TANGI

by Witi Ihimaera
Heinemann, $4.95
reviewed by Paul Katene

It is impossible to describe the poignant beauty of Tangi.

The style follows the Maori oral tradition in its persistent use of mytho-poetic elements; its personifications; its dramatic and lively juxtaposition of images; its sudden changes of moods and colour—light and shade. Word groups and word sounds play an important part in recall, in emphasis, or to act as pivotal points for transitions from laughter to tears—from sunlight to darkness; from present to past.

The basic construction consists of two journeys—taken in opposite directions. This inverse parallelism is the frame supporting the reflective sketches from which emerge the story of Rongo Mahana, his wife, Huia, and their children. Tangi is their struggle to become self-reliant.

It is also the story of death. This is the central theme that gives rise to the marvellous descriptive scenes of grief on the marae at Rongopai.

Most Maoris would quickly relate to Tangi, seeing some aspect of their lives unfolding within its pages. Readers unfamiliar with the tangihanga will, nonetheless sense that something totally new has been added to the literature of this country—a new insight—a new depth plumbed. Tangi is not only a personalised vision of the author, it is the personalised experience of a people—it is the heartbeat of Maoridom, told with great subtlety and sensitivity within a framework that remains peculiarly Maori.

The subject is neither every writer's joy, nor every reader's passion. It says much for Witi Ihimaera's skill that while extracting the fullest measure of pathos, at no time does he become mawkish. His control is always taut; his realism warmly sincere; his humour affectionate. There is nothing contrived with his people or their situations. They are essentially human, natural and warmhearted. They are moved by aroha. They are part of the land, sea and sky.

Tama Mahana has spent four years in Wellington—the unspoken years of his manhood. A telephone call brings news of his father's death. He hurriedly journeys home to Waituhi. After the tangihanga he returns to Wellington to prepare for a permanent shift back to Waituhi. His father's death has brought a heavy sadness to him—a sense of loss. It has also brought a sense of guilt; but above it all, it has brought a new awareness of freedom with the stirrings of maturity.

Tangi is the augmentation of the short story of the same name from Pounamu Rounamu. Shortly is to appear Whanau by the same author. Undoubtedly this will also extend our vision of his kinsfolk at Waituhi, beyond that point afforded by his short stories. Perhaps by then we may discern an emerging pattern. There are still those four unspoken years in Wellington. And who is this girl Sandra?

Is Tangi really the long awaited novel by a Maori?

WE LIVE BY A LAKE
Pictures: Ans Westra
story: Noel Hilliard
William Heinemann Ltd, $3.25.

reviewed by Witi Ihimaera

Looking through ‘We Live By A Lake’ is like looking through a childhood photograph album.

Of course the photographs are much neater than the ones in a family album (ours were taken with a bix box camera with an accordion type affair that pulled out in front) and some are in full colour too. Professional photographer Ans Westra took them, which conveys just how good they are.

And some of them are really striking—like the ones of Hinemoa stretching to dip her

foot into the water and investigating an ant-nest, Moana doing cartwheels in the dam power-house (I wish I could do that!) and looking at the white silk tent of the nursery-spider, and Harvey pointing out to his two sisters from a rock the cloud-country where the Hobbits live.

Superb too, is the photograph of the three children looking over the rim of the big tunnel of the dam they visit.

Reproduction of the photographs is a little too grey and grainy making them look sometimes as if they've been taken on an overcast day, and the layout could have been more imaginative—for instance the visual effect of the photograph of the three children looking into the dam's big dark tunnel could have been increased if it had been ‘bled’ to the top of the page.

However, this does not detract too much from one's enjoyment of the book, and the personal memories engendered by the photographs and text come through delightfully. Thankfully, the text by author Noel Hilliard is more substantial that that normally associated with books of this kind and makes ‘We Live By A Lake’ enjoyable to read as well as to look at.

Cleverly wedded to the photographs, it details the adventures of discovery undertaken by Moana, Harvey and Hinemoa, who live by a lake at Mangakino. The things they get up to are things most readers will remember having done—except for cartwheels in the dam (I still wish I could do that!) perhaps—and part of the fun of reading the text is in remembering one summer holiday when you did some of the things they do.

