Kaikoura legend retold

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 20

Kaikoura legend retold

The Guardian of the Land. By Joanna Orwin. Oxford University Press, 1985. 158 pp. $15.95.

(Reviewed by

Kay Forrester)

This is Joanna Orwin’s third book. Like the Christchurch author’s earlier books it draws on a Maori theme. David and Rua are friends, one pakeha, one Maori, who are able to journey back in time in search of a whalebone

pendant that the Maoris call the guardian of the land. The pendant does exist and is now in the Canterbury Museum. It was found in a cliff face at Mikonui, on the Kaikoura coast, by workmen. Maori legend says it came in the first canoes from Hawaiki with Kaikoura’s earliest settlers. Joanna Orwin has taken the pendant and woven an imaginary history about it to make a thoroughly enjoyable story. In her author’s note she explains that while the setting and the events of the book are drawn from Kaikoura’s history, the story is imaginary. It is probably as well that the author does offer this note as the story — the travelling in time aspect aside — could easily be believed as the true story of the pendant by the young readers at whom the book is aimed.

The book depicts Kaikoura in three different times: during the attack on the Kaikoura Maoris by Te Rauparaha, during the days of the sealers, and today. David and Rua go back to the earlier times to become

characters that belong to those times. As with Joanna Orwin’s earlier books. “The Guardian of the Land” is a thoroughly readable adventure story with the added bonus of revealing something about the history of the Maori.