Yesterday's ghosts, today.

 "But the history they could be sure of was magnificent, even if punctured and worn."  Isn't that true of all of us?  

In the past when it comes time to fill out the ethnicity part of the Census or any other document for that matter, I have defiantly ticked the other box and written in Kiwi.  In an ideal world we would all consider ourselves such and the racial divisions and tension would be gone, leaving a simple appreciation of each others differences while we all got along.  It's taken some time but I feel like I am part way on a journey towards appreciating how the Maori view the whenua they called home before we did. And how I, as a Ngati Pakeha, fit into that world that I too call my own.

More lately though I have come to appreciate the importance of the names by which we recognise cultures and ethnicities, especially in terms of heritage and the part they play in creating the New Zealand we have today.  The clash of the Maori and the Pakeha cultures in our past is a story often examined in fiction and non-fiction.  The story far less told is that of the Morioiri and the Maori.  So what happens when you have a family which has all three threads of heritage.  Denial, shame, ignorance, acceptance, whanau,  discovery…

Tina Makereti (in her first novel) has expertly crafted a story from three different parts of our history to tell the tale and the impact it has on a family today.  With the ghosts of our far past travelling through the bones of future generations and lyrical and gripping story unfolds as brother and sister come to terms with their mixed heritage.  Where the Rekohu bone sings is a great read for the story and for the appreciation of New Zealand's past.

"From the Chatham Islands/ Rekohu to London, from 1835 to the 21st century, this quietly powerful and compelling novel confronts the complexity of being Moriori, Maori and Pakeha. In the 1880s, Mere yearns for independence. Iraia wants the same but, as the descendant of a slave, such things are hardly conceivable. One summer, they notice their friendship has changed, but if they are ever to experience freedom they will need to leave their home in the Queen Charlotte Sounds. A hundred years later, Lula and Bigs are born. The birth is literally one in a million, as their mother, Tui, likes to say. When Tui dies, they learn there is much she kept secret and they, too, will need to travel beyond their world, to an island they barely knew existed. Neither Mere and Iraia nor Lula and Bigs are aware that someone else is part of their journeys. He does not watch over them so much as through them, feeling their loss and confusion as if it were his own." (Publisher's summary)