Whangara Term Analysis

Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai.

So the whale rider uttered a prayer over the wooden spear, saying, “Let this spear be planted in the years to come, for there are sufficient spear [sic] already implanted. Let this be the one to flower when the people are troubled and it is most needed.”

And the spear then leaped from his hands with gladness and soared through the sky. It flew across a thousand years. When it hit the earth, it did not change but waited for another hundred and fifty years to pass until it was needed. The flukes of the whale stroked majestically at the sky.

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.