‘Your fighting days are behind you now, yes?’ he wanted to know. ‘But how many times did you go to battle?’
‘I fought with eight taua,’ I told him. This notion of a taua took Jenkins some time to explain. ‘But when I was baptised as a Christian, my days of warfare ended.’
The Prince seemed well satisfied with this answer, and asked if he might study my face more closely. I submitted to this, of course, and Jenkins told me that His Royal Highness was quite a student of the art of moko. He had grown very interested in the subject during his recent tour of the Palestine, and had even considered risking the ire of Her Majesty by acquiring a tattoo himself.
This was quite baffling to all of us, for we knew that the Palestine was the birthplace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the missionaries always told us that God frowned on moko, and regarded it as a sinful heathen practice. No wonder the Queen would be angry.
Jenkins told us that the Prince wished us to return on another day, to visit the Queen’s Chapel next door. Then the Prince nodded to Jenkins, who bowed very low, and we realised that our interview was at an end. It seemed improper to me that we would just leave this house without the customary presentation of gifts. We would never visit a great chief in New Zealand without offering a gift or some kind of tribute.
I stepped forward, unlacing my kahu kuri. This was the most precious and valuable thing I brought with me to England, so it was right and fitting that I should offer it to a prince who will one day be king. I laid it on the Turkish carpet at his feet and bowed. Many of the others in our party then followed suit. Reihana and Tere Pakia laid their cloaks at the feet of the Princess, who looked a little startled. Reihana couldn’t wait to get rid of that cloak, even though it wasn’t his. It was the one that Mr Lloyd had carried from New Zealand in his own box.
Wharepapa presented a whalebone whakapapa stick, a very fine gift indeed. I heard Hirini Pakia saying to Jenkins that he would give the Prince and Princess a piece of land, which I thought a wily way of avoiding presenting anything at all.
The Prince seemed quite gratified with these gifts, and Jenkins jabbered away to him in English, explaining each item and its significance. He was so moved, in fact, that he instructed the old General to escort us through some of the other apartments, and to show us the wedding gifts. These were all on display still in the dining room, towers of crystal and silver laid out along the great table, glinting in the sunlight. Each room we saw was more elegant than the next. Thinking himself unobserved, Hapimana stroked the white marble of one fireplace. Cows were sculpted on its lintel, perfect in every detail. They looked as though they were carved from milk.
‘This isn’t a house,’ Ngahuia whispered to me, peering up at the huge chandelier suspended in one of the drawing rooms. ‘It’s a palace.’
We were even taken outside to inspect the lawns and gardens. These were very tidy and serene, hidden from the bustle of the Mall by a line of trees. When we strolled back towards the house, we could see the Prince and Princess in an upstairs window, looking down upon us and waving. We waved back.
The honour of this visit was great. We all felt that. Even the more bumptious of our party acted in a dignified and quiet way. Considering what they were to get up to later in our trip, this was both fortunate and surprising.
We passed once again through the Saloon, all pausing to gaze around its painted walls one final time. Jenkins was not quite right in saying they depicted a battle in France, and he admitted to this, once the General had explained things. The paintings represented a series of different places. One was Blenheim, which Jenkins said was not the Blenheim in the South Island, but a place in Germany. The different panels on the wall told the stories of the Duke’s various battles.
‘Like your taua,’ Horomona Te Atua said to me. ‘You should paint the walls of your whare when you get home.’
I was one of the last to walk back out to the carriages, because I was struck by something in the last panel that I hadn’t noticed before. The Duke and some of his gentlemen sat on their horses, while their fires of destruction blazed in distant fields. They all looked very fine in their hats and coats, though the style of their costume was quite old-fashioned, and not at all the kind of thing gentlemen wear in London these days.
