REVIEW: "Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings" by Tina Makereti

I found this book in a little shop in Rotorua, in a section devoted to Maori authors. I always thought that the Maori were the only indigenous people of Aotearoa. This book sheds light on an indigenous group that I, and most people probably, had no idea existed.

The story switches between the 1880s and the 21st century. In its historical segments a young Maori woman named Mere runs away with her Moriori lover Iraia. In the present, siblings Lula and Bigs learn about their complex mixed heritage: their father is Pākehā (white), and their mother is Maori. For reasons they cannot understand, their mother never teaches them about their Maori roots. When she dies suddenly, her body is returned to her people and the siblings learn that her secrecy came from shame and trauma. She was a descendent of Mere and Iraia, and her Moriori blood led to discrimination from the full-Maori members of the community. The siblings react to this revelation in different ways: Bigs tries to connect more to his Maori heritage, while Lula sets out to learn about the Moriori. Across both storylines an ancestral spirit follows, and comments. He is the Moriori ancestor of Iraia, Lula and Bigs and he wants to be brought to rest in Rēkohu after the slaughter of his people long ago.

This was a really interesting book, mainly because I learned so much about both Maori and Moriori culture. The Moriori were the native people of the Chatham Islands. They were a non-violent culture with their own unique religion, language, and culture. When Pākehā settlers started forcibly colonising the islands, they brought many displaced and desperate Maori with them. In a bid to claim land, the Maori slaughtered the Moriori and, in some cases, ate their bodies. Those who survived were enslaved and treated as chattel for generations. This book explores the intergenerational trauma that followed. But more than that, it’s a book about reviving and celebrating Moriori culture. For all the horror of the past, there is hope: in Lula’s time the remnants of the Moriori gather and build a sacred space to honour their ancestors.

It's a complex and moving story that seeks to understand both Maori and Moriori perspectives on colonisation, inheritance, and trauma. It was harrowing at times but I enjoyed it.