A Tribute

Te Ao Hou, September 1967, Page 23

A Tribute The maraes throughout the land are thundering to the tumult of farewell to Brigadier Sir Bernard Fergusson, Governor-General of New Zealand. At the beginning of his term, few could have imagined possible the manner in which he would fill his high office, for he was facing the most difficult challenge of all: that of stepping into the shoes of an outstanding man. In these last months before departure, many will look back to the first time they saw Sir Bernard Fergusson, and started to take his measure. For me, it was the opening of the Maori Battalion Memorial Hall in Palmerston North, in 1964. The wide street in front of the Hall had become the marae. For the concourse of people packed in front of the building it was a long wait. Facing them, drawn up in ranks, were the men of the Maori Battalion. They had matured well: still a fine body of men, well turned out in their dark suits, and well disciplined. Only one or twice a ripple of movement broke their solemnity: a strong handshake and clap on the shoulder as they recognised an old pal, a spurt of good-humoured laughter at the inevitable clown who scrambled miming and monkey-like onto the waiting dais, before they shoved him out of sight within their ranks. There had been traditional moments of ceremony: the challenge and welcome to Princess Piki and to the ministerial party. There had been moments of immense dignity and splendid Maori oratory when a representative from each tribe slipped from the ranks and laid at the foot of the memorial the donation from his area. There were moving moments that brought a sting to the eyes, as when the Battalion marched off the marae to take up guard-of-honour positions to greet the arrival of the Governor-General. As each man turned and passed before the watching eyes, the crowd started to sing softly: Maori Battalion march to victory, Take the honour of the people with you … Then the peak moment: the big car, viceregal flag fluttering, came to a halt. Many were seeing the Governor-General for the first time, curious to see what manner of man he was. They watched him move slowly, easily down the lines of men: a handshake here, a few words, a shared joke. There was coming through something real, not staged. He was taller than expected, less the conventional ‘Colonel Blimp’ that some photographs showed him. In his uniform, he was proudly upstanding. But it was the intangible aura that was most arresting. When the review was over, he came to the edge of the marae to face the challenge of the welcoming party. Pace by pace he kept rhythm with the slowmoving Maori ceremony. He gave each moment its weight. Head high, eyes unwavering, his look said louder than words: ‘This is as big a moment for me as it is for you. I come, bearing my high office, not as a stranger, but as a man who in his own right knows you and understands you.’ Then turning away almost lingeringly, he mounted the dais while the Battalion marched back onto the marae to face him, to hear what he had to say to them. It was strangely appropriate that as the Governor-General rose to speak, there occurred the only unplanned incident of the day. The Battalion burst into a spontaneous haka—the fighting dance, the challenge before battle. The speech that followed would have been adequate if it had followed ancient patterns of eulogies on past glories. But it did not. It was a fighting speech that challenged the Maori people just as the speaker had himself been challenged. ‘It was a shock to read yet again this very week,’ he said, ‘that only seven Maori students have enrolled this year at Victoria University. ‘You … you … and you,’ he said, ‘who at Alamein advanced shoulder to shoulder with my old regiment, the Black Watch, you who in the darkness called to them “Jock!” and they called back to you “Kiwi”, you should be

boxing the ears of your young people and encouraging them to take the advance as your rank and file did 23 years ago. ‘Are you showing the courage and imagination that you showed at Alamein?’ he challenged them. ‘Only you know. I do not. ‘You will find no better friend of the Maori people than you will find in me, but I refuse to be sentimental. I hope and feel you know me well enough to accept such blunt words ‘I say it again,’ he said, ‘whether you like it or not, that the Maori people are going to find their leaders in the Universities and the higher professions, not in the freezing works. I say to you, as 91 years ago my grandfather said to your grandfathers at Turangawaewae, “Be thirsty for education”.’ This representative of the Queen in one of the last stands of a dwindling empire, had given a speech, not moribund but pulsing with vigour. It was received, and perhaps answered, with a second spontaneous haka. The Maoris are a singing people. Sir Bernard speaks of the ‘vast singing crowds at Tikitiki, 38 years ago’. Rowley Habib in his poem The Raw Men speaks of it: ‘Enraptured in the singing. Always there is the singing. ‘In the deserts of Egypt there was the singing. ‘In the streets of Rome there was the singing …’ That day the Maori people laid on the altar of the past a very considerable sum of money. Sir Bernard Fergusson charged them to live the words they so often sang: by accepting his challenge to lay the honour of the people on the altar of the future, by their achievements. Now, on the maraes throughout the land, there is a sadness of singing paying tribute to a great Governor-General, a forthright and an understanding man who has himself splendidly answered a challenge.