Bulibasha, p.24
Bulibasha, page 24
By the time we arrived in Nuhaka the main meeting house was packed to capacity. Other marae were taking people in, and it was a matter of going from marae to marae to find our own iwi.
‘Where’s Waituhi sleeping?’ Dad asked.
‘Down the road at Hemi’s pa,’ we were told.
Before we even got there, Mum’s sister, our Aunt Jackie, saw us and screamed a welcome to Mum. ‘I’ve saved a place for you with us!’
As soon as Mum saw Aunt Jackie they burst into tears. They hadn’t seen each other for years. It was so embarrassing to see adults acting like children. Oh, the shame.
‘Didn’t Bruce come with you?’ Mum asked. Bruce was Aunt Jackie’s fourth husband.
‘Him! I think I might trade him in. There must be another man here for me. The local people are expecting to feed a thousand.’
‘Where have they all come from?’ Dad asked.
‘Palmerston North, Whakatane, you name it and they’re bound to be here. I saw Ruatoki and Murupara arriving earlier this afternoon and –’
‘Excuse me,’ someone said. A red-headed young man blushed as he walked past.
‘He’s come with the team from Auckland,’ Aunt Jackie said. ‘If there’s any red-headed kids born next year we’ll know where the shotgun wedding will be held.’
We unpacked, made our beds on the straw mattresses and hung our clothes on the line which ran down the middle of the meeting house. People always brought three or four outfits – hockey clothes, formal wear for the dance, and informal wear for lounging around in. The women took the socialising very seriously, making beautiful dresses of tulle or organza and painting their shoes with glitter. The men wore sports jackets to the dance – literally a white sportscoat and a pink carnation.
Glory started to sneeze – oh no, hay fever.
‘Kia ora!’ people called. ‘Kei te pehea koe?’
Within the melee I saw more dazed blond Pakeha wandering around the meeting house wondering what had struck them. They had been brought to the tournament by whanaunga who were now living in the cities of gold – Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. They were just ripe to be caught by some young Maori girl or boy. My cousin Moana met David, her naval officer husband, when her brother brought a team from the naval base at Devonport.
‘He just fell into my arms,’ Moana laughed, ‘like an apple from a tree.’
‘Actually,’ David whispered, ‘she had to give the tree a good shake first.’
The dinner gong sounded. Over we went to the wharekai to join the throng and marvel at the meat, pork, fish, crays, watercress, kumara, potatoes, pumpkin which graced the long trestle tables.
‘Haramai konei!’
The local people urged us into their dining hall. Wasn’t the smell of hangi food, fresh from the earth oven, delicious? Look at all that other food! Titiro! Mmmm, Maori bread, fried bread, paraoa rewana, kina, oysters, pupus! And over there, pavlovas, steam puddings, trifles, jellies and soft drinks. Truly, the horn of plenty. How would we be able to lift our hockey sticks in the morning!
I saw more relatives – my cousins Donna, Cindy and Chantelle who used to be Don, Sam and Charlie Jones from Te Puia.
‘Hello, Auntie Huria,’ Chantelle said, and kissed Mum on both cheeks. She left more lipstick on Mum than Mum did on her.
‘What are you doing home?’ Mum asked.
‘We couldn’t miss the hockey tournament,’ Donna said. ‘Anyway business is slow –’ Chantelle hit Donna with her handbag. ‘Oops,’ Donna said. ‘Uh, we decided to come home to see how the folks were.’
My cousins worked days at Carmen’s Coffee Bar and nights up around the strip joints in Vivian Street.
Meantime, Cindy was eyeing me up and down. ‘This isn’t little Simeon?’ she breathed.
‘Yes,’ I squeaked.
‘Oo la la, enchant-é, formi-dable, mon enfant,’ Cindy answered.
‘Take no notice of that one,’ Chantelle whispered in my ear. ‘She went out with a French sailor last week and hasn’t been the same since.’
I saw Saul Poata ogling my cousins in a derisory fashion. Poppy was next to him and she jabbed him in the side: good on her. Most people were used to Donna, Cindy and Chantelle. Although they were loud and bright, like brazen and brilliantly coloured birds of paradise, they were still hometown boys. I was just about to go over and take a poke at Saul when Aunt Sarah’s voice cut through my anger.
