Chapter Two - Whiro: The First Night

 The moon hid her face. Whiro had come — the first night, the testing night. No silver road upon the waters. No gentle shimmer in the ngahere. Only the breath of the people, quick and uncertain.

 We gathered close, fires flickering like restless manu. Children pressed into their aunties’ arms, kaumātua sat silent, eyes deep as oceans. The whenua breathed around us, alive like a taniwha, waiting to see if we would falter. The tohunga rose and lifted his voice into the dark:

“Whakarongo e te pō, whakarongo e te ao,

Tū mai e te mauri, ka puta te kaha.

Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e!”

(The night listens, the world listens. Rise up, mauri, let strength emerge. Bind us, join us, let it be done.)

The chant steadied the people. Sparks leapt upward like whetū eager to return to their sky. “Whiro nights,” I whispered, “are when courage and doubt walk as twins.”

Each iwi settled to their places — Tainui on the ridges, Te Arawa by the steaming pools, Tākitimu along the rivers, Mataatua watching the tides, Tokomaru beneath the cliffs, Kurahaupō upon the plains, Aotea by the sea’s mouth where salt and fresh waters greet as kin.

Food was scarce. Fires smoked too quickly. Fear moved between the tents like wind. Yet still our karakia rose soft and steady, weaving us to the land. We kept the night in watches: first, karakia to greet the unseen guardians; second, silence to hear the whenua’s reply; third, craft, shaping rākau and mending nets with patient hands; last, story — of the waka that

rose from the void, of Tāne Mahuta who once brought light out of darkness.

 When the children trembled, the elders pressed songs into their ears, lullabies older than any fear. A kōhatu Mauri, lifted cool from the ocean, was held aloft. The tohunga whispered: this night is not an enemy, it is a teacher. Hunters returned with nothing but tales — a heavy footstep not theirs, a blue flame bursting from rotten wood, a silence too vast to measure. Not threats, but reminders that the land was listening.

 Before dawn, a thin light touched the horizon. The moon still hid, but the manu rehearsed their first calls. The fires burned low, yet our wairua held steady. We learned then: the first night does not break us. It weighs us. And in Whiro’s gaze, we endured.

 I touched ash to a child’s brow. “Bravery,” I said, “is not the absence of fear. Bravery is staying when fear tells you to run.” We lifted our bundles, banked the coals, and stepped forward — out of Whiro, into the path of the next test: Te Ūnga Tuatahi, the First Landfall.

 As dawn rose, our voices closed the night:

“Ka puta te ao mārama, ka puta te kaha,

Ngā iwi e, tū kotahi,

Mauri ora ki te whenua, mauri ora ki te tangata!”

(The world of light emerges, strength emerges. O people, stand as one. Life force to the land, life force to the people.)

 Te Ara o te Mauri — Book One: Becoming One with the Whenua

The long night has ended… but the true tests are only beginning.

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