SHORT STORIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3831, 16 August 1927, Page 80

SHORT STORIES

A DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL.

By

C. Douglas Tod

(Copyright.—Fob the Otago Witness.) The Shadow-of-the-Cloud lay among his mats and meditated deeply. His thoughts were not pleasant. For 20 years he had been the headman of his tribe, the People of the Mountain. None knew better than lie that this leadership had not been conceded through any accident of birth, for although he could trace his descent through generations of gallant warriors, he was not of the rare old Ariki stock. It was due to the fact that he had always had the luck to back the winning side, always proved equal to the emergency, and never broken his word or let his people down. Naked in his pride of youth, he had loped along the foot-wide forest tracks, and forced the rebel Hauhaus to fly from the raging anger of the “Queen’s Maoris.” After the Fire in-the-Fern had died away, and peace had spread over the land, he nobly upheld the cause of his tribe in the intricate warfare of the Native Land Courts. Judge after judge recognised the sterling honesty which radiated from the spare little man. Courteously they listened to his thousand-year genealogies and age old legends—which things are evidence in Native Land Courts —and freqff&tly decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Whereby many acres were assured to the People of the Mountain, and the name of the Shadow was lifted up to the heavens; aod he gloried in the fact that the pakeha—the white people—trusted him up to the hilt. “ Straight as a die, the old Shadow,” said the officials, agents, and land buyers. “He's an absolute gentleman.” Now, in November the Remnant had died. He was an old man, a bad old man, a nuisance, in fact. But when a man of rank dies, heavy expenses are incurred. The Remnant was connected to high people who lived away south near Wellington, and these people had been notified so that they might attend the weeping and follow their dead to the grave. Now, had it been winter but it was November, and the Remnant in spite of vigorous fanning with fernfronds, had refused to remain sanitary. The embalming process had proved costly—an extra expense at a time when the tribal resources were strained to the utmost in order to provide for the many delegations of mourners from near and far. It had been an expensive week altogether. Then had happened that wicked affair of Pare’s. Pretty girl, Pare; and perhaps they shouldn’t have married her off to big, fat Ihaia, even though he had such a wonderful farm in Headland Bay, where his tribe lived. It would have been better in the long run to have allowed her to marry Swift River, happy-go-lucky pig-hunter as he was; for the River had promptly changed his course, and sought an outlet at Headland Bay. The upshot was painful. The River went flowing out to sea (“ Grave fears are entertained for the safety of a Native, Te Awatere, who went fishing in a small canoe ” News item from the Headland Bay Advertiser) ; Pare received a thrashing which laid her up for three weeks; and, file after file, the tana rnuru—the looting parties—of the Headland Bay people and their related tribes descended on the unfortunate People of the Mountain.

In the old days the houses and crops would have been given over to pillage. Big handsome Hemi Taylor, the halfcaste policeman, genially discouraged such a proceeding nowadays, but the nett result was much the same. Guns and greenstone, mats of feather, flax, and fur, watches—even the gramophone which stood in the Big House—everything had lieen handed over to the friendly raiders. Credit had been stretched in all the shops and stores, so that blankets and food might he lavishly dispensed. Pigs and poultry had gone up in a screaming, squawking holomust. The Headland Bay people had paid their victims the compliment of coming in large numbers and staying as long as usage permitted. Day and night the village had resounded to the stamp of the dancers’ feet and the .how] of laughing voices as they yelled in chorus the humorous obscenities appropriate to the occasion. A splendid time!

And now it was only two days to Christmas. From timber camp ami flaxmill, from sheep-run and fishing-boat, the young men were returning to their kainga tupu—their home where they were born. Each of them had received an urgent telegram at the time of the two recent crises. Each of them had gallantly overdrawn his wages and wired the money to the head of the trihe. Now the stay-at-homes must receive them with the traditional piled-up food-baskets. So the Shadow had played his trump card. Old Hastings had long been after the 65 acres, which would just round off his farm and give him two road frontages. At the Shadow’s direction, a meeting of assembled owners had been hurriedly convened, and had agreed to sell. Each had successfully shown that he or she possessed the requisite other lands suffi-

cient for support. And then the judge who presided over the Native Land Board had quietly adjourned the matter until after the holidays. “ Something wrong here,” his Honour had remarked to the European member over a quiet gin-sling after the board had risen. “ Looks as if the Natives want the money for a bit of a jag over Christmas. We can get another ten bob an acre for them if we don’t hurry, and, after all, it’s iny job to look after their interests.”

