‘But you'll go back?’ ‘I don't want to. I want to stay here and fish from the beach and talk. It's much better I think.’ ‘Go back, boy. Learn well and later you can do good work for your people. Learn not to be afraid. You go away to school for them, your people. Take what is good, leave what is bad’. ‘But I feel so useless and dumb there.’ ‘No need. There are many things that you have knowledge of, and they are good and useful things. You know the way of the tides and when to turn your boat for shore. The fish of the sea and the rocks are yours, and yours the hare on the hill. Yours is a true eye and a quick hand. ‘Have we not a name you and I, for every tree, every fishing place, every hole in the hill and every rise on it? Many are the waiata I have taught you and much have you learned on the marae of your people.’ ‘These things do not seem useful to me in my new life.’ ‘These things are part of you, they make you what you are and they are good.’ ‘I don't feel sure about it.’ ‘But you'll go back and learn?’ ‘I don't know—suppose so.’ ‘That's right son. In the holidays you come back here and talk and fish with your Grandpa. But now you must be a brave soldier and learn new ways at your new school. Learn well.’ ‘And will I have a happy life, Grandpa?’ ‘Not always. But you would not feel good staying here when there is work to be done. It would not be good. Later when you're an old grandpa like me you can come to this place to look at the sea and rest, and ride an old horse on the sand.’ ‘And will I talk to a boy?’ ‘There will be a boy to talk to.’ ‘About war?’ ‘I hope not about war, boy. No, tell your boy about your old Grandpa, the brave soldier who had a shivering rabbit inside—and tell him about your own life too. It will help him, I think.’

MAORI IN SUBURBIA-II Standing by the kitchen sink with tea towel in hand A noise, coming from he knows not where, suddenly awakens in his brain Another noise similar, from out his long—so he thought—forgotten past. It is the women wailing at a tangi. But it is more than the women Wailing at a particular tangi that he hears now. It is the wailing of the women through the generations. The past suddenly converging on him. Condensed in a moment. And he is part of that past—the history of his people. And again as at that tangi as a child Tears welled up from deep within him and overflowed. And for a moment he was no longer part of that suburban house With its well-kept lawns and concrete path, Its neat street with its neat-kept houses all about him. Rowley Habib