‘We’re all wanted back at the marae,’ she told Dad. ‘Come quick. Now.’
In the meeting house the entire Mahana clan was clustered around Grandfather Tamihana, who was lying on his mattress. His eyes were wide and staring. Aunt Sarah was beside him, caressing his hands. We thought he had been taken ill.
‘What’s the problem?’ Dad asked Aunt Ruth.
‘Father has just found out that Rupeni Poata has been made chairman of the Takitimu Maori Council.’
The Maori council framework had also been a creation of Apirana Ngata. The Takitimu Maori Council represented the Gisborne tribes and was the forum through which Maori views could be channelled to government.
‘Why didn’t the other chiefs ask me?’ Grandfather said. ‘Why didn’t they consult me? Why didn’t I know that this was happening? Why have they done this to me?’
I had never seen Grandfather like this before. This was worse than mere physical illness. Somebody had made a voodoo image of Grandfather and was sticking pins in the doll. Here a pin at his right kneecap. Here another pin at his left leg. Now more pins thrusting through from front to back, viciously impaling eyes, mouth, ears, throat, loins – heart, head and soul. The doll was bristling with pins like a human hedgehog. Grandfather was in a state of psychic collapse.
By all rights, Grandfather should have been chairman and not Rupeni Poata. Somehow, Rupeni had persuaded the other elders to choose him. Was it because Grandfather was Mormon?
Grandfather raised his throat and howled. ‘My sons, my daughters, I feel so betrayed.’
In one fell swoop, Rupeni Poata had entered Maori public life and become top man in Gisborne. In doing so he had stolen Grandfather’s mana from him.
‘We must restore our father’s mana,’ Uncle Matiu said. ‘We must retaliate. We must shame all those who were involved in making this decision. We must also stand up for our religion. This year we must win the tournament.’
‘Hukareka must be beaten.’
Chapter 44
Mahana was putting two women’s and three men’s teams into the tournament. Neither Andrew nor I was picked for any of them, although we were school representatives. Grandfather didn’t think we were good enough.
Grandfather was still preoccupied by the news about Rupeni Poata. His eyes followed Rupeni wherever he went; he stiffened whenever his rival was congratulated for his new appointment. The thought came to me that Rupeni Poata defined Grandfather’s life. He had never dreamed that Rupeni would sidestep him by going into Maori politics – his exclusive arena – and that the other elders of Gisborne would agree to it.
‘You can do what you like,’ Grandfather said when I tackled him about Andrew’s and my omission and suggested we make up a fourth men’s team.
I saw Nani Mini Tupara from the non-Mormon part of the Waituhi Valley. She had entered two teams in the tournament.
‘Will you support me if I register a team?’ I asked.
‘Rebelling again?’ She laughed. ‘Sure I will. But if your team wins, I don’t want the trophy in a Mormon house. It comes to my house. Deal?’
‘Put it there, Auntie.’
When the tournament began next day with a parade on the main field, bystanders were left in no doubt as to Mahana’s intensity of purpose. There was something awesome about our march past the grandstand. Aunt Sarah had bullied us into wearing maroon sashes over our good clothes. She had inspected the Mahana teams and arranged them in height and order. Now, right out front, Aunt Sarah was bearing the flag which she had spent all night making – a huge golden angel glittered in the centre of a maroon satin banner. The angel was blowing a trumpet and, as the wind caught the flag, the angel appeared to be flying.
‘Whu –’ the crowd murmured.
Mahana won the march-past.
But who was making the presentation? When Grandfather went up to get the cup, Rupeni Poata shook his hand and then turned it into an Indian wrestling match. How the onlookers laughed! As for us, we should have felt triumphant that we had won the parade. Something in the mere fact that Rupeni had made the presentation made our triumph hollow.
It was all very well for Andrew and me to decide to field a team. The problem was, where would we find players at this late hour? Out of sympathy Dad and Pani said they would join us, but everyone else except Granduncle Pera, Mackie and Peewee had been taken. I was running out of time and out on the fields the games were beginning seriously.
Did I say seriously?
