Tommo & Hawk (17 page)

Tommo has asked the other Maori what they might do when we make landfall in New Zealand. They shrug and point to Hammerhead Jack. 'It is for him to say.' Although he is not rangatira or noble born, they see him as their leader. But, of course, Hammerhead Jack will be put ashore without further ado. Captain O'Hara has bled him dry of his share of whale oil entitlements and regards him as a useless kedger not to be tolerated on board a moment longer. What perhaps he does not understand is that he loses all three Maori when he throws Hammerhead Jack aside. He will lose a whaleboat crew of much valuable experience, aside from me.

Tommo has grown more excited by the day as he coaxes a voice from my throat. At first I could make only a feeble grunt or two but he is wondrously patient and spends hours mouthing sounds he thinks I might produce, vowels in particular.  I doubt he  remembers  that they  are called vowels, but he offers these sounds as though by instinct. He works me until the pain in my throat is almost unbearable and then has me gargle with sea water. He insists I gargle every hour and when he is not on watch he attends to it himself.

Already I am making progress and hope in a week or so to say my first two words. These Tommo has decided upon as well as the following two. The first will be 'Tommo Solomon' and the next will complete the sentence, 'Tommo Solomon loves me!'

*

By the time we enter the harbour at Kororareka I am possessed of a voice that, while slow to form the words on my tongue, has a complete enough vocabulary of sounds. These sounds have grown familiar to my ear although my pronunciation is not always correct. The trouble is that while I hear the words as I have always done, my tongue can not yet form them clearly. But I am on my way and before long shall speak as a normal man, with perhaps a deep rasping that comes from a throat grown rusty in all the years I have been without a voice.

It is a strange sensation that I may now communicate without waiting for Tommo to cast his eyes in my direction first, and I am not yet accustomed to people looking upon me when I speak. It seems odd that their attention is not on Tommo, or Mary, as the case may be. I have grown so much a listener over the years that I doubt I shall ever be the main spokesman in any conversation.

Ikey would often say that I had been given a great gift in being without voice. 'Congratulations, my dear! You have been forcibly given the gift o' listening. That be very high up on the order as one of life's little essentials. Your ears be perfect tuned to savour the essence of every voice you hear. Mostly we drowns out listening with the need to hear our own voices. No man finds a voice sweeter to his ear than his own. But if you wants to know what's in a man's soul, listen to him, listen to his silences, they be louder than his words. Then listen to his speech, listen to what he's saying behind his voice. The conversation going on in a man's head be the one that tells you the most.'

By following Ikey's advice - though of course I had no option but to do so! - I have indeed learned a great deal about people. If the relocation of cards was Ikey's major gift to Tommo, then the skill of listening was his gift to me. Listening is my true language and I do not think I shall ever forsake it.

Kororareka is a settlement with nigh two thousand Europeans and numerous natives. The Maori to be found here are, for the most part, a poor-looking lot. They dress in flaxen mats or dirty blankets, though some who have prospered from port trade are in silk top hats and polished boots, with gold watches attached to chains looped across their large bellies.

A few quiet families are to be seen and children also, half-caste, Maori and European, many of them dirty and barefoot with snotty noses. It is a town well past its prime, though that itself was short-lived enough, I'm told.

Kororareka is a whaling town, possessed of five hotels, numerous grog shops, gambling hells and brothels. Drunkenness and lechery are everywhere to be observed, with the Maori man and his wahine consorts as bad as any whaleman. The dark alleys are filled with laughter and the grunts and groans of whalemen who have waited long enough to be serviced by the honey-skinned wahine at the cost of a silver shilling and a jigger or two of Bombay gin or sailor's rum.

It is in this very town that Hammerhead Jack's hero, Hone Heke, confronted the British some twelve years ago. Grown tired of British duplicity, he withdrew his allegiance to the Crown and showed his contempt for the symbol of British sovereignty by cutting down the flagstaff from which the Union Jack flew. He then sacked the town. Most Europeans contend that the reason for the chief's outrage was that the British had imposed onerous customs duties on Kororareka so as to encourage trading vessels to call at the new capital of Auckland instead. This meant that the local Maori were deprived of their earnings from the port's trade in flax and ship's spars, pigs and potatoes.

