Creation Song

Creation Song

Iô Mata Ngaro, in the midst of the created void, dreamed of completeness. In the depths of sleep, Iô began to sing the most beautiful karakia, and the lilting sound became the harmony of creation. And the darkness of the void wove into spirals, spinning one way and the other, the sighing of in breaths and out breaths, before bursting forth as light. Iô smiled and wished that the children of the dream would witness universal love.

At first, there is the pitch black of unilluminated obsidian, then there is the god stone, and then the light of the sun bursts through the stone turning the land of he people bright green. Tane Nui o Rangi fashioned Hine Ahu One, the earth formed maid, from the red clay of Kokowai and there were people of the land. And the tears of joy of the people became rivers flowing over the breasts of Papatuanuku, and their spirits united with Tangaroa, separated by a lone cabbage tree from the sky of Ranginui. And the light was thus the gift of Tane, and therefore the people were of Tane.

Maui the demi-god, greatest fisherman of all, fished Whai Repo, the stingray, from the depths of the waves. From the island of the gods, who had been turned to greenstone, he saw the stingray spread its wings. Maui sought out Tunaroa, the serpent eel, after the eel had ravished his wife Hina, daughter of the Moon. He chanted this incantation at the ninth tier of the stream –

‘Mata Tuna ki te rango tuaiwa, ko, ira i! ko, ira i! ko ira i! to ro wai’

When the serpent eel Tunaroa lay lifeless, Maui threw its head into the sea and it became ngoiro, the conger eel. He threw the tail into the stream and it became tuna of the freshwater, and its blood gave colour to the rimu, matai, tawai, totara and toatoa, the bulrush raupo, supple-jack, and the berries of the titoki. Some of the blood coloured the feathers of kakariki and pukeko. From the hairs of the eel’s head grew aka aka, the climbing plant.
Maui’s descendants were fishermen, and they fished not for islands, but for the serpent eel’s tail. They were at one with the water, and followed the cycle of the moon, and the pull of the tides that drew them irresistibly, to the water’s edge, time and time again. They were taught the secret trust between the moon and the earth, for one could not be without the other. Both had to live within the harmony of the spheres.

And on the moon's bright face there is a line, and it starts to wriggle, and it dances a jig, a merry jig, a circle dance, summoning the offspring of the ancestral eels to leave their dying parents, to journey to the rivers and lakes of the world, where the hirama and the wisest of other fishermen are waiting. And all are guided by their knowledge of the secrets of the sea, stars and cosmos. The fishermen are waiting for the bounty for their wives and children, knowing that their friends, their lives, are returning to them from a common homeland. The eternal tides pull them together.

And those now living, they learn of love. And love is a maiden, soothed by gentle rain, baked in a scorching sun, directed by the gods, a face covered in mud and perfume, in her time, and after. And the warrior casts fear into the faces of foe, the farmer casts his seed, the birdsong ignites the forests of volcanoes, and the fishermen cast their nets of hope into the most hopeless of seas.
Love is a maiden and hate is a warrior without hope. And the ancestors come to dance, having discerned the very length of time itself. Eternal, fraternal, maternal and linked to the stars, the maiden sleeps with the warrior, and stars are flung further into the cosmos. Far flung, but a distance much shorter than that existing between past and present.
And the line on the moon danced a jig. Merry was the time before the warrior. When we danced and we sang, in the light of the stone, we were one. We took only what was needed to sustain our lives. The fishermen danced with the maidens, and the tears ran down the cheeks of the maidens, sustaining, nourishing the world. And the mud on the cheeks of the maidens turned their faces to womanhood, and the sweet smell of perfume gripped the fishermen’s nostrils, before the old women died.

And all intermingled. And the living swapped place with the ancestors in this world and another, and the ancestors rushed to fill the bodies of the newborn. And the exchanges were made time and time again.

And the moon became a fusion of dead, living, born and reborn, and all dancing. Singing as nets were pulled towards the banks, singing laments for the dead, enacting a fearsome war dance, caressing a naked body, running in joy along a beach, soaring through the sky, falling to the ground exhausted - a fusion of all, sun, moon and stars, and ceaseless long tides.

The moon disappeared behind a cloud and when it re-emerged the line had gone. There was no more singing or dancing. There was silence, evil magic, and clouds of war. This is the story of the hirama, those who fished for eels for their chiefs, loved ones, and tribes…

Kahuri Te Ao… The World Turns…

* 'Eye of the Tuna, regard the ninth heaven, over there, life! over there, life! over there, life! For Ira is the water of all tides’




Hi, can't resist getting back on this amazing piece of technology. Above is the first pages from a novel that I am currently editing for publication. It's tentatively called The Night Fishermen. At the top is a picture from one of the settings in the novel. If you like it, let me know... it's called Pink & White Terraces. NZ once had the Pink and White Terraces, described as 'the eighth Wonder of the World' but they were covered by ash in the Tarawera Eruption on 10 June 1886.

inanga