Two of the fields were paddocks from which you had to shoo the cows, sheep or hens before you could play. Sometimes the ball landed in the middle of a huge cowpat or down a rabbit hole. Some teams didn’t have enough hockey sticks, so either borrowed them from other teams who weren’t on their particular draw or played with battens or anything they could hold.
‘This is hockey?’ the red-headed Pakeha from Auckland asked, stunned. He was playing against the oldest hockey players in the world and, because they couldn’t run, three of them were standing in the goal. At least they were better than the players who hopped on, never having played at all. They were dangerous, slashing at the ball as if they were playing golf.
The majority of teams had uniforms, but some didn’t. Pity the poor referee: when two teams without uniforms played each other, he never knew who was on which side. They got confused too.
‘Which is our goal?’ they asked. ‘Are you on our side?’
People expected the preliminary rounds to be a hard case. People cheerfully lost by 50 to nil to the better professional teams. I was losing my battle, too, to find three players.
Then Chantelle came up.
‘Uncle Pera says you’re looking for players,’ she said. ‘The women don’t want us in any of their teams.’
‘Well –’ I hesitated, dumbfounded.
‘Honey,’ Donna said kindly, ‘we may shave our legs but we’re your last resort. Take us or leave us.’
‘We can run faster than Uncle Pera too,’ Cindy said. ‘All that practice running away from the police, eh girls!’
‘And most of the time in high heels,’ Chantelle added. ‘Well?’
‘I’d love to have you,’ I said.
The Waituhi Rebels were born.
As expected the professional teams started to come through the ranks, and by Saturday afternoon bystanders were barracking for their favourites. In the women’s division it was clear from the beginning that the major battle would be between Mahana and Hukareka. Every time one of the Mahana women’s teams met a Hukareka team everybody in Nuhaka could hear it. At first people laughed off the intensity of the Mahana teams as excess energy. Then Aunt Miriam hit a raised ball at the goal and caught Agnes Poata in the stomach.
‘Hey! Mahana! Go easy there!’ bystanders called. People at the tournaments were quick to be put off by bad manners or lack of fair play.
However, when Aunt Sarah fell on the ball and was attacked by Poppaea, The Brute, while she was on the ground, sympathies swung our way again.
‘Hoi! Play the ball! Leave the old bag alone!’
Then Aunt Sarah made us all laugh. She jumped up from the ground and came running over to the sideline. ‘Who said that! Who called me an old bag!’ She didn’t mind being called a bag, but she hated being called old.
Mahana won the women’s division.
So far so good. But the men weren’t faring as well. All the Mahana teams got through the first round, but in the second round Mahana Three and Mahana Four were knocked out by Hauiti and Hukareka. In the third round, Mahana Two succumbed to Te Aowera. In the second round that afternoon, the frontrunners were Hukareka, with two teams still in the championship, Te Aowera and Mahana One. A ding-dong battle was fought between Mahana One and Hukareka and, to great scenes of storm and agony, Mahana lost. The finalists were Hukareka One and Two, Te Aowera and –
Did I forget to tell you that the Waituhi Rebels surprised everybody?
There were two playoffs. One between Hukareka One and Te Aowera and the other between Hukareka Two and the Waituhi Rebels. The winners from each playoff would compete against each other for the top trophy.
That’s when Grandfather Tamihana and I had a showdown.
Five minutes before Waituhi Rebels were due for the first playoff, he started to heavy the team.
‘Joshua,’ he said, ‘I want you to change the name of your team to Mahana and to sack some of your players.’
What? My father wasn’t captain of the team!
‘You haven’t a hope of winning against Hukareka. Not with those three takatapui among you.’
His voice was loud and carried to where Donna, Cindy and Chantelle were standing. Maori homophobia had always been the worst part of their lives. When they heard Grandfather’s words they changed and seemed to diminish.
‘I want them replaced,’ Grandfather said. ‘Ruka, Aperahama and Mohi will play for them.’
‘But –’ Dad began.
‘No buts,’ Grandfather continued.
My father stood his ground. ‘I’m just the halfback,’ he said. ‘My son’s captain.’
‘Then you tell him,’ Grandfather answered.