That afternoon the Shadow had. counted once again the tribal funds. There was enough to pay for tin barrel of beer that little Teddy Black, the publican, would surreptitiously leave in the patch of manuka scrul just outside the village. After that there would be about enough to buy bread and biscuits, a big jar of so-called tomato sauce, and another of biting bitter pickles. Rewili and Raranga, coming from the coast, would certainly bring a bag of little dried sharks and one of dried shell-fish. Te Kaho and the others from the flaxswamps would have spent a night or two by torchlight among the fat black eels. The women could probe with their fingers around the growing potato plants, and gently detach a fair quantity of medium sized tubers.

Meat was the problem. Always a meat lover—which is why in the old days he ate rats, dogs, and his hoa-rir (his fighting friends) —a Maori considers no feast worthy of the name unless he has stowed away startling quantities of beef, mutton, or pork. Birds and fish are good things in their way, but one must build a solid foundation; and in December one cannot build it of kumera or potatoes.

Nothing could be hoped for from the two butchers in the township. Even the ever-laughing eyes of dainty little Huia, his daughter, had dilated for a moment when she read out to him the astounding totals of their bills after the tangi and the tana. Only the personal reputation of the Shadow could have commanded sueh credit, for no licensed interpreter had ever earned an easy five bob by translating a summons for him. A last resource had been left—the big, cheery pakeha who had bought the Hundred Lovers block two years previously. Te Rauniati—summer time—they had named him, for his red-brown, smiling face. The twelve-foot fern and the wide branched poisonous tutu had fallen and been swept away before the slash-hooks and fire of Te Raumati’s men. Round bodied, sonrting wethers and steers, bulky and mischievous with good living, now lounged over the slopes where once Angry Sky and his fighting Sons of the Lizard had perished redly on the fire sharpened wooden spears of the People of the Mountain. A chief, that Te Raumati. When, as sometimes happened, the Shadov’ paid an early-morning visit to the Hundred Lovers block, Te Rauniati, warned by the barking of his dogs, would come out to meet him, not with a simpering grin after the fashion of the common white men, but with a grave face and dignified mien, as one chief to another. Then they two would sit upon chairs' of wood and canvas under the tawa tree beside the sunsplashed stream, and Te Raumati would offer the Shadow cigarettes from the battered silver case which bore the moko—the tattoo-mark—of his ancestors ; and they would talk, as one chief to another, of weather and crops, of traditions, women, and local affairs. Te Rauniati would probably have allowed him extended credit for a couple of sheep, but he had gone away to the city for Christmas; and little Bill Burnett, the overseer, would certainly refuse to part with a hoof of his beloved stock. And so it came about that a miglitv temptation assailed the good old man. He knew well that down in the wide Matoroa Valley Te Raumati’s sheep grazed beside the whispering creek, and took their ease among the old cherry groves planted by the missionaries when the Shadow was a boy. Outside the strong eight-wire boundary fence rank fern and thick rrianuka fringed the deep green of the great Horomia bush. An active man—and tho Shadow was still active at 65—would have no difficulty in knocking over a sheep out of a small mob near the fence, and disappearing with his booty in a few minutes. Tiie Shadow sighed deeply. There was no help for it. He must lower himself to the level of the Tribe-of-Roro, that despicable clan down the river, who, from time immemorial, had been notorious for their dishonest dealings with whites and Maoris alike. Never again would be be able to look Te Raumati straight in the eye, to return the firm handclasp of friendship, to accept a cigarette from the crested case, and to talk as one rangatira to another. On the other hand, how could he allow his people to be disgraced? The word would go round that the village of Katiki was a whenua kai kore—a foodless place. Jokes would be.made and songs composed ridiculing the good name of his people. How could he face the sly jesters at the big intertribal meetings? How, when his davs ended, could he face his proud cestors in Spiritland? The Shadow slept lightlv that night in his little weatherboard cottage, which

