Three Times Dead (15 page)

So what do you get for being an accomplice to aggravated robbery with intent to cause grievous bodily harm? In my case, it was nine months home detention, which is better than Mitch and Scott who got jail time. They did eventually change their story to what was more or less the truth especially as blood tests taken soon after they had been arrested revealed that they had both been high on both cannabis and methamphetamine at the time of the robbery while I’d been clean of any illegal substances. Except for tea which I didn’t think showed up on any medical device.

Witnesses helped too, like Ted and Peter, who came up for the trial and supported me by telling the judge what I had told them about the events. Henry said his piece too, most of it in Maori, which seemed to impress the judge. Maybe that swayed him in sentencing – that and my pregnant girlfriend in the gallery.

At least I was at home for the birth of our daughter, a beautiful girl called Ataahua – Ata for short. When the anklet is off my leg – my right leg, even though I jokingly tried to get them to put it on my left – Gina and I will be married. I’m studying theology with Mark’s help, and learning te reo. Because of my criminal conviction, I won’t be able to do missionary work overseas, but Mark tells me that there are plenty of missionary fields in my own back yard. I can believe that – I’m sure there are plenty of others like me.

Using the internet, I found Toa in Australian records. He changed his name to Tom and took his wife’s surname – Bellamy. They had one child, a boy, before Tom died in an accident on the goldfields. Mary remarried, I guess that’s what women did in those days to survive, and had another three children before she also died. Tom’s son, James, lived in Perth where he had two children, one of whom died in the First World War. The other, called William, survived, and it was his son Robert that came to New Zealand – Mum’s grandfather. So I traced Toa back to me.

Henry is helping me to trace my whakapapa and I hope to be back in Te Awamutu once I am free of my anklet. I don’t think it will be as easy to trace my whakapapa as it was to trace Toa through the Australian records, but I have every faith that my tupuna will show me the way, as they have done since I started my journey.

I keep the mere close to me, for it is the link between me and Haki. He no longer appears in my dreams, but I know that a part of him lives in me, as a part of him also lives in my daughter. For in my journey I learnt that I don’t exist in isolation, that those who have gone before me are as much part of me as those who will come after me. I thought that I could do whatever I liked, decide to be either good or bad, because I was separate from everyone else, but that was a lie I held onto to justify my actions. Only Piripi knew how lost I was, and that redemption would elude me until I acknowledged the threads of life that wove us together. He was right when he first appeared to me and told me that I couldn’t find my way forward until I knew from where I came, although I had no understanding of it at the time.

So I write this as a confession, now putting the old self behind me and acknowledging the new self that emerged after my water baptism - the tapu has been lifted, and a new life awaits me.

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hapu extended family group with a common ancestor

Hine-nui-te-po Goddess of Death

iwi people or wider tribal group

kai food

karakia prayer

kaumatua elder

mana status or prestige

marae traditional meeting place of Maori

mere war c
lub made of greenstone

moko traditional tattooing usually of the face

mokopuna grandchildren

noa free from tapu

pa defensive settlement

patu war club made of wood, stone or bone

Pakeha of European descent

raupo bulrush plant used to make traditional dwellings

tapu sacred

te kaha stand strong

toanga a treasured object

tohunga an expert practitioner of art or skill, spiritual leader

toitoi a species of tall grass

tupuna ancestors

waiatia song

whakanoa the act of releasing from tapu

whakapapa genealogy

whanau family

whare house or building