Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāruahine) was born and raised in Taranaki. He is a schoolteacher and a former professional cage fighter.

His debut novel The Bone Tree, published in 2023, was the number-one bestselling work of fiction in Aotearoa New Zealand for 11 weeks. His second book, Pātea Boys, was published in 2024 and is uniquely designed to be read one way in English and the other in te Reo Māori.

Also by Airana Ngarewa

The Bone Tree

Pātea Boys

In memory of Koko Charlie Ueroa Ngarewa and Nanny Parewaho Tamaka, who cherished their children and adored their grandchildren.

In January and September 1865, the Crown confiscated a total of 1.2 million acres in Taranaki, taking land from Māori both loyal to the Crown and those deemed rebels. Although the Crown justified the confiscation as punishment for insurrection, Māori regarded these seizures as land theft disguised by colonial law.

Inspired by a long and complicated history between Taranaki and Waikato.

Lovers for a time. Allies at another. And the best of enemies on the battlefield.

Ngā kīwai o te kete.

PROLOGUE

Duchess

LIKE THE SPECKLED spud – a Taranaki term for the half-castes that are everywhere on the West Coast – Ruapūtahanga was fair-skinned. And her eyes were green. And her hair was as red as a full-blooded Irishman’s. All rare things for a Māori in the 1500s.

Naturally, when she was old enough to marry, the men who wanted her hand could’ve formed a line outside the palisades of her village. But she stayed unmarried until one man all the way from the Waikato River caught her fancy. His name was Tūrongo. They talked and she liked what he had to say, along with whatever else a woman can like about a man, and that was that. He went back to his corner of the country and prepared for a kind of wedding.

Even in the glory days, love was never simple or straightforward. Tūrongo’s older brother, Whatihua, married already, lusted after his brother’s bride-to-be. And he conspired against him.

While Tūrongo prepared for his marriage, Whatihua prepared too. When he saw his brother build a house, he built a bigger one. And when he saw his brother strip his storehouse bare to fatten up his gardens, Whatihua kept his great wealth in kūmara stored high and dry. And when he saw his brother at his weakest, he sent a message to the people of the Pātea River that his own tribe awaited their arrival.

It wasn’t long before Ruapūtahanga, with her own people in tow, showed face, and Tūrongo was caught with his pants around his ankles. Or maybe his feathered cloak around his knees. I’m not certain on the details. What I know for sure is that Tūrongo’s garden, although full, was not ready to be harvested. And his storehouse was empty. And his big house was too small to accommodate so many from so far away.

Thus his guests huddled together, cramped and hungry. And his brother, Whatihua, whispered sweet nothings into Ruapūtahanga’s ear, waiting on her and winning her tribe over with the food he’d stored away. Slowly but surely, the tides that ebbed on one shore swelled on another and Whatihua won her hand. And Tūrongo, ashamed, left the village in search of a new bride.

Years passed, and Whatihua and Ruapūtahanga were blessed with two children. And perhaps they were happy for a time. But that stupid idiot, blind and deaf to a good thing, was still committed to his silly games. And he sought the love of yet another woman, telling his wives at home that he was out ‘hunting birds’.

No fool, Ruapūtahanga became smart to his deceit, and she did what any Taranaki woman would have done. She confronted the man about his bulldust. God only knows the names she called him. And then what did that dummy do? Throw himself on his knees and beg her forgiveness? No. The mug lashed out. And he knocked his wife to the floor.

Before those above could smite the bloody bugger, Ruapūtahanga was off into the hills, but she could carry only her youngest in her arms, leaving the other to be raised in the Waikato. Enraged, Whatihua went in pursuit of her. And he ran her down on a tall cliff overlooking the ocean.

Knackered from the journey and faced with only two choices – to leap or to return to the man who’d thrown her down – Ruapūtahanga placed her boy in the dirt, surely kissing him on the forehead before she turned away. And she leaped from the cliff into the waves below.

The old people say a mighty serpent saved her life that day, picking her up and carrying her safely ashore. But I’d bet the only plot of land that’s left in my family’s name that, instead, it was God and then one of her ancestors who saved Ruapūtahanga. One keeping her head above the water and the other protecting it from the jagged edge of the cliff face.

It took Ruapūtahanga years to return to her own people. Just as the tribes of today will break up their trip with a good meal, she broke up hers with a good man: Mōkau, of the place called Mōkau. When, at last, she did make it home, she settled down with her final husband in Te Hāwera, not more than a few villages and one town over from where she was born and raised.

Way back when, my own nanny told me that Ruapūtahanga’s last love, Pōrou, was the truest of them all. And those two lived as happily as any pair of Māori could. And I bet they did too. My own troubles have taught me that nothing can make you appreciate a sweet potato better than a sour one.

Still, I wonder how often she thought of her two children in the Waikato. And I wonder whether she didn’t whisper quiet curses under her breath to plague the man who’d tricked his brother to win her hand, only to strike her down with his own.

And I wonder whether her tribe ever came together by the fire, after the work of the day was done, and sharpened their wooden weapons and talked about having a good ol’ chat with Whatihua.