny, really, seeing those killer whales slicing stealthily through the sea, uncanny and disturbing, as if a dream.

Even more strange, though, was that Kahu had begun to make eerie sounds in her throat. I swear that those long lamenting sighs of hers were exactly the same as I had heard in the movie theater. It sounded as if she was warning them. The orcas suddenly dived.

In many respects the parallels with the Maori in New Zealand were very close, except that we didn’t have to advance as many years in one lifetime. However, our journey was possibly more difficult because it had to be undertaken within European terms of acceptability. We were a minority and much of our progress was dependent on European goodwill. And there was no doubt that in New Zealand, just as in Papua New Guinea, our nationalism was also galvanizing the people to become one Maori nation.

“Will we be ready?” he asked. “Will we have prepared the people to cope with the new challenges and the new technology? And will they still be Maori?” I could tell that the last question was weighing heavily on his mind. In this respect we both recognized that the answer lay in Koro Apirana’s persistence with the school sessions, for he was one of the very few who could pass on the sacred knowledge. Our Koro was like an old whale stranded in an alien present, but that was how it was supposed to be, because he also had his role in the pattern of things, in the tides of the future.

“E nga rangatira,” Kahu began, “e nga iwi”—she looked at Koro Apirana’s empty seat—“tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.” There were stars in her eyes, like sparkling tears. “Distinguished guests, members of the audience, my speech is a speech of love for my grandfather, Koro Apirana.”

Nanny Flowers gave a sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Then the camera focuses on the other men, where they stand in the surging water. The chain saw has just completed cutting through the whale’s lower jaw. The men are laughing as they wrench the jaw from the butchered whale. There is a huge spout of blood as the jaw suddenly snaps free. The blood drenches the men in a dark gouty stream. Blood, laughing, pain, victory, blood.

Yes, people in the district vividly remember the stranding of the whales, because television and radio brought the event into our homes that evening. But there were no television cameras or radio newspeople to see what occurred in Whangara the following night. Perhaps it was just as well, because even now it all seems like a dream. Perhaps, also, the drama enacted that night was meant to be seen only by the tribe and nobody else. Whatever the case, the earlier stranding of whales was merely a prelude to the awesome event that followed, an event that had all the cataclysmic power and grandeur of a Second Coming.

I thought I saw something flying through the air, across the aeons, to plunge into the heart of the village.

A dark shadow began to ascend from the deep. Then there were other shadows rising, ever rising. Suddenly the first shadow breached the surface and I saw it was a whale. Leviathan. Climbing through the depths. Crashing through the skin of sea. And as it came, the air was filled with streaked lightning and awesome singing.

Koro Apirana gave a tragic cry, for this was no ordinary beast, no ordinary whale. This whale came from the past. As it came, it filled the air with its singing.

Karanga mai, karanga mai,

karanga mai.

“[The whale] is a reminder of the oneness that the world once had. It is the birth cord joining past and present, reality and fantasy. It is both [real and unreal, natural and supernatural]. It is both, […] and if we have forgotten the communion then we have ceased to be Maori!”

[…] “The whale is a sign. […] It has stranded itself here. If we are able to return it to the sea, then that will be proof that the oneness is still with us. If we are not able to return it, then this is because we have become weak. If it lives, we live. If it dies, we die. Not only its salvation but ours is waiting out there.”

Without really thinking about it, Kahu began to stroke the whale just behind the fin. It is my lord, the whale rider. She felt a tremor in the whale and a rippling under the skin. Suddenly she saw that indentations like footholds and handholds were appearing before her. She tested the footholds and they were firm. Although the wind was blowing fiercely, she stepped away from the sheltering fin and began to climb. As she did so, she caught a sudden glimpse of her Koro Apirana and Nanny Flowers clustered with the others on the faraway beach.

“Which of the boys?” he gasped in grief. “Which of the—”

Nanny Flowers was pointing out to sea. Her face was filled with emotion as she cried out to Kahu. The old man understood. He raised his arms as if to claw down the sky upon him.

“I fell off the whale. If I were a boy, I would have held on tight. I’m sorry, Paka, I’m not a boy.”

The old man cradled Kahu in his arms, partly because of emotion and partly because he didn’t want those big ears out there to hear their big chief crying.

“You’re the best great-grandchild in the whole wide world,” he said. “Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter.”

“Really, Paka?” Kahu gasped.

Kahu looked at Koro Apirana, her eyes shining.

“Oh, Paka, can’t you hear them? I’ve been listening to them for ages now. Oh, Paka, and the whales are still singing,” she said.

“A girl,” Grandfather, Koro Apirana, said, disgusted. “I will have nothing to do with her. She has broken the male line of descent in our tribe.” He shoved the telephone at our grandmother, Nanny Flowers, saying, “Here. It’s your fault. Your female side was too strong.” Then he pulled on his boots and stomped out of the house.

I could understand, however, why the old man was so against the idea. Not only was Kahutia Te Rangi a man’s name, but it was also the name of the ancestor of our village. Koro Apirana felt that naming a girl-child after the founder of our tribe was belittling Kahutia Te Rangi’s prestige. From that time onward, whenever Koro Apirana went past the meetinghouse, he would look up at the figure of Kahutia Te Rangi on the whale and shake his head sorrowfully. Then he would say to Nanny Flowers, “You stepped out of line, dear. You shouldn’t have done it.” To give credit to her, Nanny Flowers did appear penitent.

