Kiwi Tracks (18 page)

‘See ya down the river in three days,’ says the outfitter. He drives his beat-up old van off in a cloud of dust, the empty trailer bouncing wildly behind. The colour of the river is industrial-strength grey, although it is in fact the black volcanic sand that lends it an opaque shade, and not pollution. It runs through a deep gorge of soft sandstone and mudstone formed from the ocean bed. In places, seashell fossils protrude from the sediments. The river has cut through this landscape with a dramatic flourish; as I drift dreamily downstream, waterfalls trickle down marble-smooth rock faces, and caves or hidden entrances to side rivers and creeks appear unexpectedly. Harder boulders stick out like chocolate chips in the crumbling biscuit of bedrock. A fluffy dandelion seed wafts by, cartwheeling so gently that the delicate grain dances on the surface of the river without getting wet. I paddle quietly, enjoying the scenery until some seven hours and several rapids later I reach John Coull Hut.

There is an ominous sign posted outside the hut’s door:

Canoeists should stop and back-paddle to allow jet boats to overtake. Jet boats, especially when fully loaded, require full power for some distance to get up and plane after slowing down. Therefore, if possible, canoeists should travel in groups, rather than straggle out over some distance.

I would have assumed I had the right of way, being in a frailer, slower craft. Competing with jet boats defeats the whole purpose of coming here.

The volunteer hut warden based here for the week engages me in conversation. He tells me he used to work as a labourer in Britain, before coming out to New Zealand with his wife when they were both still teenagers. By dint of hard work, they managed to save enough money to become dairy farmers, or ‘cockies’. When they sold the farm, they bought a smaller property with the proceeds, to raise a small herd of beef cattle. Their annual one-week holiday is spent working as voluntary DOC hut wardens.

His shoulders are broad from decades of hard labour, his forearms thick, his fingers gnarled and weather-beaten. He has
not shaved for some days and a growth of white whiskers has sprouted on his ruddy cheeks. I ask him about the Maori village that Meri had mentioned.

He tells me: ‘It’s downstream. You can go down there and talk to them, if you want your ears buzzed off. They are friendly enough though, they’ll tell you their side of the story.’ He measures his words carefully; he is here as a voluntary hut warden and an ambassador for his adopted country. His wife watches expressionlessly and serves him a thick steak.

He tells me: ‘The Whanganui is the largest continuously navigable river in New Zealand. The first settlement on the river was about 1350 AD, when people known as Te Atihau nui a papa rangi drifted into the valley, using the river as the route between coast and interior.’

Cutting into the slab of fresh beef as he talks, he also tells me about returning Kiwi soldiers from the First World War. They were granted land downstream along the Mangapurua branch of the river where the famous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ crosses a deep chasm. His face and voice reflect both the pride and empathy he feels for the pioneer families who toiled to tame the bush, only to give up some twenty years later, broken and still owing the government money. He adds: ‘Now, you can’t see any evidence of the blood, sweat and tears those families shed to make a living there. It’s all taken over by bush.’

I walk down to the riverbank. The sun sets and the moon, almost full, peers over the ridge of tangled vegetation high over the river. A morepork cries spookily, like a
kaitaiki
, a guardian spirit left behind by Maori ancestors at sacred places along the river. I retreat to the safety of the hut, just in case it
is
the warning cry of a Maori security goblin.

Next day the steep-sided river valley is thick with fog. I pack and launch my canoe into the swirling vapours. By mid-morning, the sun has burnt off the mist and soon the river valley becomes an
unbearably hot cauldron. Downstream, a hidden entrance to the Tangarakau River provides a welcome diversion with the shade of overhanging vegetation. I paddle up its torpid waters, the riverbank thick with podocarps, palms and ferns, like a tunnel through tropical jungle. Even the tree trunks are covered with green parasitic plants; I could imagine myself in Borneo, the Amazon or Africa, except there are no indigenous wild animals, just some exotic possums or feral goats, deer, pigs, cats and dogs. It is surprising how little bird life is here too, apart from the ubiquitous tui calling out like a familiar friend.