But Hammerhead Jack refutes this. Hone Heke, he says, had come to the conclusion that the Treaty of Waitangi was most treacherous to the Maori people, for it was an attempt by the settlers to steal their land.

From our conversations with the Maori on board, we have learned of some of their beliefs. Paramount among these, as far as we can understand, is that by swearing allegiance to Queen Victoria and signing the Treaty of Waitangi, the Maori believed unequivocally that they had transferred merely the 'shadow of the land' to the British monarch, and that the substance remained their own.

'We cannot sell the land to the European, for it is not ours to sell,' explains Hammerhead Jack. 'One man, one chief, does not own the land. The land is owned by the Maori people and they would all have to come to one voice and one opinion if they were to give up forever their land.'

Hammerhead Jack waves his lone paw and makes a point too obvious to contest. 'Why would my people sell what is their mana, their spirit, their life force? Papatuanuku is our earth mother and we her children. Who would sell their mother? Land,' he explains, 'may only be gained by one tribe from another through war. Then it may be used by the victors, but it is still owned by the Maori. It keeps our mana, which is the same for all the tribes. The pakeha who wish to use the land may purchase its shadow, if the Maori tribe who control it agree. But though he may enjoy it and grow his crops upon it or graze his sheep over it, he may never own it! The substance must always belong to the Maori people, only the shadow of the land may be sold to the pakeha.'

It is a difficult concept for us who are not Maori, but it is Ikey again who helps me to comprehend the idea. For Ikey believed that property was also 'one of life's little essentials'. When telling me of the marvels of London, he would always explain how the English nobility are able to retain their fortunes and protect themselves against loss, even though they might spawn children who are drunkards and wastrels. The gentry build great terrace houses in the most salubrious parts of the city which may be leased for a period of a hundred years. If the purchaser of the lease wishes to vacate after only a few years he may re-sell what remains of the hundred-year period to another lessee, who may do the same again until the hundred years are up. Then the property reverts to the descendants of the nobleman who built it. They will then put it up for lease for another hundred years and, in this way, the aristocracy of England never lose the property they own, even if their sons prove profligate in the extreme and squander their inheritances.

I think upon this and decide that it is not so very different from the Maori selling the shadow of the land but retaining its substance. The British themselves have created a precedent and it would seem to me that those who own most of the land in Britain have their own kind of mana. They see themselves as the guardians of the spirit of their land, always maintaining the substance while leasing the shadow to any newcomer.

The great chief, Hone Heke, came to the conclusion that the mana of his land, its spirit and nourishment, had been stolen by Queen Victoria. The Maori people had become her slaves, for only the shadow has been given to them and the substance taken by the Europeans. Already twenty million acres of land have been purchased by the whites, who see this land as belonging to them for eternity. They see no cause for future redress to the Maori people, and what they have claimed, they will defend, if necessary, at the cost of Maori lives.

I am deeply saddened by this knowledge. If, as I have come to think, a good man must have a conscience, then the New Zealand Maori is much cheated by the rapacious white, who has shown no conscience whatsoever in his dealings with the land's original owners. Who amongst us is a good man, then?

As always, the church, which claims to be the custodian of the conscience of man through the salvation of Christ Jesus, is foremost among the greedy. It claims a large portion of the twenty million acres, some of which has been purchased at a cost of ten pounds for each four hundred acres, but most of which has been obtained for a few trinkets.

From the beginning, when in 1814 the Reverend Samuel Marsden, notorious chaplain of New South Wales, was instructed to establish the first missionary settlement in the Bay of Islands, Christ has become the major property owner in New Zealand. Jesus is now Hammerhead Jack's landlord.

There is no admission from the pulpit that the church owns only the shadow of the land. Instead these holy men give twice-on-Sunday praise to God that He has bequeathed them in perpetuity this new Land of Milk and Honey, this second Canaan, this green and pleasant paradise upon the earth.

