JOURNEY UNDER WARNING

Tu Tangata, Issue 19, 1 August 1984, Page 37

JOURNEY UNDER WARNING

Hiria Rakete

Author: Elsie Locke Published: Oxford University Press, Auckland $13.95 It’s refreshing to be reminded I’m descended from savages. Well, that’s how I felt when I started reading the 118-page novel. It tells of a young english boy, Gibby, who leaves his Nelson home and poor family to work with a survey party in the Wairau Plains. It struck me then, when I encountered two of the major characters in the book, Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata, referred to by many of the settlers as ‘The Old Serpent’ and ‘The Savage’. They are portrayed as being fearsome and powerful, but it was pleasant reading to have them shown, although very subtly, as sensible and civilised in their decisions. Their decisions were really made by the rangatira of the New Zealand Company, under the then direction of Captain Arthur Wakefield, when the europeans were trying to take the Wairau Plains against the opposition of the

owners. The confrontation which followed was referred to (and is still remembered) as the ‘Wairau Massacre’. This is where the novel differs from most I’ve read on maori-pakeha wars. Although the book has no real winners, there is a strong maori viewpoint. This is matched by a european view, but at least it doesn’t make either group sound better or worse for what happened. There is obviously a lot of understanding, sympathy and pride in the way Elsie Locke has written the book. Most of it is based on fact, mainly about her great-grandfather, William Morrison. The information has been traced through family records, newspaper reports (which creates gome suspicion) and government records. But the situation is looked at through the eyes of 15-year-old Gibby, who is fictitious. I would recommend the book to young maori people because it will help them understand or at least give them an idea of how the maori people were done out of their land, and almost their identity, by the influences of european religion and civilisation.