Exotic life in early N.Z.

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 20

Exotic life in early N.Z.

The Castaway. By Aaron Fletcher. Fontana. 416 pp. $8.95 (paperback). The Founders. By Aaron Fletcher. Collins. 424 pp. $9.95.

(Reviewed by

Joan Curry)

These two books describe the fortunes of Will Pollard from the day he jumps overboard from a Royal Navy warship, anchored in the Bay of Plenty, to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The time covered is a quarter of a century or so and the scene is, first, a Maori village in the Bay of Plenty and then Kororareka in the Bay of Islands. The story is about the genesis of a family of New Zealanders from the union of Will Pollard, an English seaman, and Te Rangi Huia, a Maori princess. “The Castaway” covers the time Pollard, or Te Porati as he is known on the marae, spends as a Maori warrior with the Arawa tribe that accepts him. He learns the language, allows himself to be tattooed with a moko, and works his way up the tribal ladder to become a chieftain. He sets the Maoris to gathering flax and kauri gum to trade for muskets and rum and axes brought by visiting ships. The point is subtly made that in the process the dignity of the Arawa as warriors, artisans, hunters, is undermined by the demands of trade schedules and the delights of rum.

“The Founders” is about the Pollard family as traders and empire builders

in the Bay of Islands with Will Pollard as patriarch. From flax and gum he branches out into flour, and salt pork, and sausages, and dried fruit, and honey, and anything else that the ships visiting the new and potentially prosperous settlement might want. The author has engaged in plenty of research on the European settlement of New Zealand and has poked it carefully into the cracks and pockets of the story. For example, there is a series of typical incidents such as tribal battles, the building of whares, pig hunting, violation of tapu and vengeful war parties, but it is too predictable. The narrative tends to plod through repetitive details: Pollard is too often seen waving at arriving or departing ships, or smoking and talking on verandas after dinner. The cliches are there too: flaring torches, misty dawns, flashing brown limbs, and the gleam of white teeth. Anyone can tell the goodies from the baddies and there are no in-betweens. There is no passion either. It would be easy to see the story of the Pollard family as a 10-part television series. There is the exotic setting, an unusual opening situation with an English sailor finding himself among warlike natives in an unconquered land and not only surviving but prospering, and then there is the development of a new country under the benign guidance of strong, wise and far-seeing people like Will Pollard.