As I float by, a blast of cold air blows over me from a narrow slit, only a metre wide, opening to a deep and secret cavern. I back-paddle against the current and within the crevice catch a glimpse of a concealed world. Water has eroded a church-sized chamber, maybe fifty metres in diameter, crowded with ferns, palms, pools and waterfalls. Sunlight barely filters through the lush canopy above. I hold onto the rocks and stop to peer into this concealed biosphere.

Reaching Mangapurua side stream, I tie the canoe to a steel spike hammered into the soft ground and clamber up onto steps dug into the mudstone. A thirty-minute walk along a wide pathway, through a burrow of vegetation, brings me to the famous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’. The massive concrete bridge, with its dizzying, hundred-metre drop to the Mangapurua River below, is now almost entirely disguised by encroaching vegetation. Its ramparts are crumbling, and the only evidence of the abandoned farms, so laboriously carved out of the bush, are remnants of stone hearths. Lush green palm trees have been the first to reclaim the cleared pasture.

I had thought it strange that Kiwis displayed such reverence when discussing this bridge. It occurs to me, though, that it is not the bridge itself which is important. The bridge is simply symbolic evidence of the wasted lives of those settlers who did not succeed in taming the bush. Rural New Zealanders relate to that.

Uncut tall black beech, mixed with podocarp forest, dominate the ridge tops. Beside the path lies a plough, with the words
‘Made in England’ embossed in the rusty metal, and I imagine the farmers, their wives and their children walking along this same footpath. By 1942, the last of the war veterans who had tried to cultivate this isolated bush finally gave up. The Whanganui River had ceased to be a main transportation artery by the late nineteen-twenties, although boats still plied the river until the fifties. The most poignant reminders of these failed settlers are the colourful introduced flowers flourishing along the path edge.

Not much later, I hear the throaty roar of a jet boat echoing down the steep sides of the river, minutes before it catches up to me. I hug one side of the canyon as the machine hurtles by. None of the passengers, nor even the boat’s driver, returns my wave. After the boat passes, I am left gripping the gunwales and balancing the canoe precariously while it is thrown about in the jet-boat’s wake.

My first sight of Tieke Marae is tarpaulins stretched over wooden poles, giving the Maori village the air of a squatter’s camp. Unsure of what to expect, I paddle the canoe onto the beach. As I pull the boat onto the sandbank, a young Maori boy blows on a conch shell. He descends and asks me to follow him through a semi-permanent archway of ferns.

As we walk, he tells me a little of the
marae
’s history. ‘This used to be one of our old
pas
, where our tribal group built fortified villages. That is why I blew the
putorino
, the conch shell, to warn my people of your arrival. When the road was built to the east, our people moved away from the river and the ancient
pas
, to the activity and jobs along the road. The government declared this land public domain, which was good because it stopped settlers from cutting trees or developing the area. But the land was never bought from our people, and when DOC turned it into a national park, they did not have the right to do so.’

He pauses to take a breath, underlining the gravity of the message. ‘We have come back to establish our rights. That is why we are here, why we have taken over the DOC hut and made it our
marae
. This
marae
is a symbol of our tribal identity and solidarity.’

‘What is a
marae
anyway?’ I ask, following him further up the slope.

The boy turns to face me proudly. ‘Before, the
marae
meant the open area of land directly in front of the sacred carved home. Now a
marae
means all community buildings belonging to the tribe, not just the sacred house.’ He formally warns me: ‘You may not take alcohol, drugs or firearms on this
marae.
I will take you to the
powhiri,
welcome. As a
manuhiri
, visitor, you should follow me, then sit down where I show you and someone will sing for you. Then someone will speak and other men will perform a song. Then you must say who you are, where you are from, what you are doing here.’

He leads me to the open door of a former DOC hut, where a Maori flag is nailed to an outer wall. A huge plastic tarpaulin has been added to one side of the hut to partition off a kitchen and dining area. Makeshift wooden shelves are stacked with food. Mugs and cooking utensils hang from nails in the rafters. At the back of the kitchen is an open fireplace and two enormous smoke-blackened pots sit over the open flames.

