Cowrie Page 5

  However, the fascination of discovering the rock drawings as they come across more symbols and figures carries them on until they reach a large clearing comprising giant mounds of softly curving lava separated by cracks and a few loose stones. Each is like the body of a large woman sleeping, her pregnant belly bared to the sun. Standing on the edge of this ancient site, Cowrie is overwhelmed by its cracked magnificence.

  She contemplates etchings on a nearby dome. At first, it is difficult to distinguish the shapes from the natural rock lines. Gradually, she picks out figures that seem to delineate family groups. The men appear to have muscular, triangular bodies.

  Other figures are suspended in mid air. One holds an object like a turtle by its fin. Another swings a gourd.

  Cowrie is pleased to find some female figures that describe large body shapes rather than just the stick figures of modern anorexia. Some look as if they are about to burst into flight, soar off the rocks and into space. Feet poised, arms outstretched. One depicts the luscious rounded shape of an ancient fertility goddess. The woman holds herself proudly, her rounded breasts erect and her head facing the sculptor. Her arms swing out from her shoulders and a curious kind of halo surrounds her head. It emerges from behind her shoulders and forms a perfect circle shimmering out from her brain.

  Nele and Peni have found some runners on a nearby rock. Cowrie weaves her way between the belly formations to join them. Peni thinks they are hilarious. One looks demented as he runs with the arms and legs of a chicken.

  Below it are figures with paddle-like shapes raised above their heads. They stand in threatening poses.

  “Why do they hold their paddles above their heads?” asks Nele.

  “To keep them dry, moron,” answers Peni.

  Nele glares at him. “They look like taiaha, as if they are participating in a ritual challenge or war dance,” offers Cowrie.

  They stare at her as if she is mad. “Ok. Taiaha are pointed spears. They are wooden, like canoe paddles, and are used in ceremonial Maori dances and challenges.”

  “Are they used to kill people?” asks Peni, eyes alight.

  “I’m not sure if they were used as weapons in that sense.”

  “So, d’ya reckon these warriors are challenging each other?”

  “Well, they could be. I can’t see why else they would carry their paddles so high and adopt such a threatening pose,” explains Cowrie, “but I can’t be sure.”

  So many unexplained stories in these rocks, fascinating details of past lives. Cowrie is high from the inspiration they give her, the heat that shimmers off the black rocks like the desert at midday. She feels slightly giddy with a buzzing at the back of her brain.

  She glances over her shoulder to spy a bird-like figure crouched on a rock. It seems to move, but is solidly etched into the lava. On closer inspection, it looks more like a stylised dragonfly, with two smaller oval egg shapes accompanying its solo flight.

  Other similar figures have trailers dangling from their arms or wings. Cowrie cannot take her eyes off them. They seem to be more like gods or symbols than the other stick figures.

  Nele has pounced on her favourite images: animals. She has found some that look like dogs or pigs with curly tails and stylised ones that are like chickens or birds in flight. But best of all is a huge, fat turtle that appears to be swimming over the top of a breast-like mound.

  Cowrie’s mind blurs. She tries to focus on the turtle, but every time it swims away from her. She lies face down on the curved surface as a huge wave rolls towards her. She re-enters the dream. Her heart pounds and her breathing quickens with fear. The wave is about to engulf her, but suddenly she is flying with its motion rather than fighting against it. She soars through the air with the wave on her tail, then turns around and faces into its concave hollow. It is dark.

  When she opens her eyes again, two large, hazel pupils stare into her own. “Koana, Koana,” she moans. But it is not Koana. It is Nele, alarmed that Cowrie fainted on the rock, and she is holding Cowrie’s head in the palms of her hands. Nele looks so like Koana that Cowrie is comforted, relaxed. Peni appears out of the corner of her vision, a kumara-shaped root in his hand. With a sharp rock he makes an incision along its belly and holds it above Cowrie’s lips, dripping a sweet-sour moisture on to her tongue. He breaks open another root and shares it with Nele.

