Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Dreadful Adalina Lu

The bloody battles of Alamein

May 04, 2024

“Maybe if I were an anthropologist and not an archaeologist, maybe I would know the answer to that question.”

The question was one he himself had posed. And he was the Māori archaeologist who was directing our steps around the pa at the very top of the hill. The ancient pa, which sat back to the southwest and barely just over the hill from the site we had chosen for building

our house.

His question was a fascinating one to both Beau and me:

Why did we Māori develop such a violent society, constantly at war amongst ourselves, replete with cannibalism, while the Moriori developed a pacifist society in which warfare was rigidly outlawed?

Mike Helmsley pointed out to us that the pa was entirely on the neighboring farm. Around the crest of the hill could be seen little mounds that were the only remains of ancient Māori homes that had once dotted this hilltop.

They had long since sunk in on themselves, leaving behind these rounded oblong mounds, which resembled forgotten, neglected graves, all grown over with the kikuyu grass.

I guess they were graves of a sort. Graves of past lives lived out on that hilltop during Times of Troubles.

red and black mask on brown grass field — Photo by adrian krajcar on Unsplash

I looked around at the vast beauty of Doubtless Bay, the rounded embrace the two peninsulas performed, one arm from each side, the distant, extinct volcanic cones of Puwheke Mountain and Camelback Mountain in the northwest, the golden sands of Tokerau Beach stretching for twelve miles around the western side of the bay.

Nearly impossible to believe there could ever be Times of Troubles in such beautiful surroundings. Of local inhabitants raping and pillaging and enslaving and cannibalizing each other.

Nearly impossible to think of the Musket Wars after the British settlers came with their new god and guns and diseases.

Nearly impossible, I thought, to think of leukemia in such a setting.

Here, this is your dream at last, here is the beauty and tranquility of Doubtless Bay; it is yours. And, oh, incidentally, leukemia goes with it.

Why?

Why not?

“If you look closely, see there, and there, and just over there, you’ll see a few smaller irregular mounds in the paddock on your side of the fence. Middens,” said Mike.

All we could see were small undulations in the grass of the paddock, mounds a bit smaller and more irregular than the grave-like mounds of the ancient houses at the top of the hill.

“Ancient refuse heaps. Trash and garbage heaps. Middens. If we would dig around in there, we’d just find bits of shells and bones. We could find out what the local Māori ate a few generations ago.

“Seafood. Kai moana. Mostly seafood, of course, living here on the coast. Mussels, paua, kina, pipi, tuatua. You Boys wouldn’t build here on the fence line anyway so you won’t disturb these middens.

“So basically you may build your house anywhere on your farm that you choose. You’ll be the first people to live here. Ever.

Of course, if you did come across any bones or fragments, you would need to stop construction immediately and have me, or someone like me, have some archaeologist out to look at them to make sure they are not human fragments left from some forgotten battle.

“Most likely they would be remains of a sheep long since dead, or even a cow or pig.

“But maybe an enemy Māori from a neighboring pa.” Mr. Mike Helmsley accented the last words and this brought us back to the discussion of war and peace.

“So the Polynesians came to New Zealand in the 1300s or 1400s, something like that,” he said.

“That’s us, the Māori. And soon, sometime before 1500, some of us traveled way out to the Chatham Islands, who knows why, ten little remote and rather inhospitable islands about five hundred miles off the coast of Southern New Zealand.

“The very same people, the same Polynesians who came to New Zealand. Some of us stayed in New Zealand and some traveled on to the Chathams. Maybe always looking for something even better.

“Maybe the waters are always bluer on the other side. But they developed some distinct cultural differences from us back here, mostly due to adapting to local conditions way out there. That’s the Moriori.

“Moriori. Just their linguistic variation of the word Māori. ‘Ordinary People.’ Not talking about your old American Academy Award winner.” Mike chuckled at his own allusion.

“Ordinary People was what we called ourselves before the Europeans arrived. Māori. Ordinary People.

