Gala After the Service

After the service at Rangiriri I went to the bank of the Waikato where a crowd of about 5000 people had gathered. It was the very carnival I had looked to with foreboding, the circus my old friend of Turangawaewae had feared. There were laughing, sweating men toiling over hangis in the baking sunshine. There were poi dancers on a punt in the river. There was a ferris wheel whirling shrieking children high over the crowd. There was popcorn, soft drinks, water melons. There was love-making, back-slapping, beer-drinking. There were Pakehas, Maoris, Chinese, Indians. It contained every single thing which previously I had decided would be wrong and out of place.

But as I sat by the river I knew where the wrong lay most. It lay within me for I had not understood how laughter can conquer bitterness or understood until I had seen it that a Maori girl and a Pakeha boy holding hands on a merry-go-round are as happy a symbol of the future as flowers on the grave of a soldier dead a century are fitting tributes to the past.

So I left my anger by the river and went home content.

action songs and a ferris wheel contributed to the gala spirit which prevailed at Rangiriri once the solemn commemorative service was concluded.