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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 11 (February 1, 1935)

[section]

“Ngahere-Tamahine, the centre of hostilities, felt that she was being pulled to pieces.”

“Ngahere-Tamahine, the centre of hostilities, felt that she was being pulled to pieces.”

Maui, sitting one day on the river bank, made it from a dry, white bone. Into one of the holes he had bored he blew, and there followed a sound like the hoarse cry of a bird.

Surprised and fascinated, Maui blew again; the note changed, trilled happily, sobbed and was still.

This was a strange thing he had hit upon. He must show it to Ngahere Tamahine. Just as there was no other singing bone like this, so was there no maiden in any of the tribes he knew to equal Ngahere-Tamahine (Daughter of the Forest) pride of the tribe of Rahiwai. It was doubtless true that her heart was fickle, her favour but passing, but Maui's senses quickened when he gazed into her dark eyes, their lashes like caressing fernfronds.

Ngahere-Tamahine smiled on the other braves—perhaps just now on the proud Tere alone—while at Maui she laughed. Ah, but now—.

With added interest in its possibilities, Maui took up the bone again. Falteringly at first, then with increasing facility, he strung together the lilting notes.

The object he had fashioned was crude, and limited in its range, but it was the original and only musical instrument of the Maori race. The “song” that at length he coaxed from it was a strange, native thing, insistent, sad and disturbing. It had character—and that was proper, because it was a love-song.

“With this,” breathed Maui, clasping it tightly, “I can break the spell that Tere has over her heart!”

And with many pains, he set himself to weaving his spell.

Ngahere-Tamahine was gathering shells on the beach when Maui found her. The gay ornament of ferns to her dress of woven and coloured flax was in keeping with the flowers in her hair. She looked up and laughed as Maui approached.

He came forward eagerly.

“I have something to show you, Ngahere-Tamahine. I have made much magic. See!”

“I see nothing but a bone with holes.”

“It is a bone. But it is a magic bone. I would give to you a song—a song of love.”

Ngahere-Tamahine's eye-lashes drooped. She laughed.

“Omata, the hunter,” she said, “brings me kiwi feathers for my cape that all do envy. Rewini journeys to the far south at my command to find for me the favoured greenstone. Now Maui—the silent one, the dreaming one of the tribe—comes to me with a song!”

“But it is a song, Ngahere-Tamahine, like no other.”

Her toes played with sand.

“Then you may sing your song, Maui, if it is so curious.”

Maui squatted, and with trembling fingers took up the bone. Again he played that strange, native thing that had a character of its own.

When the last note had faded and was ended, Ngahere-Tamahine sat still and silent. Her gaze was averted.

“You sing of love, Maui.”

Her voice, coming at last, seemed from a distance.

“No one more truly,” whispered Maui. He felt afraid of what he had awakened in her.

Ngahere-Tamahine sighed. She turned to Maui and looked deep into his eyes, reading the love that was plain. Convinced of his adoration, the strange transport left her face. She rose and looked in the direction of the kainga, where the tribe was preparing a meal.

“I must go.”

“But—my song, Ngahere-Tamahine—.”

She stared down at his distraught face.

“You have sung so to no other maiden?”

“No other.”

“You promise me you never will?”

“I swear it.”

“Then it is mine alone, this singing bone.” She smiled her pleasure at the thought. “As for your song, Maui, it is curious.”

page 25

A flash of white teeth, and she had gone. Had she looked back she would have seen that Maui had covered his face with his hands.

The feasting was over. The five hundred Maoris gathered in the sunny clearing sat back contentedly. The conger eels, tuis, kahawai and mutton birds—indeed, all the delicacies offered by the Rahiwai to their visitors, the Maunga, had been eaten with relish. The Maunga had made their essential gifts in return, but the only gift they could not return that day was Ngahere-Tamahine, whom their young chief Tere was to take according to ceremony and his spoken word.

With the hakas and pois scarcely over, Tere was on his feet. Mighty of muscle and tall of stature, he attracted many an admiring eye.

Kimo, chief of the Rahiwai, and father of Ngahere-Tamahine, looked Tere over with approval. That there was to be no serious resistance offered the young brave when he took the Daughter of the Forest had been secretly decided by the heads of the tribe. The Maunga were aware of that, but they, too, smiled innocently for their own pride. It was known that for some time Tere had held the heart of Ngahere-Tamahine, but ceremony must prevail.

“On the white sands, with her tired head on his shoulder, Maui sang again his song of love.”

“On the white sands, with her tired head on his shoulder, Maui sang again his song of love.”

“Hear me,” boomed Tere. “As your good friends, we, the Maunga, have been glad to linger with you, charmed by your good hearts and the big waters from which you take your name. We must go. You have in your midst a flower who needs a warrior strong and brave. I take Ngahere-Tamahine back with me as my wahine.”

Amid loud cries of approval, Ngahere-Tamahine came forward and sat in the centre of the clearing. Fresh blossoms hung from her glossy, black hair. Her flax dress was cunningly weaved, and her cape was a blaze of kaka feathers.

A buzz of talk arose at sight of her beauty, which never had seemed greater than in this hour. Hags, wrinkled and toothless, recounted with tittering pride how they similarly had been fought for and carried away close to the heart of a handsome young warrior.

