The Call of the Pūkāea

One.

The bittern slunk through the shallow waters of the harbour. It dipped its beak into the silted mudflat that stretched across the shoreline. Overhead the gnarled and spindly branches wove over one another, casting thick shadows as the sun crept overhead. The roots of the mangrove formed the haven of nurseries for young fish. Crustaceans dug below the surface and the shorebirds retreated to roost as the light waned. The Taniwha watched from the mouth of the estuary. The current rippled over his long body causing whitecaps to form offshore. The young children pointed and called out from the flats. Their bare, swollen bellies puffed out to the ocean. Dark hair fell across their eyes, and the afternoon sun warmed their tanned skin. They dropped their woven baskets and called to their koroua who was bent over, knee deep in the wai picking paua.

“Koroua, watch out! The Taniwha!”

He straightened slowly and looked offshore, shielding his eyes against the late sun and muttering a small prayer under his breath. “He watches us, mokopuna. Take only what you need, leave the rest for him.”

The children removed some paua from the baskets and retreated to the pa. Their bare feet moved sure and quick over the slick forest floor. Their breath quickened as they climbed further through the dense canopy and finally into the arms of their mothers. Behind them, the sky bled out in vibrant reds and pinks, and the birds sung their final chorus.

In the quiet of the evening, the current moved with the Taniwha, strong and wild. He came to the waters edge at high tide and spoke to the banded dotterel. He stood pious and sure as the tide crept past his slender legs and welcomed the sea creature with his song.

“Where do you go, when you are not here” asked the Taniwha.

“To the sandspit, where I may nest,” replied the bird.

“Then I shall form more sandspit so your children may rest safely.”

Two.

The ship entered the harbour at high tide. It was larger than any waka the people had seen. The great bow broke through the water with such force it woke the Taniwha. He stirred from the sanctuary of the harbour and stretched his long claws through the sand. He moved across the landscape, carving dunes from his body. He called to the Tūī overhead.

“What do you see?” he asked her.

The Tūī perched on a low hanging branch of a Pōhutukawa and turned her head. She let out a series of low, staccato clicks from deep in her throat. The sun caught her dark plumage and it shimmered deep tones of purple and blue. Her poi at her throat bobbed as she sang. It was not her usual sweet melody but something sharper, fiercer. The people onshore called out from the pa, and the horn of pūkāea echoed through the valley and down onto the shore. Wakas retreated to the land, and the men pulled them into the canopy of the mangroves. The thick muscles of their arms and stomach glistened with sweat. The Taniwha listened patiently.

“The people signal danger,” the Tūī bristled her feathers and scattered from the branch. The taniwha moved through the water, and upon its back the waves pushed over the sandbar.

“Who comes upon my harbour,” he murmured from the depth of the wai. But the people upon the boat did not respond. These people looked different. Their necks reddened by the sun’s harshness, and their skin paler than usual. The Taniwha turned its great eye to the surface and watched. He called to the Ranginui, the Sky Father, to summon the winds. Like a great breath across the harbour, a westerly formed and the Taniwha quickened the current that forced waves to crash against the bow. The captain called out in a foreign tongue and pointed at the jagged spines along the Taniwha’s back. The bow of the boat crashed down upon the water, and men cried out. The Taniwha opened his mouth, and a great tongue reached out to pluck men from the boat. Their screams were swallowed by the sound of crashing waves and the call of the pūkāea from the shore. Finally, the boat turned and retreated, and the Taniwha could rest in peace once more.

Three.

The foreigners came in large numbers that overwhelmed the tribes, their boats returned to the harbour, this time knowledgeable of the sandbars and nature of the current. They took land that did not belong to them. They burnt the bush to access the waters, stripped the catchment and seeded grass for their livestock. They cut down the trees to build their houses until flocks of birds cried out and fled to virgin lands. Then, the landscape became quiet. The Taniwha waited beneath the overhanging branch of the Pōhutukawa for the Tūī, but she did not come. He swam to the mouth of the estuary and recoiled, choking as his gills flared against the sediment that clung to his waters. Sediment washed down from the catchments, unfiltered by the absent roots and the shrubbery. Nutrients leached from the soil until the Taniwha could no longer taste the depth and splendour of Papatūānuku. Sediment started to settle over the sand, creating a film over the once golden beaches. Yet the land protected itself. The Taniwha turned to the mangrove trees upon the mudflat. The branches creaked under gentle winds as they felt his presence.

“You must look after the water for I can no longer breath beneath the surface.”

“This balance will cost the land,” they replied.

“Do what you must,” the Taniwha murmured.

The land answered. Mangroves began to spread, their roots capturing the silt and sediment that ran from the rivers to the estuary and into the harbour. Their branches stretched overhead like arms, cooling the waters and offering refuge from the hunters that sought the meat of the shellfish and shorebirds. Where degradation spread, the land listened, adapted and new life stretched through the fast-growing mangrove forests. Flocks of shorebirds fled to the safety of the canopy; crustaceans retreated beneath the surface and fish hid in the shallows.

Then the humans began to rip away the mangroves, swearing at their ugliness and taking the shellfish from the mudflats. The shorebirds circled overhead, waiting their turn. The Taniwha watched from the mouth of the harbour, his great tears forcing swells to form along the shoreline.

“What will be left of me when everything is gone,” he called to the skies.

Four.

The world had become loud in all the wrong ways – exhausts, engines and large mechanical arms that stole sand and kelp from the seabed. A pipe laid across the mudflats, feeding excrement into the once precious waters. The Taniwha learnt to avoid that arm of the harbour during high tide. The shores had been left almost fallow as the shellfish clung in small numbers along the rockface. The Taniwha spoke to them, but they did not respond. It had been many years since he had seen a child foraging along these shores. He tasted the water once more and hissed, his long tongue sliding back behind pointed teeth. His skin broke the filmy surface, and he looked upon the land in search for old friends. He went to find the dotterel along the sandspit he had once formed, his great tail forming ripples along the water’s surface as he moved. He spotted the russet colour of their soft bellies and called out.

“I must go now,” he said quietly.

“Why?” The dotterel cocked his head to one side and sung out.

“I must go where I can breathe again, and swim freely beneath the surface. I am not welcome here like I once was.”

The dotterel stepped forward, “stay, for the land needs someone who remembers.”

Glossary:

Koroua — elderly man, grandfather

Mokopuna — child, children

Pa — fortified Māori village

Paua — abalone

Papatūānuku — Earth Mother / the land

Pōhutukawa — native New Zealand tree

Pūkāea — a long traditional Māori trumpet

Waka — traditional Māori canoe

Wai — water