‘No.’
‘Joshua, I’m ordering you –’
‘You tell him yourself,’ Dad said.
Furious, Grandfather turned to me. ‘Did you hear me, Himiona? You change the name of your team and get rid of those three.’
A crowd had begun to collect around us and Grandfather, aware of the attention, wanted to get the matter over quickly.
Chantelle trotted over and whispered in my ear. ‘We don’t mind, honey,’ she said.
The trouble was, I did. ‘No change,’ I told Grandfather. My heart was thudding in my ears. My mouth was dry.
‘What did you say?’
‘There will be no change in either the name or the team.’
‘You will make a laughing stock of me,’ Grandfather said. ‘I am ordering you to –’
‘Have you ever taken the time to watch us, Grandfather? No, you’ve been too busy watching Mahana.’
‘This is your last chance, Himiona.’
Just then, Nani Mini Tupara, alerted to what was happening, came running over. The light of battle was in her eyes and her temper was up.
‘Are you trying to muscle in on my team?’ she asked. ‘They’re registered under me, Tamihana, not you.’ I could see Nani Mini was enjoying having Grandfather on. She loved to get her own back on him for splitting the valley with that Mormon angel of his. ‘Anyway, cuz, it’s all the same, isn’t it? We’re all Waituhi, aren’t we?’
Meantime, the ref had heard what the ruckus was about and hurried over to assert some authority.
‘Sorry, Bulibasha,’ he said. ‘Mini’s right. This is her team, not yours.’
Grandfather knew he had lost.
‘Himiona,’ he whispered. ‘Why did you register under your Nani Mini? Why not under me?’ His voice sounded so adrift, like an anchor that has failed to take on the sea bed. I felt ashamed. ‘One day,’ Grandfather said, ‘you and I –’
He walked away.
Ask anybody who has played seven-a-side hockey and they will tell you that it is a difficult and punishing game. With only seven players each, teams have to be fast and fit to last the distance – fifteen minutes first half and fifteen minutes second half and not just for one game, either. In a tournament you played eight games or more a day. No good pulling all the stops out at the beginning and running out of steam as the day progressed. The main secret to success was having and keeping possession of the ball. As long as you had possession, you could control the speed and the destiny of the game.
Over the preliminaries I had developed an enormous respect for Donna, Cindy and Chantelle’s abilities to keep possession. Although they were transvestites there was nothing feminine about the way they slammed that ball. They were massive – and they could run.
Could they what!
I had every reason to expect that Waituhi Rebels would give Hukareka Two a good run for their money. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was that Donna, Cindy and Chantelle would be so devastated by Grandfather’s dismissal of them that they would give up. From the moment they walked on to the field they didn’t even try. They thought everybody was laughing at them.
The Hukareka Two team, led by Alexander Poata, swiftly took possession. Despite attempts by me, Andrew, Dad and Pani to stop the fast Hukareka Two men – Alexander, Tight Arse Senior, Tight Arse Junior, Bill, John and two others I didn’t know – Hukareka Two scored one runaway goal after another. By halftime Hukareka Two were ahead by 15 to nil – a goal a minute.
‘Chantelle,’ I pleaded. ‘We’ve got to turn this game around. Please –’
By now people were laughing at Donna, Cindy and Chantelle. All along the sidelines, men were beginning to heckle us. Some were making effeminate gestures and mincing along like women. Grandfather, having washed his hands of us, was standing like a monument to morality and righteousness.
Nani Mini came over. ‘Huh? What’s wrong with your players?’ she asked. ‘They better pull their stockings up.’
Then I saw Mohi blowing kisses at us and I saw red. I walked up to him and socked him in the mouth. ‘You leave them alone, Mohi.’
‘Whu –’ the crowd rumbled.
Before Mohi could hit me back, the ref had blown his whistle to start the second half. Dad, Pani and Andrew were silent as I trotted back. I started to rearrange the team.
‘Why don’t we just throw in the towel?’ Pani asked.
‘No,’ I answered. ‘If we keep possession of the ball we can keep the score down. I’ll play centre forward; Dad, you play left inner; Andrew, you play right inner, and Pani, you play at centre half.’
