It is too late in the night – too late in
history – for words: just the sound of embers; shadows crowding in from the
whare rafters. Silence, but no sleep – no one will sleep this night. Hunched
figures in the gloom, they stare at the embers and the small weaving flames. It
is dark outside. The ruru call in the rock forest down the slope towards the
east – hine-ruru, the owl woman, ancestral spirit of the family group,
guardian, kaitiaki to protect, warn and advise … or just ruru, messenger of
death?
When the Sun rises above Puketapapatangaahape
they will leave – take what they can and leave, begin the sorrowful trail south
from Tamaki Makaura to Waikato, to the protection of Kingi Potatau Te
Wherowhero.
They will come – the pakeha. They will raze
the buildings, uproot the gardens, fill and trample the spring. They will take
the land and make it their own with their specious laws and their brutal army
of occupation.
And they will physically take the land – take
it away. With their steamshovels and their bullies they will carve away the
sacred maunga till it is a wizened stump and on until it is a pit and the
seawater seeps in. Gone.
They desire the land with a deformed lust,
but they hate the land as well – the land and all its fecund life. Their bitter
souls love only neat rows of black numerals in their ledger books.
Tonight the strong and razor claws of the
ruru tighten round the hearts of those at the fire. This night they will sit
and stare at the flames here for the last time. When the Sun rises, in silence
they will rise, weary and heartsore, from their vigil of despair and they will
leave. But now it is dark outside.
Barnaby McBryde
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