Standing near them, clutching the bridle of a horse, was a young Negro boy. He too wore a fine coat, but no hat, and no curly wig. My first thought was that he was a whangai, an adopted child perhaps from a lower branch of the family, but I don’t know that the English have this custom. He was probably a servant, a trusted one who could be taken to battle, like the slaves we sometimes took with us on a taua to cook our food. It was a strange sight in such a house, that small dark face painted on the wall. Where did that boy come from? How did he make his way to England, and into the Duke of Marlborough’s house?
There was no time to ask these questions, for everyone was hurrying to climb into our carriages. Our friend the Duke of Newcastle had invited us to eat luncheon with him at the Clarendon Hotel, and this alone would have been excitement enough for one day.
Wharepapa, Ngahuia and I rode away in a rattling carriage with Jenkins, who sat staring back out the window until the walls of Marlborough House disappeared from view. His long body was tense, and when he turned to face us he was almost manic in the eyes.
‘This is the greatest day of my life,’ Jenkins raved. ‘Truly, the greatest day. Who would think that I should have such honour?’
None of us spoke, but Wharepapa and I exchanged glances. I have no doubt that we were thinking the same thing. The invitation was to us. The honour was ours. Jenkins was there to interpret our opinions and messages, not to offer up thoughts of his own. Of course, his vision had made this trip possible for us, but the Prince of Wales didn’t go about inviting obscure Wesleyans visiting from distant colonies to chat with him in his Saloon. Not for the first or the last time, I wondered at the hubris of Jenkins. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, yes?
I’m sure that the Clarendon Hotel was a fine and important establishment, for if it were not, the Duke of Newcastle would not have chosen to make it his London residence. But I remember thinking that after the beauty of Marlborough House his private apartment there seemed a little mean and over-cluttered with furniture.
The Duke had invited some other ladies and gentlemen to luncheon, and, to our great astonishment, one gentleman had brought with him a young Maori boy of about fifteen. Hare Pomare recognised him at once, for they were cousins. If we were in New Zealand, Hare would have moved towards this boy to greet him, but we were all conscious of protocol, and that we must wait to be first introduced to the older and more important people in the room. The boy’s eyes were wide with excitement at seeing us there, and we were all fidgeting, eager to talk to him.
Jenkins at first was annoyed by Hare Pomare tugging his sleeve and whispering, because the Duke was talking. We had to wait for Jenkins to ask the Duke’s permission, and the Duke to grant it, before the boy, whose name was Wiremu Repa, might step towards us, desperate to be embraced and to press his nose against each of ours. I had not seen this boy before in my life, but it was very affecting, I must say. Tere Pakia began to cry, and soon we were all sobbing. This poor boy! How long had he lived alone among the English? Years and years he’d spent at school here, without ever seeing one of his own people.
The English ladies and gentlemen stood watching us in some dismay. The English do not cry in a public place unless they are very low sorts of people, drunk and without dignity. They don’t choose to show their affection, or their happiness, or their grief in this manner. We Maori like more of a carry-on, I suppose. Wiremu Repa clung to Hare Pomare as though he was in fear of his life, though I’m sure he was very well treated by Sir Frederic and Lady Rogers, his guardians there in England. They seemed very fond of him, and solicitous, making sure he ate as much as possible at luncheon. His health was delicate, it seemed, and he told us he had not been well since
the last English winter.
‘You have to leave before the cold weather,’ he told us. ‘It’s miserable. You won’t like it at all.’
Once we were sitting at the table, the English people looked relieved, for all the crying was at an end now, and we were all intent on making a good meal. Some of the ladies and gentlemen seemed much more interested in watching us eat than in cutting up their own fish.
‘They want to see if we can eat with a knife and a fork,’ Wharepapa muttered to me.
Wiremu Repa chattered to us in Maori and to the rest in fluent English. I wished that he could travel with us everywhere, for he told us much more than Jenkins ever did.
‘They’re not sure if you’ve ever seen a melon before,’ he told us. ‘And that lady is impressed that you say grace before every meal, and know how to drink your soup.’
Jenkins was unaware of all this interpreting, for he was talking away to the Duke of Newcastle at one end of the table.