  When Cowrie has regained enough strength, she crawls into the shade, arms outstretched, and Nele and Peni nap at her side. From above, they look like the dragonfly shape etched into the rock: Cowrie with wings spread out and each of the twins curled up in foetal position on either side of her, like oval eggs, sleeping before they are fully hatched.

  At dusk, when it is cooler, the triad make their way back over the hardened lava rock, following the trail carefully. Finally, they return to the Puako road and are relieved to reach their dusty haven to be greeted by Patsy’s scrawny cats screeching for their dinner.

  While throwing together a salad, Cowrie is mortified that she took children out on a trail in the midday heat without even thinking of taking liquid with her. The return journey was only marked as a mile from the road but she figures they covered at least three miles meandering. No problem to walk three miles without liquid back home, but here it could be fatal.

  She is disturbed that the exhaustion and heat brought back her childhood nightmare but elated that she did not end up crushed on the rocks by the tidal wave. The last shape she remembered before losing consciousness was the turtle.

  She fingers Apelahama’s coconut-shell turtle which she wears around her neck next to her hei matau, wondering, as she did with the shark, if it is a harmful or a protective spirit.

  Kia ora Mere,

  Thanks for the letter. Koana forwarded it to the beach cottage I’m sharing with Nele and Peni at Puako (east side of the big island). Sorry to hear you’re not feeling wall. What does Aunty Rawinia say? She knows more than the Pakeha doctors. I’d check with her also.

  Today Nele and Peni took me out on the Kaeo Trail to the site of some ancient Hawai‘ian rock carvings. Can’t get over the simllarity to those South Island caves you took me to. Like at home, they’re all pre-Pakeha images. Fascinating. Canoes, wild chickens, elongated dogs that look like aardvarks, a hula dancer juggling gourds (one of my favourites)—a whole world of talkstory etched into lava rock. Even a turtle: remember my childhood recurring dream? I’ve had strange turtle experiences since arriving: first the dream again, than a giant turtle on the road to Keo’s, one etched into the coconut bowl I ate from, and in the heat today I collapsed back into the dream. Turtle woman is a strong figure here, like Pele. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something? I knew they’d choose you to direct the tukutuku panel-weaving for the new marae. Great! I can’t wait to see them. Is Moana involved in the carving?

  How’s that new fella in the store coping now? If he didn’t know whether the fish he was cooking was hoki or kahawai, he won’t last long! Tell Moana to sell him shark fillets and call them “lemon dory”. You’d make enough profit to come visit me here! Kuini told me about a Tainui fella who ordered fish and chips at Raglan from a Pakeha joker. He paid for the chips and said, “The fish is ours by treaty, but thanks for cooking it up.” Then he sauntered off. The owner was too stunned to follow! Cheeky, eh? But historically correct!

  The twins are scrapping. I’d better see to it. You’d love them, the little buggers!

  Give yourself a big hug from me—and try some of that herbal mixture in my top drawer. It really works. Better than drugs. Aunty Rawinia has more if you like it.

  Arohanui—Cowrie XX.

  The next few days are spent swimming and exploring the Kawaihae Coast. The twins had begun the usual bickering when kids run out of new ideas and get bored with each other’s company. Cowrie’s next tactic, after unwittingly exhausting them, and herself, on the Kaeo Trail in the midday heat, is to begin the day with unlimited body-surfing on the beach of their choice where they can spend time with other kids until joyf
ul tiredness sets in. By late afternoon, they are begging to go home, where they sleep in her hammock until dinner, usually around dusk. This allows her time alone to rest and read and catch up on her sketches and journal entries. Sitting under the palms at the beach, she does most of her reading, then writes when they return home.

  Today, Nele and Peni decide to see if the dried-out palm bowls fallen from the base of the branches can be used as makeshift surfboards. What they lack in buoyancy, they make up for in gaining attention from the other kids, and soon they are all gathering up the flattened bowls and taking them for a swim. One enterprising youth tries one as a skim-board over the calmer water and soon the new rage takes on. Peni’s foot seems to have miraculously recovered, enough to give this novel activity a go. Nele makes friends with some local girls from Kona. For them, Nele’s home at Na‘alehu, on the other coast of their island, is worlds away.

