The Tangi

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Tangi

POOR old Tnwa! He was said to be Hour 100 years of nge at the time

of his dmth. They had laid him in state thero in front of the fine new meetinghouse that he had nnmoil Fount of Life and Wisdom in memory of the sax-red house of his ancestors in the old homeland of far Uawaiki. He had raised most of the money for it, and it had l>een his ambition to see the plaeo completed with all its traditional carvings and its bright reed decoration*, and its modern tile roof and electric light. And now, since lie had performed the opening ceremonies only a few months ago, I his tangi for the old man was tho first public gathering to assemble around the big new meeting-house of tbo tribe.

Lying there in state, he looked strangely different from the feeble old

man in the rather shabby pakeha clothes who had tottered through the last few yonrs of his life. Now they had covered his shrunken body with fine kiwi-feather cloaks, and beneath the plumed headband his sharp features had regained in death the calm dignity of a true son of a noble line. Near his head were photographs of his relatives. Ilia greenstone mere and his taiaha lay beside him, also an old-fashioned double-barrel gun which was a souvenir of the days he had chased rebel bands along the neighbouring ocean beach.

Now tho last party of visitors was arriving, welcomed to the rain-sodden village courtyard by the mourning women. The wreath** of bitter kawaknwa around their bends were not more bitter than their tears of grief.

"Haern mail" the keening voices called to the visitors. "Come hither into the presence of death, into the home of the mourners. Gome and behold the face of our departed one!"

The big gathering of friends and relatives waited in silence. Whereupon the leading woman of the visiting party went .to the side of the dead man and intoned that old farewell beginning: "Depart, O father, to the Reinga, to the far Hnwaiki, to the Lord of the Dead." And she repeated all the old mysterious, sayings that the young people , know by heart but can scarcely explain. However, the finish of it is plain and final enough for anyone: "Therefore go, O father, go to the home that awaits us all!"

And then the whole party drew round the dead man and raised their voices in an old mournful family dirge. And some, overcome with grief, threw their shawls over their heads and wept. The

chieftain'* old widow sat on the ground beside her dead lord. She covered her head and rocked to and fro, but uttered no sound. And the whole company round about shared in this grief and swelled its tide.

Manumrl summed it np well as he stood before the big crowd at the tangi for his old friend with a heart as heavy as the rain clouds that the mid-day sun was now banishing from the dark hills. "Alas, alas!" he cried, "the giant totara is fallen; the strong tree that Tane loved is laid low. Its place in the forest cannot be filled, neither can we shelter under its branch?* any more. The crash of its fall has echoed throughout the land; the shock of its fall ha* shaken the eartli and loosened the roots of the lesser trees. Aue! aue! aue!"

"Aiie! aue! aucl" echoed the mourners in their iinguished keen.

But quick as the storm of grief had arisen it soon subsided. And presently laughter wns heard among the young people, nnd only tired and hungry babies wailed monotonously as the crowd started to drift away.

lawas grandson, Tu, went to look if tie cooking haangis were ready. "Pity I hey don t g ct a proper lboi]er here ~k o '~ Pe Kiihas wedding," he grumbled, thinking of the toil and sweat of digXinjf the pits and chopping firewood and carrying the stones, not to mention the trouble of tiring them in the early rainy hours. * ,

Old Jack Taranga remembered hi* horno loft tethered in the open, and went to move it into the shade of a willow treo now that tho sun had come out so hot. A queer, fussy old man he was when it came to his horse, the only creature in the world ho loved, and he said ho wouldn't leave it tethered all ilny in the bent of the sun like most of Clio other poor beasts.

And that scamp Run, who knows a poml horse when ho sees one—and he sliiuild, «eeing the number lie's ridden Ihe legs oil' careering about the. country

By . . Roderick Finlayson

This is the prize-winning entry in the Short Story Contest for October.

till all hour* of the night—he made after the old man to bargain for the horse. A fine chance he had of getting it if he offered a ticket to paradise even! But be likes to annoy old Jack.

"Time you spent your money on a wife instead of another horse, Ruri," shouted Charlie Patera, who liked funerals and had buried two wives and four sisters, all with consumption. He said the cough wouldn't ever get him though, if lte drank enough waipiro!