‘This gentleman says that New Zealand is to become the Great Britain of the Southern Hemisphere,’ said the boy, mashing strawberries into his pudding. ‘He has read it in the newspaper. The lady next to him says that London has all sorts of exotic visitors. Hindus, Turks, and Aborigines. It’s exciting, but she wonders where it will all end.’
‘At Te Whare Mangumangu,’ Hapimana said with mock solemnity, and we all laughed.
‘When I finish school I want to be a missionary,’ Wiremu Repa told us, quite earnestly, ‘or fight against Taranaki!’
Even though I could tell that such a slight boy would never be fit enough to fight, we all applauded him, startling the English ladies. Everyone was in such high spirits, such good cheer that day. We had met their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and we had found young Wiremu Repa.
When I say everyone was in good cheer, I exaggerate a little. Reihana instructed the boy to tell the gentlemen seated nearby that Europeans always spoke of the extermination of the Maori, and predicted it would happen soon. What did they think of that?
‘They say that these are the sentiments of boastful Europeans,’ Wiremu Repa reported back. ‘The French, perhaps. These are not the words of the English.’
Despite this reassurance, Reihana did not appear satisfied.
Of course, no such event could be complete without a fine speech from my friend Wharepapa, which Jenkins rose to translate. Everyone seemed to approve of it very much. I can’t remember exactly what he said, for Wharepapa gave fine speeches every day of the week, even if there were no English people around to listen and nod and murmur their appreciation.
On this occasion he talked about us coming to England to seek knowledge for our own country, just as Wiremu Repa had come to learn at one of its schools. The English people, he said, would be as an elder brother to the Maori, guiding and instructing us. One thing I will say for Wharepapa – he knows how to flatter his listeners. No wonder they were all so eager to declare him the leader of our party!
We were sad to bid the boy farewell, but Sir Frederic Rogers promised that we would see him again. We stood outside the hotel waiting for our carriages to draw up and, as usual, a crowd gathered around us to stare and giggle. Some respectable-looking ladies edged as close as they dared to Wiremu Pou, who for some reason fancied himself dashing and quite a catch. He smiled and said ‘hariru’ to them, and they screamed as though he had threatened them with a knife. This looked like an elegant street, with many fine people sashaying by, but urchins still ran about everywhere. The street was thick with them, like a rotting log swarming with beetles. One must have slipped his hand into Hirini Pakia’s pocket. When we were back in our own hotel, he discovered that all his coins were gone, and his new handkerchief too.
In the carriage, Jenkins was most agitated again. Later I said to Wharepapa that he would not last long in England, for all these excitements would strain his heart and he would collapse.
‘The Duke of Newcastle will give us letters of introduction,’ he said, slapping Wharepapa’s knee. ‘Do you know what this means? We will be able to tour the entire country!’
‘The Duke has promised this?’ Wharepapa didn’t mean to sound sceptical, I think, but Jenkins was affronted at once.
‘Do you think I’m a liar? He said these things to me today, when we talked at luncheon. You have no reason to doubt my word.’
This is what Jenkins said. This is what he swore was true. I won’t rush ahead with my story, but I will say this. At the time, we didn’t doubt him, but we were not entirely sure.
Certainly, we had little time to think about Jenkins’ plans and promises. After our visit to Marlborough House, our lives in London were very busy. We had very little time for walks or even for letters. One of our first appointments was with a society photographer, Mr Heath, on Piccadilly. Jenkins told us that the Prince of Wales wished to have a photograph of us, so we were all to go to the studio and pose in our native costume.
This, Jenkins told us, was yet another great honour. Mr Heath had taught the famous Dr Livingstone how to use a camera, and was the last person ever to take a photograph of Prince Albert. The Queen liked these pictures so much that she asked Mr Heath to serve as photographer at the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
This was all well and good, but none of us liked posing for these photographs. We had to stand around for many hours in our cloaks, brandishing weapons and not talking. It was very dull. The only excitement was when Ngahuia made a fuss because she wanted some photographs taken of her alone in her fine new dress. Mr Heath, who had very curly hair – which intrigued us very much – and was very polite and patient, was happy to oblige, though Jenkins had a few sharp words to say to her.