  Later that day, ploughing through Patsy’s books, Cowrie discovers more about the petroglyphs. The strange dragonfly figure is a Lono symbol. The vertical body and wing-like arms describe the wooden image of Lono, the God carried during tax collecting and celebrated in the Makahiki festival which followed the event. According to Malo’s description written in 1835, the Makahiki idol was a stick of wood with a figure-head at the end, and a cross-piece (kea) tied to the neck, from which feather lei hung. By the time the Makahiki God arrived, the konohiki had collected taxes and presented them as offerings to the gods. In the resulting ceremony, the land was now considered free from tabu. When the image was carried forward to the next place, its face looked backwards.

  Cowrie imagines the ancient ceremony in reverse. Maybe if locals put tapu back on their land, it would prevent the collecting of rates and the land would revert to its original inhabitants. In her mind, she creates a unique version of the Makahiki idol. Its body is that of a large wahine toa and the cross-piece is a broom handle carved from manuka. Dangling from each end are flax kete for the gathering of land taxes. The carved figurehead is that of Hinekaro, who will exact utu on those who ignore her pleas. There is a festival of celebration after the gathering of taxes attended by all to decide on the distribution of the wealth. After rates are returned to the elders, the remainder goes to the kuia for the education and health of the children and old people. Cowrie smiles. She knows that this thought will find its way over the seas to Hinekaro, as sure as the waka left Ka Lae for Aotearoa. The rest is up to her.

  While Malo’s words make some sense, Cowrie does not believe all that she reads. The challenging pose of the figures with canoe paddles raised above their heads, which is strikingly similar to that of the Maori challenge using the taiaha raised above the head and vigorous tongueflicking reminiscent of a tuatara to warn the intruders that they mean business, is described as being insignificant by some academics. She sketches the figures on the page, then rereads their words.

  “The many pictures of men holding canoe paddles horizontally over the head are probably mere symbols for paddlers. The position shown is of no importance in itself.”

  Clearly, these academics had never seen a Maori challenge. Cowrie cannot get these figures out of her mind. They remind her of home. She has no way of knowing, but she trusts her instinct. Many of the books play down the importance of the drawings etched into the rocks just as the first missionaries tried to destroy these apparently pagan gods of the early Hawai‘ians. But Cowrie knows they are still alive, still active. Pele’s angry outbursts of volcanic rage are living proof.

  The canoe men with their raised paddles also remind her of rock drawings she’d seen at the Opihi River site back home. In one, the canoe prow almost formed a perfect wave over the front of the waka and the standing figures appeared to be poling the river, legs apart and poles raised. It’s a while since Cowrie has seen them but they bear a strange relationship to the Hawai‘ian figures which she can not ignore.

  Cowrie considers herself lucky to have been sent to look after three mangy cats in a dusty Puako cottage with pet piranha in the garden pond, if only to have discovered for herself these glimpses of ancient Hawai‘i, as well as having an excuse to act up with the kids and allow Koana some much needed space from them.

  Koana. Delicious Koana. Those inviting eyes. Those luscious, ample hips that move with such grace. She wonders if Tutu Kini, Koana’s grandmother, was as beautiful and managed to work such charms on her grandfather, Apelahama. There must have been a very special connection between them for him to have kept her address, the fragment of coconut shell and the photos. The photos! Perhaps Kini is in one of them? They are all of family groups. Keo’s father is there. But surely Keo would have said if Koana’s grandmother was present? She must ask him. Or Koana.

  She hears Nele and Peni whispering. That means they are about to swing out of the hammock and arrive in the kitchen with extraordinary hunger pangs, as if they have not eaten all day. She packs away her books and opens the fridge door. It is alarmingly empty.

  Peni appears in the doorway. “What’s for dinner, oops, tea, Cowrie?”

  Cowrie wrinkles her brow and rubs her chin. “What about raw Puako ika with marinated korokoro?” she answers.

  “What’s that?” grimaces Peni.

  “Puako Piranha with marinated toes. Yours!” laughs Cowrie.

  They settle for bananas rolled in lime juice and grated coconut, baked soft.