I sit where I am told and the young man takes his place beside me to explain what is happening. A woman sings a high-pitched
karanga
, or welcome song, to arouse the spirits who have passed on to the spirit world. Then a young Maori, with freckles and dreadlocks, tatty trousers and a torn windbreaker, speaks in his native tongue. It is a melodious language, with much repetition of syllables. For the first time in New Zealand, I feel as if I am in a ‘foreign’ country. ‘I shall translate now into my second language,’ he says with pride. ‘So that you understand.’

He repeats his message in English, welcoming me, telling the guardians, spirits and ancestors who I am. Two other young men join him. One has a broken nose and several of his teeth are missing. The other has Asian features with long, flowing black hair and traditional tattoos on his face. The men stand in front of me, their legs apart, knees bent. In perfect unison, they perform a
haka
, a fierce, war-like song which is accompanied by aggressive stamping of feet, loud slapping of thighs, punching of the air and hand gestures which remind me of karate chops. Then, holding their bodies still, their vertically held hands and fingers begin to
quiver. At the end of a sequence of
wero
, ritual challenges, they pull their faces taut, eyes wide, tongues extended.

Despite the fearsome performance, they all line up afterwards to shake hands and offer me the traditional
hongi
, pressing their noses and foreheads against mine. First, the children extend this greeting, then the women, young men and finally the clan’s patriarch. I feel as if I have been welcomed into a family.

Most of the narrow bunk beds in the DOC hut have been stripped of their mattresses, which have been laid alongside one another on the floor to make double beds. Family photographs adorn the walls. The few belongings are stuffed into plastic bags and hang from protruding nails. I feel like an intruder as I walk through this improvised ‘bedroom’ to the back of the hut, where I find a solitary empty bunk with its mattress.

It is getting dark. Outside, a young Maori boy in a woollen hat strums a guitar. A group of women talk and prepare vegetables for dinner.

I sit with Gay, a schoolteacher from Auckland. She tells me: ‘My great-grandmother, Tauwiri Cribb, is about to have her gravesite unveiled the day after tomorrow, in a formal unveiling called
huru kohatu
. Some sixty tribe members are invited to attend the re-internment, or
hui
. Her body, which had been buried in the town of Wanganui, was disinterred a year ago and the remains brought up here to be buried on the site of the old
pa
.’

‘Your great grandmother had an English surname?’ I enquire.

‘She married an Englishman, Cribb. He was a land surveyor.’

‘That was a good move on his part, marrying a Maori chief’s daughter.’

‘I think it was her father who suggested it. He was smart. He used his son-in-law to manipulate the British laws to get land too.’ She laughs, but I detect bitterness. ‘That’s what this is all about. Land.’ She indicates with her dark eyes the hut, the tarpaulins and the ground. ‘We have reoccupied our land.’ Her face is determined, reflecting the passion she feels for this cause. ‘We never gave it away or sold it.’

‘And DOC?’ I ask again.

‘They are irrelevant now,’ she says disparagingly. ‘See some of these Maori boys? Many of our
rangatahi
, our young generation, have been in trouble in the cities. They have been disenfranchised. The Maori social structure has been completely fragmented by modern pakeha society. The pakeha represent almost 80 per cent of New Zealand’s population, the Maori only 13 per cent. Even the Pacific Island Polynesians are 5 per cent. Now we bring our young people who are in trouble out here to learn the old Maori ways. Some have been here for over a year now and they don’t want to leave.’ Despite their fierce expressions whilst performing the
haka
, the tattoos, dreadlocks and broken, discoloured teeth, the teenagers seem warm, sincere and, most importantly, proud of their Maori identity. ‘We get them sent to us from all over, often problem boys who run away from detention centres.’ She laughs. ‘Here there is nowhere to run to. To get through all that bush you’d have to be a good walker.’