And some of the textual touches are really hardcase. Like Hinemoa outdoing her sister and brother by claiming she can see eleventyseven fish (nobody could beat that!). Like Harvey telling Moana in a pretend telephone conversation when she wants him to bring some fish and chips to her place, that she'll just have to cook her own tea tonight. And Harvey again, telling his sisters that the clouds are really the smoke from the Hobbits' houses where they're roasting mutton for their dinner.

And of course, those cartwheels. I really feel jealous of you, Moana!

MY NEW ZEALAND SENIOR
Short Stories collected by Bernard Gadd
Longman Paul, $1.80.

reviewed by Jane Ihimaera

Bernard Gadd of Hillary College compiled My New Zealand ‘to help teachers in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands to find stories that students can respond to with personal understanding and enjoyment’ as a result of a need ‘for stories which were about people, places, situations that were familiar and believable to us’ and whose language sounded ‘natural and authentic’.

I have quoted his intentions at some length, for this volume differs considerably from the many anthologies of New Zealand stories that have been appearing recently, which tend to have a considerable number of stories by ‘established’ authors, plus a few new ones to justify publication of yet another volume.

Few of the writers represented here would score more than forty years, and although all but one of the stories have been published before, only three are dated before 1968. Perhaps not all the stories will be remembered as long as those which are regularly anthologised, but at least they help carry out Mr Gadd's intentions because they can be seen to be immediately relevant. School children are frequently put off reading anything published as long ago as the 1950s.

Six of the stories are by Maori authors, including one by well-known poet Hone Tuwhare, and others deal with Maori characters; two stories are by Samoan writer Albert Wendt, which leaves about four or five purely Pakeha (or Papalagi) stories—proportions well suited to the needs of Hillary College and the many other schools in New Zealand with high Polynesian populations. The even balance will commend itself to students.

The first story is one of the oldest, a Barry Crump. The idea seems to be to gain interest by using the mana which anyone who publishes a book called Bastards I Have Met will have with students, but I feel that is all one can say in its favour. The Crump style

is out-of-date now, and the story, a character sketch of a maddening bore in the next hospital bed, is a bore itself.

Of the stories which stand out, the best is ‘A kind of Madness’ by Philip Mincher. It deals with the dilemma of a traffic cop—if he chases the speeding car, will he encourage it to go faster, and in the dangerous condition of the road, will he be responsible for the inevitable accident. If he lets it go by, might he not as well have another job. The topic is one which will affect and interest young people, the action is exciting, the point of view unusual, and the writing excellent—which will appeal to teachers.

‘Mark of the Rimu’ by O. E. Middleton is the only ‘fantastic’ story, and as such stands out. It is a slight eerie tale in the best fantasy tradition, with a chill at the end.

Both Witi Ihimaera and Arapera Blank deal specifically with the problem of a Maori coping with two cultures, Ihimaera in a story that is funny on the surface, Arapera Blank in a bitter, forceful postscript to a story called ‘One Two Three Four Five’. It is a pity the whole story could not have been used.

Oddly enough in this urban age, almost all the stories have rural settings. Mason Durie, Atihana Johns, Rowley Habib (with two stories about the same family giving a sense of continuity where most of the stories are very short), Phillip Wilson, Barry Mitcalfe and Hone Tuwhare all keep to country areas.

Fiona Kidman, with a rural upbringing, sets her stories in the town. ‘On the Train’, first published here, is the thoughts of a ‘marginal’ mentally defective young man which makes its point effectively.

Albert Wendt sets one of his stories, the tri-racial ‘Nazis? What is Nazis?’ in a city dump and the other in Samoa, a wide range of subject and of feeling. J. Edward Brown also chooses the Islands for an amusing anecdote.

Finally, Barry Emslie provides a school story which will crystallise the feelings of many high school students towards the system.

For teachers, there is a list of questions for discussion and research at the end. There is material for much interesting work here, which will ensure that the book is used in the senior forms it is designed for, where the obligation of studying books for exams only is all-powerful.