“I guess not like the Extraordinary People of the Animal and Spirit world. I don’t know. If I weren’t so old, I would study anthropology more. But too late. I’m the archaeologist stuck with these old bone pits and ancient garbage dumps.”

“You said the Moriori outlawed war in the Chathams, Mike,” said Beau. “How do you do that? How do you outlaw war?”

“Whenever there was a dispute that was likely to grow violent, a ritual fight was organized. Two men were chosen to fight each other, two men from each opposing group would fight on behalf of his own group.

“They were allowed to use weapons but only a rod the thickness of a thumb and one stretch of an arm’s length. They would fight away as violently and as aggressively as any man on earth.”

Mike turned and looked at us intensely.

“But— But as soon as one of them drew blood, at the first sight of blood, the war was over. He who drew the first blood from his enemy, the first drop of blood, his group was the victor.

“He who was bloodied, however slight, his group was the vanquished. Honor was satisfied and the fight was over. The ‘war’ was over.

“Same thing for a dispute between individuals. One drop of blood and the dispute was resolved.”

Beau and I arrived at the Māori Social Services Center two weeks later for a meeting with the elders. The Doubtless Bay Māori were protesting our breaking of new ground for a house on our farm and we hoped to resolve the dispute peacefully and get on with our construction.

As we got out of the car, I remembered Mike Helmsley’s words. If only it had been the Māori, I thought, and not the distant Moriori, who had outlawed war and bloodshed.

If only it hadn’t been the Māori who were constantly at war with each other in days past, who were so war-like, so aggressive. If only they weren’t protesting our breaking ground—

“The meeting will be conducted by the twin grandmothers.” The young man who greeted us at the door to the Social Services Agency seemed very friendly, almost shy, and he was very beautiful. “They are our most respected grandmothers, our respected elders, and they will be in charge. Please follow me, we’ll go inside now.”

As he started through the door, he turned his head and spoke to us over his shoulder. “Their names are Alamein.”

Merde, not a good sign. Alamein. The Battle of El-Alamein, World War II, North Africa, Rommel and the German Panzer Division, death and destruction in the sands of Egypt, slaughter, blood, blood, blood. Blood and death.

“Welcome, gentlemen, please sit here.”

I thought of Captain Cook, struck on the head from behind by Māori cousins in Hawaiiki. Struck on the head, stabbed, disemboweled, baked, and—

Beau and I had requested this meeting with the local Māori after they halted our first day of breaking ground. Igorovich, the Dali digger of the North — remember that Dalis are the Dalmatian immigrants who moved to New Zealand in the 1800s — had walked off our job on the first day, afraid of Adalina Lu, who had stood her ground in front of his massive earthmover. He had called us on the cell phone and told us he wouldn’t be back until we sorted it all out with the fearsome Adalina Lu.

Tough she must be if Igor was unwilling to face her down. Even though he had tons of steel on his side and was almost as big as a bulldozer himself. When we got to the farm that day of breaking ground, all we found was a giant yellow earthmover in the middle of the paddock, forlornly looking out over the beach below.

No one else was in sight. Beau and I envisaged a four-hundred-pound Māori woman with facial moko and a demeanor to strike dread in the stoutest-hearted man, more fearsome than stout Igor the Terrible himself. Even Māori stand-up comedians in Auckland joked about the tough, fear-and-fever-inducing big and strong Māori women of the Far North.

“Welcome, gentlemen, please sit here.”

We sat in the seats indicated. And looked around the room at about forty or so Māori women and a couple of Pakeha-looking men. Husbands of some of the Māori women, no doubt. We had expected a meeting with two or three elders of the local marae, but the room was packed and everyone stared silently at the two of us.

If we can’t sit down with the local Māori and come to an agreement on building our house, then we don’t belong in New Zealand. My brave words to Beau just a few days before came back to rebuke me.

Now I expected Māori warriors, the absent Māori men, to burst through the door any moment and break into a bloodthirsty Kapa haka. I thought of mokomokai, smoked heads. And cannibalism. And where, I wondered, was the dreadful Adalina Lu.

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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