"Py korry! that all right," Ruri shouted back. "The new Government's going to give the Maori plenty money now. Maybe I can afford both. But you see, I need the fast horse to catch the wife, e hoa!" And with a loud laugh he turned to his bargaining again.

But Charlie didn't think the Maori would get more money from the new Government. "The pakeha gets first share every time," he declared. "That man know what he wants and goes after it; the Maori just sits in his kainga and takes what cornea to him. What you expect?" he asked, and spat in disgust.

"I don't know, e hoa," said a stranger. "Down my way the Maori works his own farms jolly hard, and he deserves help all right."

And Charlie and his friends might have been arguing about it yet, but j\»t then old Rewi, Mm. Tawa's brother ana master of ceremonies, came forward and said in the old way in Maori, "It's good we should honour the dead people, but now let all our friends refresh themselves with food and drink." And hs motioned toward the diriing hall. But some of the older folk preferred to nit on the ground in the ahade of the willows.

"Where's Henri?" asked someone, looking around the long 1 table in the dining room where the girls and women

were bringing baskets of food from the haangis and handing out mugs of boiling tea.

"Drunk as usual, 1 * said George Patera, ' looking round disgustedly for a knife and fork. He didn't like theae Maori affairs since he had travelled overseas with that hula concert party of b's, and had been spoilt by romantic-minded ladies in the fashionable hotels. However, he had to put in an appearance at hie old uncle's tangi. He was a man of affairs these days, though. He would make an excuse and hurry away soon.

But Hemi, the old chieftain's eldest son, wasn't thinking of the tangi or of the gossips. He didn't even want to eat. He had too many worries on hw mind. He eat morosely in the kitchen of his father's house, where his younger brother's wife was busy with breadmaking. His arms were asprawl on the rough table and his bloodshot eyes roved unseeingly over the familiar smoke-stained walls with their brightcoloured pictures from tho weekly papers. A child crawled about the floor with a tin toy, and an old wheezy cat was asleep on his coet where he had flung it in a corner.

The woman glanced at her brother-in law in disgust.

"Pah!" she exclaimed to the room in general. "Pah! You should be ashamed, coming back drunk to yonr own father's tnngi. I wish you'd get out of here. You make me sick. Ae, yon ought to he ashamed of yourself, Hemi."

But the man took no notice of her. He continued muttering to himself and petulantly slapping the table-top with his hands. *

"By God," he went on, "wait till I talk to him afterwards! Hell suffer for thiß—by God he Willi talking the old man into promising him the house and the best of the land—him the younger brother, eh?—not me, mind you. Turning the old man's mind- with soft words bcemisp he was his favourite, eh? By Cod. I'll make him suffer for this, though!"

Tlie woman exclaimed again in disgust and went on with her task. She was used to her brother-in-law's morose moods and violent threats. But lie was weak and lacking in courage, she knew, so she merely despised the man. His selfish greed and cruelty even to his own family were the talk of all the people. No one was sorry the old man had wished his lands to be given to the popular younger brother. It was only right. The other squandered whatever he had on himself. He bought motor cars and fine clothes from the cities, where he would go for the races. Aye, he gambled and drank too much, and then lived on the generosity of his relatives and neighbours. And mean with it all, too—just look at his poor kiddies in rajjfi! Well, let him rave, then, and let him drink himself helpless. Shame on him, to come to his own father's tangi in such a stupid state. Well, she would talk to the village council, and they would lock him up if he did get too troublesome.

So, having finished her work, the woman picked up the youngster from the floor and went out to join the others, leaving Hemi to curse his fortune before the unpitying gaze of the old wheezy cat.

The old widowed lady, though, wrapped in her black shawl, didn't hear the curses nor the gossip nor the clatter of the meal. She continued to rock herself slowly to and fro. The violence of her grief had at last spent itself, and her mind was now filled only with that contemplative spirit dear to the Maoris —a tender yearning for the past.