He had retrieved my kahu kuri from Marlborough House for the purposes of these photographs, for apparently the Prince wished to see me wearing it. I made Jenkins promise that it would be returned to the Prince as soon as the long day in the studio was over. I was asked to crouch between Mr Brent and Mr Lloyd for one photograph. I don’t know why I wasn’t permitted to stand up. My legs grew very tired, for Mr Lloyd kept moving his hand and spoiling the photograph. This is how I know all about the taking of pictures – this very long day with Mr Heath. Although Mr Heath was an Englishman, and knew little about the Maori, he never suggested one of us wear a peacock feather in our hair, or turn our cloaks upside down.
After this day was over, Mr Lloyd told us, in much excitement, that the Prince would not be the only person to look upon these photographs. They would be made into visiting cards, which were all the rage in England. People bought these, and gave them to each other. These cards were so fashionable, they must be called by their French name, cartes de visite. See how I remember these French words after all these years? This is because they, like so many other things, were to become the source of many, many disputes with Jenkins.
‘Is it too long now?’ the Bohemian is asking me. ‘You are tired, yes? Maybe we stop now and you come back tomorrow.’
‘No, no,’ I tell him. ‘Continue.’
We don’t have much time if he’s to sail to England in a few days. I have to try to keep my eyes open, and not let the ngore slip from my shoulders. In any case, I was deep in thought rather than tired. I was thinking that while the English in London showed us so much magnificence and hospitality, the English in New Zealand were busy fighting the Maori in Taranaki and the Waikato.
‘May I ask you a question, sir?’ The Bohemian is dabbing at the paints on his palette, messing them together. ‘Your moko. How old are you when it is made? When do you get the moko and become a warrior?’
He makes this sound as though a moko is the business of a day, like a haircut from one of the barbers here in Auckland.
To become a warrior is something that begins many years earlier. I was a newborn baby when my father handed me over for the karaka whati ceremony. This was a baptism of the kind the missionaries wanted to stop, for it was a ceremony for boys who would be taught the arts of war. A tohunga
prayed over me, dedicating me to Tu, so I would be strong and quick, able to ward off attacks by many different weapons.
Then, when I was growing up, there was much to learn. I was sent away when I was still a child to learn how to conduct myself in war, and how to understand and observe all the necessary rituals and practices, including haka. I also spent months of every year receiving instruction in the use of the tao, for spearing, and various kinds of striking weapons, such as the mere, the patu, the pouwhenua, and the taiaha, with its long tongue. Particularly difficult to manage was the tewhatewha, but I liked this most of all. There was something to the heft of the blade, and the quivering of the feathers, that lent the weapon greater presence and authority. I was never able to use one in battle, unfortunately, because by the time I was ready to fight, many of us were carrying guns.
I try to tell some of this to the Bohemian. It would be easier to act it out, but I have promised to remain still in my chair.
‘So in the battle you don’t fight with Maori weapons?’ He sounds disappointed.
‘Yes, yes, we carried our Maori weapons as well,’ I tell him. ‘We liked the ones that could be carried easily in our tatua, to keep our hands free for the gun.’
Although the Bohemian must have spent much time with Maori, I think he was looking at them, not talking. He doesn’t know at all what a tatua is. I describe to him the way it was folded to form a sharp valley. Into this valley we could plunge a patu or mere, to be removed when the time came for hand-to-hand combat.
At a battle, no one in our taua wore anything but a tatua. We needed to be fast and unencumbered, ready to fight. The missionaries said it was indecent, of course, but they thought this about everything.
When we’re asked now to wear our native costume – as we were in England, and as I am today in the Bohemian’s studio – nobody ever means a tatua. I laugh aloud at this thought, the ngore slipping from my shoulders. Imagine Reihana Te Taukawau in a tatua!