I have a few quibbles about the standard of some of the writing—while I prefer idiomatic language with its concomitant grammatical errors in dialogue, I am less enthusiastic about the same errors in narrative unless required by dialect. This is not to say that I have any objections to the strength of the language, which Bernard Gadd feels obliged to justify in his introduction.

All in all, this is an extremely good volume. I feel confident of its success in schools and wish that its appearance did not militate against its being bought by the community at large—it has unfortunately cover photographs on a base shade of a most unappealing yellow. However, it is well presented, and though a paper-back, sturdily bound. I look forward to its companion volume of short stories for juniors, due later this year.

SONS FOR THE RETURN HOME
by Albert Wendt
Longman Paul, $3.95

reviewed by Paul Katene

In every respect this book is an achievement.

It is about racialism—its conflicts within a society where there is entrenchment to maintain separateness—to preserve an inimitable way of life, allowing no room for outward growth, no compromise for dilution, enlargement or cross-pollenation. Wendt is concerned with these people—these racialists; he knows them—he was one of them. They are the hard liners, sheltering behind their pretentions, their vanities, their obsequious smiles; surveying all from their ivory towers—looking but not seeing; supported by their institutions, their taboos, their preciousness. Thankfully these do not constitute our total society. The point is nonetheless taken. Somewhere in every race are found the same prejudices, the same justifications, the same hypocrisies, the same vanities. They just differ in intensity between the groups.

He sadly observes that animosities flare easily between the ethnic groups that crowd the bottom of the socio-economic ladder,

particularly between Samoan and Maori. The cause is obvious. ‘Like many other Samoans he thought himself superior to Maoris’. The Maoris have their vanities too. The most devastating comment on racialism is given by an African student who reluctantly avers that he had experienced the worst kind of discrimination from Islanders and Maoris.

This intensity is further reflected in the act of racial hatred by the Samoan mother who advised the Palagi (Pakeha) girl whom her son loved, to go to Australia for an abortion. She had recoiled at the prospect of having half-caste grandchildren and saw abortion—murder—the crime for which she subsequently denounces the girl—as the means of preserving her own Samoan-ness, her ambitions and vanities. Twenty years of preparation for the grand return was not to be compromised at any cost. They will return pure and undefiled, enlarged by those virtues and resources that will assure them a place among the elite of the godfearing Samoan village society. Her son had betrayed his people by wanting to marry a Pakeha. ‘I curse the day you were born,’ she shouts.

They had come over to educate their sons. Mission completed it was time to return. New Zealand was a cold, sinful transit camp. The younger falls in love with a Pakeha girl. Through her he comes to terms with the alien land and eventually breaks from his ivory tower of racialism. The racial issue is graphically told in the incident of the hawk.

He relates to the hawk in his racial idealism. It is free, unfettered, undomesticated—opposing the Palagi farmer. he is angry when she kills it, for she destroys his idealism as the settlers had destroyed the pride of the Maori. Man's inhumanity to man is the danger that the hawk represents to the sheep. At this point he sees only the flight—not the danger.

Structurally the book is beautifully balanced. The central love story is paralleled by the love life of his grandfather. The ingredients are the same: the all-encompassing involvement, the distrust, the abortion, the betrayal, the separation. Other characters balance one another. ‘Some day you will have to accept something that will break your heart,’ his father said to him. This aim in bringing each character to eventually accepting a compromise has both symbolic and structural relevance. This is not achieved without pain, but through it comes growth.

‘The abortion had been a crime, a sin,’ she writes. ‘The amoral, gay, permissive, funloving young are a creation of the mass media.’ Thus she rejects her former life. He had to be free to grow, Freedom was not encased in the shackles of racialism. He had to reject the life that produced him—the god-given Fa'a-Samoa. He stood at freedom's door. He could now see clearly. To pass through into the stunning sun required the severence of the umbilical cord that secured him to his past—his dead. His mother, the Hine-nui-te-po of the Maui myth had to be confronted.

Maui's search for immortality is equated with his own search for freedom. The rejection of his mother, the striking—to the accompaniment of the horrified gasps of his watching relatives (fantails), exiles him for ever. He is free. ‘This was acceptance of death of a son gone mad’.

The book ends with a hint of promise for the future. ‘He imagined Maui to have been happy in his death.’