Hawaiki, the mythical homeland of the ancestors of Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, features in the prologue for my new release historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel.

The prologue begins:

The pull of the southern land was strong now. Stronger than ever. Almost as strong as the offshore currents that swept past Hawaiki, the South Pacific island nation hidden away in one of the world’s most isolated regions. Hotu had experienced this pull before, but never like today.

Ever since boyhood, Hotu had dreamed of the mysterious place his ancestors had discovered far to the south centuries earlier. A direct descendant of the great Polynesian explorer Kupe, Hotu shared many of his famous forefather’s traits. Like Kupe and, indeed, like most Hawaikans, he was a born sailor. He had that uncanny ability to safely cross huge tracts of ocean, using only the sun and stars as his compass. But he was something else too: he was a rangatira, or chief, and as such he was the one his people looked to in times of trouble.

This was one of those times.

Nuku Hiva, the largest of Hawaiki’s islands, had been attacked yet again by its traditional enemies from an island nation far to the west. The Hawaikans referred to them as Dogfaces because of their penchant for wearing the pelts and sometimes the heads of the fierce hunting dogs they bred. Every few years for as long as Hotu could remember these tattooed marauders had appeared over the horizon aboard their huge double voyaging canoes. Sometimes they sailed on by if unfavourable tides or currents wouldn’t permit their craft through the dangerous tropical reef that ringed Hawaiki, protecting it from the open sea. Not on this occasion, however.

At dawn, the Dogfaces had successfully negotiated the tricky passage through the reef and had attacked in great numbers. Hotu had counted nine craft, each manned by at least fifty warriors. His people’s resistance had been ferocious, but short-lived. They’d been overwhelmed by the invaders’ superior numbers. Only a disciplined fighting retreat from the beach to the sanctuary of caves in the nearby jungle-covered hills had saved them from total annihilation.

The attack had taken a terrible toll – worse even than the oldest villager could remember. Three-quarters of Hotu’s fighting force had been destroyed, scores of wahines [women] and children slaughtered and the entire village laid to waste. The element of surprise had been complete: the enemy war canoes had arrived while the villagers still slept, and they’d speared through the narrow opening in the reef like the barracootas that abound in these tropical waters. 

Nuku Hiva village had been totally ransacked, its bures [huts] and meeting house burned to the ground. Flames still flickered in places and smoke curled into the cloudless sky, casting shadows along the entire length of the black-sand beach.

Hotu had been the first to return to the village after the Dogfaces departed. The scene awaiting him was one of total death and destruction. All around him the bodies of his kinsmen lay broken and bleeding like slaughtered pigs at some island feast. Some lay piled on top of each other in and around the smouldering remains of the bures. Others floated face-down in the nearby lagoon, their mutilated bodies already attracting the attention of blacktip reef sharks drawn by the smell of blood while the mortally wounded could only pray to their island gods that death would come quickly.

As was the custom of the day, the eyes of the dead and dying had been gouged out by the invaders. Victorious warriors prevented their enemies from making the final journey to their spiritual homeland by gouging out the victims’ eyes so their spirits couldn’t find their way home. This ensured they would never rest in peace. Some of the victims’ limbs and internal organs were missing also. Like most Islanders, the invaders resorted to cannibalism to supplement their rations on lengthy ocean voyages. Even uncooked, a human kidney or liver, or the flesh from a man’s shoulder or a wahine’s thigh was a delicacy for those who hadn’t eaten for a while.

More disturbing to Hotu was the number of wahines who were missing. A head count would later reveal that thirteen, every one young and healthy, had been taken. Relatives would mourn them as if they were dead for they knew their loved-ones faced a life of sexual slavery. That was if they survived the abuse they’d be subjected to. If their captors tired of them during the homeward voyage, they’d be killed and eaten or fed to the sharks.

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New Zealand: A Novel is available via Waterstones Bookstores and Mighty Ape NZ’s online store public libraries and via Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Zealand-Novel-Lance-Morcan/dp/0473728524/

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