stood about a hundred yards from the Big House, where the rest of the people passed their nights. At midnight he rose, slung his old rille across his shoulders, picked up a saddle and bridle in the tiny porch, and slipped through the gloom to yyhere half a dozen wiry hill ponies were tethered by long ropes in the lush" grass of the roadside. Swiftly he rode along devious by-ways until he came to the long fern slopes on the eastern boundary of Te Raumati’s land. The pony splashed through the dully-gleaming waters of the creek, and picked its way through the fern up the narrow track worn by generations of the Shadow’s barefooted ancestors. A glimpse of waning moonlight scarcely revealed a little black head bobbing among the tall fronds. On top of the ridge there was a gate in Te Raumati’s fence, where tlie original road access to the block had been planned. Some little distance from the gate the Shadow tethered his pony, and squatted down under a flax bush to await the grey beginnings of day. He was profoundly miserable. On this very ridge he had been born, where the scanty remains of a crumbling post or two and numerous little mounds and hollows still marked the site of the stockaded village fort. Here he had been brought up by his two uncles, one a cannibal, the other a Christian, but gentlemen both, fearless and honourable. Down this hill he had marched, armed with his musket and whalebone handled tomahawk, to offer his services to the yVhite Queen Wikitoria, who had subsequently sent him the medal which he proudly wore on great occasions. Now he was to become a “ damned thieving I Maori.” The Shadow lived through a | .bitter hour before the dawn. As the shapes of trees and shrubs began to loom darkly against a grey background, and sleepy’ birds commenced to rustle and flutter overhead, the Shadow left his lair, moving quietly through the scattered trees and tall flax which fringed the crest. A fence ran along the first 50 yards, with a gate opening on the steep track which Te Raumati had cut to give his stock access to the valley. Further along the cliff formed the division between the paddocks, falling with a drop and a sweep to the wide Alatoroa, 300 ft below. The Shadow’s plan was to see from the cliff edge where the sheep were camped, and to make his way down the old Maori track outside the boundary; then he could crawl through the scrub to the most convenient mob, and get a couple of quick, clean shots in. Te Raumati’s big, well-eared-for wethers v’ere quite accustomed to the sight of men afoot or on horseback, and long before the overseer made his morning rounds all trace of disturbance would have vanished. In and out of the dewy growth he slipped, silently as only a man can. move who has been trained in boyhood to kill birds in the tree with a 20ft spear. In his face a light breeze blew, which was good, for it would (dear any mists from the vallcv.

He entered a clump of flax bushes which grew right on the edge of the cliff, then stood stock still as he heard the sound of heavy breathing. Next moment there was a startled animal grunt, the frightened bleat of a young calf, and he found himself face to face with a portlv old cow, newly awakened from slumber, hind quarters already upheaved, eyes goggling with panic at the sight of him. Up came her forefeet, down went her . ead and she took a couple of steps backwards to gain impetus for the charge. But even before the Shadow could spring aside the big beast tottered and sprawled. A treacherous jut. of the rotten rhyolite rock had crumbled beneath her. A moan, a futile scrabble of hoofs, and she disappeared. The Shadow heard the crash and the thud as she smashed through the tree-tops far below. For a moment he stood dazed with the sheer sudden joy of it all. Then he sped to his pony’ and rode boldly through the glory of the morning to the homestead. “ Oh, Teri,” he informed the sour-faced overseer, “ Coming back from Horomia this morning, the hawks were circling in the Alataroa, and when I went across to look there was a beast which had fallen from the cliff. If you will lend the koniki (sledge), I shall send two of my boys out to skin it for you, for some of the meat may be of use to us.” That afternoon the bruised and shapeless carcase was dragged in triumph through the gates of Katiki. And on Christmas Day’, as the savoury beef-smell dominated the mixed reek of sharks, eels, and pipis, the Shadow smoked contentedly’ in the carved porch of the Big House. By the grace of God he was still a chief and a gentleman. ,

A Wanganui Herald representative was recently shown a tiki which was brought down from a river settlement by a Maori. The latter discovered the tiki while rooting out a stump for firewood. Adjacent to it were some pieces of whalebone, which indicated, by their crumbling appearance, that they had been deposited there a great many years ago. The tiki, from its size and appearance, is considered by the finder and other Maoris to be one of the finest ever discovered in New Zealand. It had evidently been placed there long ago for safety. The origin will now be very difficult to trace owing to old Maoris having passed away. The finder stated that he intended to place the tiki in a local strong room for safe keeping.