Alongside the same headland Captain Cook had named Young Nick’s Head aboard the Endeavour moments earlier, a young Maori sat looking out to sea, basking in the sun. The headland was on his right. Close by, on his left, was the outlet to a river that flowed past his iwi’s inland pa, which was located just half a mile upriver.
Moki was the oldest son of the rangatira of the Ngati Porou, the region’s predominant iwi, or tribe. He was also a direct descendant of Mahanga, the rangatira who had saved his people from being overrun by Te Arawa invaders more than two centuries earlier. His lineage could be traced back to the Hawaikan rangatira Hotu, who, with his son Kafoa, landed on this very beach aboard the Ronui waka some four hundred years earlier.
Barely eighteen, Moki was a blooded warrior, having claimed his first kill in a clash with warriors of another iwi more than a year earlier. Since then, he’d proven himself several times over, as a warrior and as a hunter, and despite his youth was considered a worthy successor-in-waiting to his father.
As the young warrior continued to daydream, something caught his eye on the horizon. At first, he thought it was a cloud. Then he wondered if he was hallucinating. Coming around the headland was what looked like a giant bird. Sunlight reflected off its huge white wings, which appeared to be flapping in the light breeze.
Alarmed, he jumped to his feet. He waved frantically at the fishermen out in the bay, but they were too busy fishing to notice him.
Moki, his heart pounding, fled into the bush that bordered the beach. He didn’t stop running until he reached the safety of his pa. The fortified village, located on a rise above the same river he’d been sitting alongside a short time earlier, was home to almost a thousand Ngati Porou villagers. Fifty wakas of all sizes rested along the riverbank – either in the water or high and dry on the bank itself. The river provided ready access to the freshwater that the unoccupied pa on the nearby headland lacked. In terms of its construction and fortifications, it was reminiscent of the coastal pa. Smoke from cooking fires spiralled up through openings in the rooves of at least half the pa’s whares, which numbered in the hundreds. The rangatira’s whare, the largest of the dwellings, occupied a commanding position on the marae alongside an even more impressive meeting house. Constructed primarily of timbers from the native totara tree, the meeting house displayed intricate carvings relating the history of the iwi going all the way back to Kafoa and Hotu. The carvings were replicated throughout the pa and on the bowsprits of the wakas as well.
“Papa!” Moki shouted as soon as he was within earshot of his father’s whare. “A great bird comes to attack us from over the sea!” Breathing hard, he repeated his warning twice over as his father and other villagers emerged from their dwellings.
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The paperback and Kindle ebook versions of New Zealand: A Novel will be published on Amazon before Christmas.
Watch this space!
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Morcan Books & Films 