  Cowrie did contemplate netting one of the pond fish as an act of utu for that part of Peni’s foot it gashed. But she thinks the better of it. For all she knows, these brackish pond piranha could be guardian spirits for some Hawai‘ian family. She does not fancy being turned into a blood-frenzied fish and ending up in somebody’s back yard.

  Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! Cowrie opens one eye groggily to see Nele in the kitchen, perched on her stool, chopping fruit for breakfast with the huge machete grasped awk-wardly in her hand. Chomp, chomp. Cowrie swings out of her hammock and is by her side in an instant. Nele grins, proud of her efforts. Cowrie hesitates a moment. She must not grab the machete away as her instinct tells her to do. “Fine, Nele. I love fresh fruit salad for breakfast. But remember I said not to use the machete without me being here?”

  “But you are here, Cowrie.”

  “Ok, Nele, you know what I mean. I need to be beside you. Tell ya what, I’ll show you how to hold it properly. You never know, you may need it one day. But it’ll be difficult because your hands are still small. See. Watch this.” Cowrie demonstrates the safe way to use the instrument.

  Peni smells the attraction of potential conflict and food at once and is beside them, hair standing up from his head as if he’s been plugged into Freddie Mercury tapes all night. Nele thinks he looks like the rock figures they’d seen carved into the lava at the beach, with their spiky headdress. Peni does not seem impressed. He’s more interested in the machete being wielded with skill in front of his still-bleary eyes.

  After a while, the fascination of being able to use a once-forbidden tool wears off and is replaced by the dawning awareness that Koana arrives today. She is coming on the bus that circles the island and Cowrie promised Honu would be waiting at the junction of Route 19 and Puako Road, packed with smiling faces. The twins decide to make a lei to welcome her. Cowrie wonders where they will find flowers in this dusty landscape but they return from the bush with large glossy green leaves and make a head lei. Their excitement is infectious. Cowrie realises she is buzzing too.

  The old bus grinds to a halt in dust which clears to reveal two people, Koana and a rather ragged-looking fellow with tobacco-stained fingers. Koana tells them he is going to visit his nephew at Puako Beach and can they give him a ride?

  “No worries,” says Cowrie, indicating that he should jump up on to the tray if he wants a lift. She is slightly annoyed that he has taken the edge off seeing Koana, just with family present.

  Koana greets the twins with love. Peni climbs up into the tray with the nicotine man and Nele joins Cowrie and Koana in the cab. Koana seems pleased to see her but no
t as pleased as Cowrie would’ve liked. She has been aching to touch her, to brush softly against her cheek in greeting. Instead, Koana smiles widely and says, “Mahalo, Cowrie,” to thank her for looking after the twins then edges into the cab, Nele tucking into her soft folds of charcoal belly. Cowrie glances sideways at them. She smiles. What she would give to be Nele right now, eh? She lets go of her expectations. They are fantasy. Koana’s family have adopted her as whanau. Isn’t that enough?

  When they arrive back at Puako, Cowrie fixes lunch while the twins tell Koana of their adventures. Peni takes her out to see the ‘piranhas’. Koana does not know what fish they are either. They recall the bodysurfing, the food, the other kids, the Kaeo trail, how they rescued Cowrie when she fainted. Cowrie concentrates on the preparation of kai. She hopes Koana will not realise how she’d stupidly put them all at risk by not insisting on taking juice on the walk. Koana listens intently to every detail. They talk in Ka‘u Hawai‘ian and Cowrie can only pick up the drift of a few sentences. But it sounds like the kids have had a good time and that’s her main concern.

  Later that night, after the twins have gone to bed, finally exhausted, Koana sits on the porch sipping tea with Cowrie.

  “Mahalo, my friend. You have treated my kamali‘i well. They adore you.” Cowrie blushes.

  “They’re great kids, Koana. They’re independent and know how to amuse themselves. I enjoy them.”

  “‘Ae. They’ve had to fend for themselves since their makua left. But Aka’s been ok too. He’s taken them for weekends and holidays. It’s not easy bringing up kids on your own, but they seem to learn more from it. Let’s hope they make better relationships themselves, eh?”