To the gathering, waiting breathlessly, Ngahere-Tamahine appeared to be calm. Her rage was well concealed. Desperately she tried to turn her head, but in vain.

In the outer ring of onlookers she at last spied Maui. He was seated in the shade of the huts. He was not even looking at her, but was staring in the direction of Tere, by whom sat Koiarero, a princess of the Maunga.

Now, Ngahere-Tamahine asked herself, had she read wrongly the eyes of Maui when he had sung to her his song by the waters? She must have. But more troubling was that which Koiarero, the Maunga princess, had to tell.

It was with much glee that Koiarero had related how she had heard outside her hut a strange song from the bush by an unseen singer. Every night since the Maunga had come from the mountains she had heard it. It began for her only when darkness had long fallen and the night birds called from the tall trees. It was a song of passionate love—that, any woman could tell—and it was both sad and fierce. Koiarero had crept out one night seeking, whereupon the song had stopped and she had heard a sudden flight. In his own time would this romantic brave claim the bride he wooed—Koiarero. Then would the Rahiwai in turn visit the Maunga in the mountains and there would be another ceremony. Did any doubt Koiarero in this matter they had but to ask Tere, her noble cousin. He himself had heard the song from his hut immediately adjoining hers, and had been troubled by the strange sound.

Such was the story that had struck Ngahere-Tamahine dumb. What now of Maui's love for her?

Her thoughts returned suddenly to the present. The ceremony was progressing. She looked up into the face of Tere, to be seized round the waist and lifted high on his shoulder. In signal she called to her people with a half-hearted cry.

In a moment she became the centre of a struggling mob, one half trying to carry her away and the other half to detain her.

On the part of her tribe it was sham. Daughter of the Forest was being surrounded by the abductors. Soon she would be the wahine of Tere.

From over the heads of the surging Maoris, Ngahere-Tamahine could see Maui. He was still seated, his hands clasped round his knees. Her expectancy changed to amazement, Maui was idly watching her go!

There was not a native of that five hundred who was not startled by Ngahere-Tamahine's sudden, piercing scream—except, it seemed, Maui. Slowly they gathered from her torrent of words that she really did not wish to go with Tere. She had changed her mind.

With hope flaring high, a score of Rahiwai braves rose as one man at her call and threw themselves into the fray. Daughter of the Forest did not wish to go to the mountains. It was enough.

Before that sudden onslaught the ranks of the Maunga broke, but rallied again instantly. A roar rose from the Rahiwai, and the Maunga responded with a snarl. The two forces engaged for a second time, but now there was no make-believe. The fat and aged rolled among the baskets of food and scrambled to safety. Tere pranced with fury, while Kimo, father of Ngahere-Tamahine, shook with wrath at this flouting of the proprieties.

Ngahere-Tamahine, the centre of hostilities, felt that she was being pulled to pieces. Many ill-aimed blows came her way. Now she was lifted high in the air, now dragged over the ground and back again, pulled by her limbs and hair, and torn and mauled by the men as well as by the women. All was uproar and commotion.

At last the Rahiwai had her safe. The foul Maunga were defeated. Their place was the mountains. They left with dark mutterings, and with small delay took off in their canoes. There was blood on Tere's face.

When the victors returned to the place of feasting, with spasmodic shouts and stampings for the fury that yet lingered, Maui was still sitting page 26 page 27 in the shade, alone. He had not stirred throughout the struggle.

Ngahere-Tamahine stared at him, her breast heaving. Aching and dishevelled, she limped toward him, waving aside eager hands.

Maui rose. She sought to read his face.

“The Maunga have gone, Maui.”

“They had nothing for which to stay longer.”

“No? Even Koiarero, their princess, has left with them.”

“She would, of course, go with ner cousin Tere.”

“You did not come to my aid, Maui.”

“I knew that all would be well.”

Ngahere-Tamahine's puzzled look changed to one of reproach.

“No longer am I the only one to whom your singing bone speaks, Maui. Yet I had your promise.”

Maui hung his head. He uttered no word in defence.

But then he had no need, because suddenly he had won the Daughter of the Forest. Regardless of the amazed onlookers, she drew close to him, and with the quaint salute of the Maoris pressed his nose twice with hers… .

On the white sands, by the big waters, crowned with Ngahere-Tamahine's flowers, and with her tired head on his shoulder, Maui sang again his song of love.

A scamp indeed, this Maui, it seems. Let us listen at his subsequent interview with the old tohunga of the tribe.

This tohunga had a great reputation and one eye. To him Maui told all.

“And so, O wise man,” said Maui, sadly, “I feel I have broken the promise I made to Ngahere-Tamahine to sing to no other maiden.”

“But,” argued the tohunga, “Koiarero could not help hearing the song when her hut was next to Tere's?”

“No,” agreed Maui. “That ugly princess of the Maunga thought I sang to her when I sat there in the dark of the bush—night after night, while the ants bit. She did not think I made the bone sing of my love for Ngahere-Tamahine, so that Tere might hear it in his dreams and be robbed of his power over the Daughter of the Forest.”

The tohunga's one eye twinkled.

“Fool is my name for you, Maui! You have broken the spell but not the promise. Go, and if you are wise, keep hid forever from your beloved this secret in your heart.”

And Maui went, his face radiant.