Historical Recount: Life at sea

Life at sea

Onboard, my responsibility was to cater food for the pāhihi. This was a huge responsibility being that food was scarce. I prepared for the long voyage by gathering foods such as kumara, sugar cane and green coconuts. Ika was another option of food if meals were not available at times. Being that all wahine who were wise with food had tamariki, I filled the position of becoming the Kuki Rangatira. I would be abandoning my ngā mātua, although other wahine would shelter and provide for their family, I was turning the other cheek, looking forward to the journey ahead of me.

The departure from Hawaiki was sorrowful, yet exciting. The water was crystal clear, passengers had seen dolphins and whales, and the Kaihī were having a good streak of luck on catching ika. Our surroundings were dead silence but with a twist, we were able to hear the screams of the wind 20 paces away. From then we knew, the days of excitement had ended.

After the Kaihī had caught ika, the waves were unkind. All the pāhihi aboard the waka were not informed that the Kahihi hadn’t blessed the ika and sent a grateful prayer to Tangaroa. Because of this, wahine and tamariki aboard were feeling sea sick. For two days, all pāhihi were frustrated with the Kaihī, but when the waves had calmed down we carried on with our journey.

After five days aboard the waka, I began to question myself if finding new land was possible. I had heard all the myths about other travellers and their waka’s crashing into the seabed. We were aboard with the best Tahuna and Kāpene, yet we couldn’t find land. There were no surroundings, no ika, no food and no hope.

Quicker than the blink of an eye, a tamaiti had climbed up on the sails. Before the wahine could warn them to come down, the Tahuna howled out.                                    “ Whakamoemiti atua kua kitea e matou i te whenua hou ” Within a second, laughter and song filled the empty ocean. The waka slowly slithered onto the sand and all paihi had ran out of the shelter and stretched. The hou whenua  was unfamiliar but felt comfortable.

The journey was dangerous and took more days than expected but in the end, finding hou whenua was worth it.

This is a historical recount that some classmates and I worked on. The three of us planned what character we would play in the recount and how they felt towards the voyage. The recount above is about a female chef, who feels a range of feelings during the journey.