“Never mind, girl,” she said to baby Kahu. “Your birth cord is here. No matter where you may go, you will always return. You will never be lost to us.” Then I marveled at her wisdom and Rehua’s in naming the child in our genealogy and the joining of her to our lands.

When a child is growing up somewhere else, you can’t see the small signs that mark her out as different, someone with a destiny. As I have said before, we were all looking somewhere else.

“Hey!” one of the boys had said, pointing. “Over there. Orcas!”

It had been uncanny, really, seeing those killer whales slicing stealthily through the sea, uncanny and disturbing, as if a dream.

Even more strange, though, was that Kahu had begun to make eerie sounds in her throat. I swear that those long lamenting sighs of hers were exactly the same as I had heard in the movie theater. It sounded as if she was warning them. The orcas suddenly dived.

In many respects the parallels with the Maori in New Zealand were very close, except that we didn’t have to advance as many years in one lifetime. However, our journey was possibly more difficult because it had to be undertaken within European terms of acceptability. We were a minority and much of our progress was dependent on European goodwill. And there was no doubt that in New Zealand, just as in Papua New Guinea, our nationalism was also galvanizing the people to become one Maori nation.

“Will we be ready?” he asked. “Will we have prepared the people to cope with the new challenges and the new technology? And will they still be Maori?” I could tell that the last question was weighing heavily on his mind. In this respect we both recognized that the answer lay in Koro Apirana’s persistence with the school sessions, for he was one of the very few who could pass on the sacred knowledge. Our Koro was like an old whale stranded in an alien present, but that was how it was supposed to be, because he also had his role in the pattern of things, in the tides of the future.

“E nga rangatira,” Kahu began, “e nga iwi”—she looked at Koro Apirana’s empty seat—“tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.” There were stars in her eyes, like sparkling tears. “Distinguished guests, members of the audience, my speech is a speech of love for my grandfather, Koro Apirana.”

Nanny Flowers gave a sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Then the camera focuses on the other men, where they stand in the surging water. The chain saw has just completed cutting through the whale’s lower jaw. The men are laughing as they wrench the jaw from the butchered whale. There is a huge spout of blood as the jaw suddenly snaps free. The blood drenches the men in a dark gouty stream. Blood, laughing, pain, victory, blood.

Yes, people in the district vividly remember the stranding of the whales, because television and radio brought the event into our homes that evening. But there were no television cameras or radio newspeople to see what occurred in Whangara the following night. Perhaps it was just as well, because even now it all seems like a dream. Perhaps, also, the drama enacted that night was meant to be seen only by the tribe and nobody else. Whatever the case, the earlier stranding of whales was merely a prelude to the awesome event that followed, an event that had all the cataclysmic power and grandeur of a Second Coming.

I thought I saw something flying through the air, across the aeons, to plunge into the heart of the village.

A dark shadow began to ascend from the deep. Then there were other shadows rising, ever rising. Suddenly the first shadow breached the surface and I saw it was a whale. Leviathan. Climbing through the depths. Crashing through the skin of sea. And as it came, the air was filled with streaked lightning and awesome singing.

Koro Apirana gave a tragic cry, for this was no ordinary beast, no ordinary whale. This whale came from the past. As it came, it filled the air with its singing.

Karanga mai, karanga mai,

karanga mai.

“[The whale] is a reminder of the oneness that the world once had. It is the birth cord joining past and present, reality and fantasy. It is both [real and unreal, natural and supernatural]. It is both, […] and if we have forgotten the communion then we have ceased to be Maori!”

[…] “The whale is a sign. […] It has stranded itself here. If we are able to return it to the sea, then that will be proof that the oneness is still with us. If we are not able to return it, then this is because we have become weak. If it lives, we live. If it dies, we die. Not only its salvation but ours is waiting out there.”

Without really thinking about it, Kahu began to stroke the whale just behind the fin. It is my lord, the whale rider. She felt a tremor in the whale and a rippling under the skin. Suddenly she saw that indentations like footholds and handholds were appearing before her. She tested the footholds and they were firm. Although the wind was blowing fiercely, she stepped away from the sheltering fin and began to climb. As she did so, she caught a sudden glimpse of her Koro Apirana and Nanny Flowers clustered with the others on the faraway beach.

“Which of the boys?” he gasped in grief. “Which of the—”

Nanny Flowers was pointing out to sea. Her face was filled with emotion as she cried out to Kahu. The old man understood. He raised his arms as if to claw down the sky upon him.

“I fell off the whale. If I were a boy, I would have held on tight. I’m sorry, Paka, I’m not a boy.”

The old man cradled Kahu in his arms, partly because of emotion and partly because he didn’t want those big ears out there to hear their big chief crying.

“You’re the best great-grandchild in the whole wide world,” he said. “Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter.”

“Really, Paka?” Kahu gasped.

Kahu looked at Koro Apirana, her eyes shining.

“Oh, Paka, can’t you hear them? I’ve been listening to them for ages now. Oh, Paka, and the whales are still singing,” she said.