It was this which caused Hone Heke to become disenchanted with the British since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Queen Victoria, in return for dominion over Hona Heke's people, promised so much, but instead her rule has brought the Maori guns with which to kill each other in ever increasing numbers, disease, drunkenness, and a dependence on the white man amounting to virtual slavery. This is the real substance of her promises, so that the Maori are but a shadow of the mighty people they once were.

This is the New Zealand to which Hammerhead Jack returns, without one arm and one eye. A young whaleman who has been thus used by the white man is coming home for more of the same.

Since Hone Heke's vengeance destroyed the town, Kororareka has grown back in a most higgledy-piggledy manner and shows no promise of improving. The buildings, but for a very few, are rickety tin and timber affairs, with no sense of permanence about them. We are not anchored in the bay more than twelve hours before we learn that there is much foment among the Maori people. The great chiefs are once again on the warpath.

Our friendship with Hammerhead Jack is cut short when Captain O'Hara dismisses him from his service. It is a sad moment for Tommo and me. We have both grown most fond of the giant Maori, whose arm stump is not yet completely healed but which, he assures me, will soon enough be cured with the good medicine of his tribe.

Our friend will take with him only his few belongings, and a paper given him by O'Hara which shows how his lay has been fully and 'legally' used up with the provision of goods from the ship. Of course, there is no mention that these goods were, in every case, medicine to which he was freely entitled. The Maori is made to place his mark upon a duplicate and this is witnessed by Tom Stubbs. He will be rowed ashore on the morning tide.

I carefully explain to Hammerhead Jack in his own language that what has been done to him is unlawful and that he should complain to the colonial authorities, who may impound the ship while his case is heard.

But he scorns this. 'I am of the Ngati Haua. We do not go snivelling to the British! Their laws have robbed us of our mana and turned my people into drunkards.' He gives a bitter laugh. 'Look at me, Ork. Why should they take the word of a one-armed, half-blind Maori against the white captain of a whaling ship, who professes himself a Christian like Queen Victoria?'

I have long since known that Hammerhead Jack is not an ignorant savage and that he understands much more of the English language than he would admit to. I have also come to respect his understanding of the Maori situation with the pakeha intruder. He has often been surprisingly even-handed, admitting that much of what has happened to the Maori since the white man came is due to the wars they have waged amongst themselves, albeit with the use of the white man's gun.

'Our people must stand together against the white man or we are lost,' he has said often enough.

But I cannot convince him to pursue his case against O'Hara.

'If I complain against this madman O'Hara, then I am again a member of the British tribe.' Hammerhead Jack turns aside and spits his disgust. 'Accepting their justice and their ways in the past have not been good for my people. Why should I trust them to give me justice now?'

I search for words in my disbelief. 'You mean you will simply let this man go free, having beaten you and then robbed and cheated you?'

Hammerhead Jack throws back his head and laughs. 'With your new voice, will you complain for me, Ork?'

'Yes! Yes! I will go with you!' I insist. For a moment I feel almost confident that the law will prevail against the Yankee whaling captain.

'Don't be such a bloody stupid bastard, Hawk!' Tommo interrupts. 'It's bad enough a Maori complaining. What hope has a nigger got?'

I am at first hurt by my twin's outburst, but then I see the point and smile. 'You could do it, Tommo,' I reply, feeling brave. 'I will prepare an affidavit and tell you what to say. There would be no problems with the colour of your eyes and skin!'

'Me?' Tommo says, shocked. 'I trust them buggers less than Hammerhead Jack does! You can stuff yer affydavy up yer bum!'

Then, to my surprise, Hammerhead Jack, who gives no sign that he is listening, speaks to us in English. 'We do Maori way, Ork,' he says quietly.

The following morning with the six o'clock tide, Hammerhead Jack is lowered into a whaleboat carrying only a small canvas bag with his belongings. He waves his single arm at me as I stand much saddened by his departure. 'Ork good!' he shouts, then throws his head back and laughs. His laughter carries across the water and I am forced to laugh too.