She saw again the pleasant stream Weiwawa near her people's place where she used to play as a girl; and the little village, too. It was there she first met her man. She was very young and very beautiful in those days. There he first flashed burning glances at her as she danced wildly and exultingly through the night. There he first spoke words of love. Those scenes were now more reol to her than this strange sad dream surrounding her. Her lord liiy there so still beside her in the last long sleep. Sleep? Her strong, beautiful lord asleep? No! je was departed; he was away to the far Hawaiki, and she must follow her lord as she had followed him up through the cool tree-ferns by the stream Waiwawa. Ae, she must surely follow him in case he needed anything on his long journey. °

The last of the visitors had now paid their respects to the dead chieftain, and early next morning all was ready for the burial ceremony. Sadly and solemnly they placed the coffin on Tamahana's motor truck, and they covered it with a large New Zealand flag and adorned it with his beautiful feather cloak with his mere and his taiaha on top. One or two cars joined in behind, and some of the men followed on horseback, and others followed afoot. The wheel tracks were very rough and rutted like plough furrows after the recent rain, so the cars could only crawl carefully along toward the sea, where the liglit mists still lingered, and the old pa where many of the chieftain's ancestors and relatives were laid to rest on the topmost parapet.

Finally the coffin was carried on the men's shoulders, and then raised by ropes up the face of the parapet where the grave was dug and the minister awaited it in the shade of the darkleaved polnitiikawas covered' witli buds all ready to break into crimson blossom. To everyone who listened at the graveside, it seemed appropriate that the minister should read a passage adapting the brave words of St. Paul—"For now he is ready to be offered, and the time of his departure is at hand. He has

fought a good fight, he has finished his course, be has kept the faith. And the Lord shall deliver him from every evil and will preserve him into his heavenly kingdom; to whom be glory for ever and even. Amen." . . . "And not him only, but all those also that love the Lord," added the minister. "Therefore, friends, let us all henceforth cast out vain thoughts and evil desires and be gathered together in bonds of brotherly love. . . "

But old Manunui, the chief's lifelong friend, was lost in a reverie of olden times, of their great fishing expeditions in the teeming waters of the bay there, and their fighting days along that heroic coast. And Taranga, who knew all the pedigrees of chiefs and tribes, was heard intoning in a low chant the famous forebears of the dead man and their noblest deeds since the day they came here from over the blue ocean of Kiwa and took this land and built this pa; and would the young generation, he wondered, make men such as those mighty ones?

And the others waited solemnly and patiently for the ceremony to be finished and were glad when they were free to go, for the tangi and the talk of the orators and the salutations were over and done with, and the burying wits rightly a matter only for priests and should be very private as of old. So they all came down from the hilltop as the Inst sea mists were swept away by the sun and the morning breeze, and cars were cranked and horses mounted, and some fell to talking and smoking, and others went away intent on their own affairs.

But back at the fine new carved house the old lady, wrapped in her ehawl, didn't think of buryings, but only that her lord was gone on a long journey, and she must follow him in case he needed her, as he had needed her in those times when he was wounded in the fighting with the rebels, and she had nursed him back to health, and strength. People had spoken to they seemed, though they had called themselves her children. Her children! Why, she had no children—only her lord gone on a long journey, who needed her. They had urged her to eat—«be who hadn't touched food since Honi lay wearily down. "Ah, I am vefy tired." he had said. "1 think this is the end." Ae, the end. What need had she of food now, poor old one!

Tn olden times, it is said, a great 'chief's widows used to hang themselves after their lord's death. But there would be no need of that. The wizened old woman just rocked herself slowly to sleep through the bright sunny hours. Monotonously, as she rooked, she murmured to herself, "Ae, the end—it is the end."

And in bis prison house Hemi, too, awaited release. They had locked him in a room of the house that was now his brother'*, and barred the window to save him disgracing the family at the funeral, so violent had be become in his drunken threats. Now he lay morosely on a mattress on the floor, his sodden brain refusing new thoughts, but merely going over and over again the causes of his grievance and this final insult,, that they bad imprisoned him.

"Ae, but they're burying the old man now," the thick voice mutttered. "Then they'll have to let me out of here. They can't stop me. The tangi's over now. They'll have to let me out soon, and then I'll get even with them, by God!"

He badly wanted a smoke. He fumbled in his pockets for tobacco, and, finding none, lie cursed his captors again. Thinking of smoke suggested fire to his muddled brain.

"This house my brother cheated me out of. eh?" He chuckled horribly. "This fine house—what a grand fire it would make—to-night, eh?"