Ride the

Author: (New Zealand) Weiti Ihimaera
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: If you ask me the name of the hall, I tell you, it is Kāmī. Who is the sculpture on the roof? That is Pākehā, that is Pākehā. Ah, Pākehā swims in the sea; ah, the god of the sea swims in the sea; ah, the giant in the sea also swims in the sea. Pākehā, you land at Ahu Ahu and become the divine Kahu Tia, ah! You embrace the woman of the moon tribe sitting at the stern of the boat, ah, ah! Now you are the sculpture, an old man. Four hundred nautical miles from Easter Island in the South Pacific is the end of the earth. In the cobalt-blue depths of the Pacific, diatoms glow faintly. The male whale leads a large group of more than sixty whales on a long journey according to the underwater map in his memory bank. The female whale helps the young female whales watch the calves, this is their journey after leaving the cradle. At the front and back of the group, the young male whales watch cautiously at the horizon. What they are wary of is not marine life, but the greatest danger to all life—the human. At the slightest suspicious sign, they immediately alert the male whale. The male whale then leads everyone into the underwater cathedral for refuge for several days until the people move away. That underwater cathedral is also known as the "Navel of the Universe." The male whale remembers that there was no need for refuge in the past. The golden master always blew the flute to him and issued commands from afar with a conch shell. The more they communicated, the deeper their understanding and love for each other. Back then, he was young, nearly twenty meters long, and the master began to swim with him. One day, the master suddenly mounted him and transformed into a whale rider. The whale was extremely excited and dived into the water quickly. Not hearing the master's cry of alarm, his tail slapped the air, accelerating the dive, straight into the depths. This nearly cost the life of his beloved master. The memory of the past made the old whale cry, its sound waves filled with great sorrow. Even the female whales could not comfort him. Whenever the young male whales reported that there was someone on the horizon, the female whales tried their best to persuade the old whale not to swim into that dangerous area. Under their coaxing, the male whale had no choice but to continue leading the group into the underwater cathedral. Nevertheless, they knew that the old whale would inevitably return to the source of sorrow and the dream of youthful melancholy. P25-26